Commentary - Ezekiel 38:17-23

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the Lord Yahweh confronts Gog, the archetypal enemy of God's people, and reveals the ultimate purpose behind this great, climactic conflict. This is not a battle that takes God by surprise; rather, it is the culmination of a plan announced centuries before through His prophets. The invasion of Israel by Gog is the very trigger for God's spectacular intervention. The central theme is the vindication of God's own name and glory. He declares that His long-simmering wrath will boil over, and He will respond not merely with human armies, but with the full force of His cosmic power. The language is that of theophany and de-creation: earthquakes that level mountains, terror that grips every living creature, and supernatural judgments of infighting, pestilence, and a storm of fire and brimstone reminiscent of Sodom. The explicit goal of this overwhelming display of divine power is doxological. God orchestrates this entire event so that the nations of the world, who previously scoffed, will be forced to acknowledge His reality, His holiness, and His sovereign power. The refrain of the book of Ezekiel comes to its crashing crescendo here: "and they will know that I am Yahweh."

This is a portrait of God's absolute sovereignty over history and His zeal for His own glory. The enemies of the church may appear formidable, but they are merely pawns in a divine drama, stage-managed by God Himself to be the backdrop against which He displays His majesty. The judgment is terrifying, total, and divinely initiated for the purpose of making God's name great among the nations.

Outline

Context In Ezekiel

Ezekiel 38 and 39 form a distinct unit that serves as the climax to the restoration section of the book. After the prophecies against the foreign nations (chapters 25-32) and the fall of Jerusalem, God promises a glorious restoration for His people. In chapter 34, He promises to be their true Shepherd. In chapter 36, He promises a new heart and a new spirit. In chapter 37, He brings the valley of dry bones to life, symbolizing the national and spiritual resurrection of Israel. With the people restored to the land and given new life, the question remains: will they be secure? The Gog and Magog prophecy answers that question with a definitive yes. It describes a final, massive assault against the renewed people of God, but the focus is not on Israel's defense. It is entirely on God's defense of His people for the sake of His holy name. This section demonstrates that the security of God's people rests solely on God's own power and zeal. It is the final proof of God's faithfulness to His covenant promises before the book transitions to the vision of the new temple and the renewed land (chapters 40-48).

Key Issues

That They May Know

One of the central burdens of the book of Ezekiel is the refrain, "that they may know that I am Yahweh." This phrase, or variations of it, appears over sixty times. It is the divine purpose statement behind judgment, restoration, prophecy, and history itself. God is not a remote deity, distant and unknowable. He is a God who acts in time and space with the explicit intention of revealing Himself. He is making Himself known. This is not for His benefit, as though He were insecure and needed our affirmation. It is for our benefit, because to know Him is life eternal. But for the rebellious nations, and for unfaithful Israel, this knowledge often comes through judgment. When God acts to save His people and destroy their enemies, He is teaching the world a lesson in basic theology. The lesson has one point: I am Yahweh, and there is no other. The events described in our text are the final, undeniable, global-level seminar on this subject.

Verse by Verse Commentary

17 ‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days by the hand of My slaves the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?

God begins by addressing Gog directly. This is a divine taunt, a rhetorical question dripping with sovereign irony. "So, you've finally arrived. Did you think this was your idea?" God informs this great enemy that his appearance on the world stage is no accident. He is the fulfillment of prophecies spoken for centuries. Though Gog is not mentioned by name elsewhere, the prophets consistently spoke of a great enemy from the north who would come against God's people in the last days (e.g., Jeremiah 4-6, Joel 2). God is the great playwright, and Gog is a character, reading lines written for him long ago. This establishes the first and most crucial point: God is in complete control. The greatest threats to the church are not rogue agents; they are instruments, however unwitting, in the hand of a sovereign God.

18 And it will be in that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” declares Lord Yahweh, “that My wrath will mount up in My anger.

The invasion is the trigger. The moment Gog sets foot on the land of Israel, God's wrath is ignited. The language here is visceral and personal. "My wrath will mount up in My anger" is literally "my fury will come up in my nose," a Hebrew idiom for intense, hot anger. We must be careful not to dismiss this as merely anthropomorphic. This is the holy and righteous hatred of a covenant-keeping God against those who would touch the apple of His eye. His wrath is not a capricious, sinful human temper tantrum. It is the settled, necessary, and just opposition of a perfectly holy being to evil, arrogance, and violence against His people. God's wrath is a function of His love; because He loves His people and His own glory, He must hate and destroy that which seeks to destroy them.

19 In My zeal and in My blazing fury I have spoken that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.

God's fury is not silent. It is a speaking fury. He speaks, and reality rearranges itself. His weapons are not conventional. The first weapon He deploys is an earthquake. In Scripture, earthquakes are a common feature of a theophany, a manifestation of God's presence. When God descended on Sinai, the mountain quaked violently (Ex. 19:18). When Jesus died, the earth shook (Matt. 27:51). When God shows up in power, the stable foundations of the created order are shaken. This is not just a geological event; it is a theological statement. The kingdoms of men, which seem so solid and permanent, are revealed to be utterly fragile before the presence of their Creator. God is shaking everything that can be shaken, so that the kingdom that cannot be shaken may remain (Heb. 12:27).

20 And the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will quake at My presence; the mountains also will be pulled down, the steep pathways will fall, and every wall will fall to the earth.

The scope of this shaking is total. Ezekiel gives us a comprehensive, six-fold list of all created life: fish, birds, beasts, creeping things, and finally, man. Every living thing will tremble at the raw presence of God. This is a kind of de-creation, a reversal of the ordered world of Genesis. The very geography of rebellion is dismantled. The mountains, symbols of strength and permanence, are thrown down. The cliffs and walls, man's proud defenses, crumble to dust. There is no hiding place from the presence of the Lord. When God comes in judgment, the entire cosmos is involved. It is a testimony to the fact that man's rebellion is not just against God, but against the entire created order, and when God judges, the created order itself participates in that judgment.

21 And I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains,” declares Lord Yahweh. “Every man’s sword will be against his brother.

After the cosmic upheaval, God reveals His next weapon, and it is a masterstroke of divine irony. God does not need to raise an army to fight Gog's massive horde. He simply "calls for a sword," and the enemy army implodes. He turns them over to the logical consequences of their own sin. An army united by greed and godless ambition has no true internal cohesion. When faced with the terror of God, it disintegrates into a paranoid, chaotic mob. This is a consistent pattern in Scripture. God did this to the Midianites before Gideon (Judg. 7:22) and to the enemies of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20:23). Sin is inherently self-destructive, and one of God's primary methods of judgment is to simply remove His restraining grace and let sin run its natural, suicidal course.

22 With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the numerous peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

In addition to the internal confusion, God brings judgment from the outside. He acts as judge, jury, and executioner. The language here is a "greatest hits" of Old Testament judgment. "Pestilence and blood" recall the plagues of Egypt. The "torrential rain" with "hailstones, fire, and brimstone" is a direct echo of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24) and the plague of hail on Egypt (Ex. 9:24). Ezekiel is showing us that the God who is acting now is the same God who acted then. He has not changed. His opposition to high-handed evil is absolute, and His methods of judgment are terrifyingly effective. This is not a battle; it is a slaughter, a divine execution.

23 And I will magnify Myself, I will manifest Myself as holy, and I will make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am Yahweh.

Here is the purpose clause for the entire chapter. Why the earthquake? Why the fire and brimstone? Why the self-destruction? It is all so that God might put His own character on display. He will magnify Himself, showing His greatness. He will manifest Himself as holy, showing His pure, terrifying, "otherness." He will make Himself known to the nations who had previously ignored or mocked Him. The result is the great refrain: "and they will know that I am Yahweh." This is the end game of all history. God is working all things together for the fame of His own name. The destruction of the wicked, as terrible as it is, serves the ultimate good of displaying the glory, justice, and power of the one true God.

Application

First, we must resist the temptation to turn this passage into a newspaper headline-matching game, trying to identify Gog with a modern political leader or nation. The point of the prophecy is not to give us a secret decoder ring for current events, but to reveal the character of our God and the certainty of His victory over all His enemies, whenever and wherever they may arise. The principle is this: the assembled forces of godless humanity are no match for the Lord of Hosts.

Second, this passage should fill the Christian with a profound sense of security. Our safety does not depend on our strength, our political savvy, or our military might. Our safety depends entirely on the zeal of the Lord for His own name. The God who defends Israel here is the God who defends His church today. The gates of Hell, which is what Gog's army represents, shall not prevail against it. We should therefore be bold and fearless in our witness, knowing that the ultimate battle belongs to the Lord.

Finally, we must see this ultimate judgment through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross, a great earthquake shook the land. At the cross, the wrath of God against sin was poured out, not on us, but on His own Son. The fire, brimstone, and pestilence that we deserved fell on Him. In Christ, God magnified Himself and showed Himself holy in the most profound way possible, by simultaneously satisfying His perfect justice and displaying His unfathomable mercy. The nations still have a choice. They can come to know that He is Yahweh through the terrifying judgment described by Ezekiel, or they can come to know Him through the gracious invitation of the gospel, which was purchased by that same judgment being absorbed by Christ. Our task is to proclaim this choice, pleading with the Gogs of this world to lay down their arms and be reconciled to the God who, for now, offers peace.