God's Fishhook in Gog's Jaw Text: Ezekiel 38:1-6
Introduction: The Newspaper Prophecy Folly
There are certain sections of the Bible that function for many evangelicals like a prophetic Rorschach test. They hold up the text, squint at it, and see whatever happens to be on the front page of the New York Times that morning. For generations, this chapter in Ezekiel has been a favorite playground for this sort of thing. Gog and Magog have been identified with virtually every geopolitical bogeyman imaginable, from the Scythians to the Soviets, and everything in between. The chief prince of Meshech and Tubal becomes Moscow and Tobolsk, and suddenly we have a detailed itinerary for World War III, complete with mushroom clouds. This is not exegesis; it is theological malpractice. It is an attempt to make the timeless Word of God into a timely, and therefore disposable, political cartoon.
The problem with this approach is that it is profoundly arrogant. It assumes that the ultimate fulfillment of God's cosmic purposes just happens to be occurring in our lifetime, and that we are the special generation with the secret decoder ring. But the Word of God is not written in code. It is written for the people of God in every generation. This prophecy had a meaning for Ezekiel's hearers, and it has a meaning for us, and the meaning is the same because the God who spoke it is the same.
What we have in Ezekiel 38 is not a detailed prediction of modern warfare, but a profound theological statement about the absolute sovereignty of God over the rebellious nations of the world. It is a picture, painted in the geopolitical colors of Ezekiel's day, of a timeless principle: God is God, and the nations are but a drop in the bucket. He raises them up, He casts them down, and He does it all for the glory of His own name. This is not about Russia or any other modern nation-state. It is about the pride of man being brought low before the majesty of God. The names may change, but the sin is the same, and the judgment is the same. Gog is the archetypal enemy of God's people, a land-based Pharaoh, a northern antichrist, a corporate embodiment of rebellious, God-hating humanity. And God's message to him, and to all who follow in his train, is simple and stark: "Behold, I am against you."
This passage, far from being a source of anxiety about the future, ought to be a source of immense comfort. It shows us that even the most fearsome enemies of the church are not acting on their own initiative. They are on a leash. More than that, they are on God's fishhook. Their every move, their every boast, their every threat, is orchestrated by the God they despise, for a purpose they cannot comprehend: the vindication of His own holiness before a watching world.
The Text
And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, "Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, 'Thus says Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your military force, horses and horsemen, all of them magnificently dressed, a great assembly with large shield and shield, all of them wielding swords; Persia, Ethiopia, and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops, many peoples with you.'"
(Ezekiel 38:1-6 LSB)
The Divine Summons (v. 1-3)
The prophecy begins with the standard formula, establishing its divine origin.
"And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, 'Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, 'Thus says Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal."'" (Ezekiel 38:1-3)
Ezekiel is commanded to "set his face" against Gog. This is a posture of determined opposition and judgment. God is not ambivalent. He is not a neutral observer. He is actively, personally, and implacably opposed to Gog. The central declaration of this entire section is "Behold, I am against you." All the military might, all the confederacies, all the pomp and circumstance that follows is utterly irrelevant in the face of this one statement. When the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth declares Himself to be your enemy, the war is already over. The rest is just the clean-up operation.
Now, who is this Gog? The names here, Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah, are all drawn from the table of nations in Genesis 10. They are descendants of Japheth who settled in the regions north of Israel, what is modern-day Turkey and the surrounding areas. These were real, historical peoples known to Ezekiel's audience as fierce, barbaric, and remote. They represent the "uttermost parts of the earth," the pagan nations on the far horizon. Gog is not a specific individual's name, but more likely a title, like Pharaoh or Caesar. He is the prince of this northern confederacy. John, in Revelation 20, picks up this imagery and applies it to the final, worldwide rebellion against Christ at the end of the millennial age. Gog and Magog become symbolic of all the assembled, unbelieving nations of the world. Ezekiel is giving us the historical type; John gives us the eschatological antitype. The principle is the same: the world will always muster its forces against the people of God.
But the most important thing to see here is who is speaking. "Thus says Lord Yahweh." This is the covenant God of Israel, the great I AM. And His declaration is the foundation of reality. The most terrifying sentence in all of Scripture is not "Depart from me, you cursed," as dreadful as that is. It is this: "Behold, I am against you." For a creature to have the Creator set His face against him is the definition of hell.
Sovereign Compulsion (v. 4)
Verse 4 reveals the shocking extent of God's sovereignty over His enemies. It is one of the most potent statements of divine determinism in the entire Old Testament.
"I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your military force, horses and horsemen, all of them magnificently dressed, a great assembly with large shield and shield, all of them wielding swords;" (Ezekiel 38:4)
Gog thinks he is coming down to attack Israel out of his own free will, for his own reasons of plunder and pride. The subsequent verses will detail his evil intent. But here, God pulls back the curtain of secondary causation and reveals the ultimate reality. Gog is not the master of his fate; he is a beast being led to the slaughter. God says, "I will turn you about." The Hebrew word here is the same one used for repentance, shub. It is a word of turning. God will sovereignly turn Gog's heart and mind toward this invasion. And just in case the point was too subtle, He adds the graphic imagery of putting hooks in his jaws. This is the language used of taming a wild, powerful animal, like a crocodile (Ezekiel 29:4) or a beast of burden. Gog, for all his splendor and might, is nothing more than God's dumb ox, being led by a nose ring to the precise spot on the map where God intends to butcher him for the sake of His own glory.
This is a hard doctrine for our modern, man-centered sensibilities. We want to preserve some island of human autonomy, some area where man is his own king. But the Bible will have none of it. God's sovereignty is absolute. He is sovereign not only over the prayers of the saints but also over the pride of tyrants. He is sovereign over the faith of Abraham and the fury of Gog. This does not negate Gog's responsibility. He comes with evil intent, and he is judged for that evil intent. But his evil is harnessed and directed by a higher, holy purpose. This is the mystery of providence that we see at the cross, where wicked men, acting on their own sinful desires, nevertheless did exactly what God's "hand and His plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:28).
Notice the description of Gog's army: "magnificently dressed," a "great assembly," with shields and swords. God is not afraid of their pomp. In fact, He is the one orchestrating it. He is gathering them in all their glittering arrogance precisely so that their destruction will be all the more spectacular. God is setting the stage for a great dramatic performance, and the theme of the play is the futility of rebellion against the Almighty.
The Assembled Horde (v. 5-6)
The final verses in our text list the allies that God will bring along with Gog. This is the muster roll of the damned.
"Persia, Ethiopia, and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops, many peoples with you." (Ezekiel 38:5-6)
This is a multinational force, an ancient United Nations of rebellion. Persia is to the east. Ethiopia (Cush) and Put are to the south, in Africa. Gomer and Beth-togarmah are again from the north. God is summoning His enemies from every corner of the known world, from the "remote parts of the north." The point is to show the overwhelming nature of the threat from a human perspective. Israel is to be surrounded, hopelessly outnumbered by a vast international coalition.
From a human standpoint, this is terrifying. This is the kind of threat that makes knees knock and hearts fail. But from a divine standpoint, it is simply the gathering of the harvest for the winepress of God's wrath. God is not just going to defeat Gog; He is going to defeat the whole world in effigy. He is making a point that no one can miss: there is no safety in numbers when you are arrayed against the Lord. All the treaties, all the alliances, all the military hardware of man are nothing but a pile of kindling for the fire of His judgment.
This is a picture of the world's final, futile rage against Christ and His Church. The psalmist describes it perfectly: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us'" (Psalm 2:2-3). This has happened repeatedly in history, and it will happen one last time. But the outcome is never in doubt. "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision" (Psalm 2:4).
Conclusion: The Lord of History
So what are we to do with a passage like this? First, we are to abandon all foolish and speculative attempts to map these ancient names onto modern headlines. To do so is to shrink the prophecy down to our own size and miss its majestic, trans-historical scope.
Second, we are to stand in awe of the absolute sovereignty of God. Our God is not a nervous deity, wringing His hands in heaven, hoping things turn out all right. He is the Lord of history. He is the one who puts hooks in the jaws of tyrants and leads them to their appointed doom. The enemies of the church, whether they are in Washington D.C. or Pyongyang or in the godless faculty lounge of a secular university, are all on His leash. They cannot make a single move without His divine permission and decree. This should fill us with an unshakeable confidence. Our times are in His hands.
Third, and most importantly, we must see that this prophecy, like all Old Testament prophecy, finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. The great enemy, Gog, is a type of Satan, who gathers the nations to rebel against God. But the true prince, the true head of the people of God, is Jesus. And on the cross, the ultimate Gog, the prince of this world, gathered all his forces against the Son of God. He threw everything he had at Him: the power of Rome, the hypocrisy of the Sanhedrin, the betrayal of a friend, the darkness of sin, and the very wrath of God. And from a human perspective, it looked like Gog had won.
But God had a hook in the jaw of that serpent. In the very act of striking the heel of the seed of the woman, his own head was crushed. Through death, Christ destroyed him who has the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14). The cross was the ultimate battlefield of Ezekiel 38, where God lured His greatest enemy into a trap and disarmed him completely, "making a public spectacle of him, triumphing over him in it" (Colossians 2:15).
Because of that victory, the final outcome of history is secure. The nations will continue to rage, and new Gogs will arise in every generation. But He who sits in the heavens will laugh. He has set His King on Zion, His holy hill. And that King is even now putting all His enemies under His feet. Therefore, we do not fear. We look at the assembled hordes of our secular, pagan age, and we see them for what they are: a great and glittering army, magnificently dressed, with a hook firmly lodged in their jaw, being led by a sovereign God to the place of their final, glorious, and well-deserved destruction.