1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, set your face to Gog in the land of Magog, supreme prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy about him. 3And say, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Here I am against you, Gog, supreme prince of Meshech and Tubal. 4I will lead you and put hooks in your jaws, and I will bring you out and all your force out, horses and riders, all of them clothed to perfection, a great assembly, with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords. 5Persia, Nubia, and Put with them, all with shields and helmets. 6Gomer and all its divisions, Beth-Torgemah from the far reaches of the north with all its divisions, many peoples are with you. 7Be ready, and ready yourself and all your assembly gathering round you, and become their guard. 8After many days you shall be mustered, at the end of years you shall come to a land brought back from the sword, and gathered in from many peoples on the mountains of Israel that had become a perpetual ruin, and it was brought out from the peoples, and they all dwell secure. 9And you shall come up like a storm, like a cloud, to cover the land you shall be, and all your divisions and the many peoples with you. 10Thus said the Master, the LORD: On that day things shall come to mind for you, and you shall conceive a plan of evil. 11And you shall say: I will go up against a land of unfortified towns, I will come upon the tranquil folk dwelling secure, all of them dwelling without walls, neither bolt nor double doors do they have, 12to plunder and to loot, to put your hand against resettled ruins and against a people gathered from the nations, abounding in herds and possessions, dwelling in the heartland. 13Sheba and Dedan and the traders of Tarshish and all its leaders shall say to you, ‘Have you come to loot, have you assembled your throng to bear off silver and gold, to take herds and possessions, to plunder a great plunder?’ 14Therefore, prophesy, man, and say to Gog, Thus said the Master, the LORD: On that day, when My people Israel dwells secure, shall you not know? 15And you shall come from your place, from the far reaches of the north, you and the many peoples with you, all of them riding horses, a great assembly and a vast force. 16And you shall come up against My people Israel; like a cloud to cover the land, in the days afterward, you shall be. And I will bring you against My land so that the nations may know Me as I am hallowed through you, O Gog.” 17Thus said the Master, the LORD: “Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants, the prophets of Israel who were prophesying in those days for years, to bring you upon them? 18And it shall happen on that day when Gog comes against the soil of Israel, said the Master, the LORD, My wrath shall mount in My nostrils. 19And in My zeal, in the fire of My fury I have spoken: surely on that day there shall be a great earthquake on the soil of Israel. 20And the fish in the sea and the fowl in the heavens shall quake before Me, and the beasts of the field and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth, and every human who is on the face of the earth, and the mountains shall be destroyed and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. 21And I will call forth the sword against him in all My mountains, said the Master, the LORD. Each man’s sword shall be against his brother. 22And I will wreak punishment upon him through pestilence and through blood and through pelting rain and hailstones; sulfurous fire will I rain down on him and on his divisions and on the many peoples that are with him. 23And I will be magnified and hallowed, and I will become known before the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 38 NOTES
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2. Gog in the land of Magog. The Hebrew syntax could also be construed as “Gog of the land of Magog.” Both names, which look quite foreign in the Hebrew, are mystifying and as such have encouraged the mythological readings of this prophecy prevalent in both Christian and Jewish tradition. Gog is sometimes linked by scholars with a King Gugu of Lydia in Asia Minor. Ezekiel does not appear to be referring to a historical figure—in contrast, for example, to Second Isaiah’s references to Cyrus—and may have embraced the name for its sheer strangeness. What is important is that Gog comes from the far north, the direction from which destruction traditionally descends upon Israel, as is repeatedly evident in Jeremiah.
supreme prince. The literal sense is “prince of the chief,” but when two synonyms are joined in a construct form, the effect is to indicate a superlative.
Meshech and Tubal. This kingdom, mentioned previously by Ezekiel, is in Asia Minor.
3. Here I am against you. Although Gog is sent by God on a mission of conquest, he is yanked along with hooks in his jaws and will come to a bad end.
5. Persia, Nubia, and Put. This suggests a vast array of mercenaries assembled by Gog from Persia in the east down to Nubia and Put south of Egypt.
7. assembly. This general term is repeatedly used by Ezekiel in a military sense.
8. a land brought back from the sword. The population of Judah, driven off by the sword, has now been brought back to its land.
9. And you shall come up like a storm. One of the peculiar features of this strange prophecy is that the people of Israel, after having been restored from bitter exile to their land, are to be subjected to still another horrendous assault.
11. a land of unfortified towns. The Judahites returned from exile are so confident of their safety that they leave their towns unfortified, with no walls and “neither bolt nor double doors.”
11–12. I will come upon the tranquil folk . . . to put your hand against resettled ruins. The switch here from first person (Gog speaking) to second person (Gog addressed) is fairly common in biblical usage.
12. the heartland. The Hebrew phrase tabur haʾarets occurs only here and in Judges 9:37. The Septuagint understood the obscure tabur to mean “navel,” and in that sense it was ensconced in later Hebrew.
13. its leaders. The literal sense is “its lions,” leaving a margin of doubt about the meaning. The translation follows an interpretive tradition going back to Late Antiquity, which essentially takes this as a metaphor for “leaders.”
14. shall you not know? As what follows makes clear, you will come to know the power of the God of Israel.
16. as I am hallowed through you, O Gog. It is Gog’s defeat, despite the overwhelming might of all his forces, that is to hallow God by making manifest God’s power.
17. Are you the one of whom I spoke. No actual mention of Gog appears in any of the earlier prophets, but he is represented here as the realization of the sundry vague prophecies of a dire enemy descending on Israel from the distant north.
18. My wrath shall mount in My nostrils. The second term here, ʾaf, is a synonym for “wrath” because smoke or fire is imagined to be exhaled from the nostrils of the infuriated deity. Here, the idiom is returned to its physical base, and God is imagined breathing fire (fire is mentioned at the beginning of the next verse).
20. the fish in the sea and the fowl in the heavens . . . the beasts of the field and every crawling thing. These terms all recall the Creation story in Genesis 1. It is as though the earthquake that will shake the whole land of Israel will be so cataclysmic that the work of creation itself will be undone. Such language strongly encouraged the apocalyptic reading of this prophecy, linking Gog with the cosmic upheavals of the end of days.
21. And I will call forth the sword against him. It had seemed as though the cataclysm was directed against Israel, but now it emerges that Gog and his vast army will be panicked and destroyed.
22. sulfurous fire. The literal sense is “fire and sulfur,” but this is most likely a hendiadys. In any case, Gog’s army is devastated both by fierce natural forces and by violent internal divisions. (Compare verse 21, “Each man’s sword shall be against his brother.”)
23. I will be magnified and hallowed. The two Hebrew words here, wehitgadalti wehitqadshti, expressing God’s glorification through the sweeping defeat of Gog’s army, are picked up as the first two words of the Kaddish, which is a prayer for the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.