Ezekiel 39 Commentary
I will pour my Spirit on them the people of Israel. Verse 29b. The chapter closes with this verse and this most important announcement. The New Testament reader has better tools to understand this chapter than Ezekiel’s original audience.
We are no longer confused by the ‘sevens’ and the images of feasts of human blood and human flesh on Israel’s mountains. We also understand there are times and times in between events described in this chapter. We know Ezekiel has described the times of the Messiah using images that his audience easily understood.
Israel would be gathered but the times after the gathering of Israel weren’t anything close to what Ezekiel or indeed the other prophets predicted. From the sermons of Zechariah and Haggai and also Malachi, we can tell that post-exile Israel isn’t a great spiritual success. Therefore, the times of peace, the time of the Prince of Peace, the times of Immanuel, the times of the Son, or the times of the Son of David – one with the government on His shoulders were definitely ahead of the physical gathering.
Another item is clear: When the actual times of the Messiah came or have come, “who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” Isaiah 53 verse 1. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain….and we him in low esteem”.
We must read of the times of peace with the bigger picture in mind. The saint must understand the nature of their calling and know it isn’t the most attractive option on the menu of the world. And the temptation to debate the relevance of a message that brings no worldly gains is very high.
But the pouring of the Spirit, the understanding of the Creator God through Calvary, and the inner peace that saints enjoy cannot be debated. The victory against evil, so ably represented by Ezekiel’s images of a defeated Gog, can only mean one thing: “It is finished!”
The saint can look around and there is no trace of the enemy. It is the victory that the Book of Romans so vividly displays. “…in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” The scripture continues; “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The reign of the Messiah is here. You too can experience it. Gog can be history as he shall be at the close of the times. Magog too will disappear. It is the decree of the LORD. “It will surely take place, declares the Sovereign LORD.” Verse 8b
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