Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 38:11
“And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates," (Ezekiel 38:11)
Israel Dwelling Safely in the "Land of Unwalled Villages"
Great emphasis is hereby, with the wording, placed on the radical transformation of Israel from its current standing as a beleaguered,
under siege nation into a country with a
profound sense of safety and security, untroubled by its neighbours, its guard well and truly lowered, and its people at rest from
decades of existential struggle against a host of hostile enemies.
Realistically, that state of affairs could only arise through a sensational "peace in our time" treaty,
one which might also be timed with the rejoicing of the ungodly when the Lord’s public witness is "killed" (silenced) as foretold in
Revelation 11:7; that is, if such a treaty is to come, it might (speaking speculatively!) come not long after the middle of the
present decade, which is when I interpret the killing of the Two Witnesses to take place (through laws based on hate speech, national
security, anti-terrorism, etc.)1
It would be difficult for anyone familiar with the geopolitical structures of the Middle East to conceive of such a peace treaty orchestrated
by any country other than Russia, that one state that holds meaningful influence over most of the disparate Islamic regimes of the region.
What America attempts with threats of violent consequences, Russia can achieve via subtlety; it can make secret, behind-closed-door
deals that the rest of the world knows nothing about, as evidenced by the longstanding secret alliance it maintained with China
throughout the duration of the
staged Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
Couple the foregoing observation with the signs that the West is presently in the process of a phased retreat from acting as
Israel's primary ally and defender2, and it seems even
more obvious that only Russia could broker a truly convincing peace deal in the Middle East in the very near future.
And then, if we understand that we are close to the Seven last Plagues of Revelation 15-16 (which, by some English Puritan accounts, must follow not long after
the present-day silencing of the Lord's public witness in the West), the sixth of which plagues begins with the figurative drying up of the Great River Euphrates
in Revelation 16:12, i.e., the dissolution of
all longstanding impediments to a barbarian irruption into the Levant from the major nations of the East, there is even less
prophetical support for any prospective peace deal for Israel being arranged and guaranteed by America and its western
allies3.
But whatever the attendant particulars, Israel will somehow be dwelling in a sense of security and safety, via peace treaty or not,
when Russia’s
leadership will embark on the massive assault against it with the intent to “take a spoil”, presumably using the present Russian
bases and infrastructure in Syria on Israel’s northern border as a springboard, and by then we must presume, as part of the Great
River Euphrates dry-up, that the US presence in Syria, and the rest of the Middle East, will be insignificant or gone entirely.
FOOTNOTES
1. Under this interpretive model, the Two Witnesses represent not two individual servants of the Lord, but rather an abstraction,
i.e.,
God's faithful public witness against sin, specifically the sins of the beast system (the West's hidden power elite) and its vile value set
that it seeks to impose upon the masses through the machinations of the False Prophet (the influencer class: apostate clergy, godless educators,
media personalities, music stars, actors, sports stars, influencers of every sort, et al). The "great city" (Revelation 11:8) in which the Two Witnesses
operate is the modern
West, spiritually called Sodom (for its sexual depravity) and Egypt (for its hedonism, materialism and general godlessness) and,
as linear
successor to the Roman Empire of old, is also part of that civilisational continuum that crucified the Lord.
The dead bodies of the Two Witnesses
are to lie in the street of the Great City, meaning, the silenced ministries are to remain intact insofar as the faithful pastors and laymen
behind them will still be free but instantly apprehended by the police if they try to speak in the public place (as commonly occurs now here in the UK,
for
example), or electronically stymied in the cyber public square for expressing godly condemnation of the beast system's vile ethics (e.g. LGBT),
something that is coming soon it seems in every western country.
The beast system that kills those ministries is, as first realised by Scottish
author, Alexander Hislop, in The Red Republic (1849),
nothing less than the western power elites unified behind an atheistic and hyper socialist
aka globalist aka final-phase communist ideology and, as Thomas Goodwin predicted in his
An Exposition of the Revelation back in the 1600s,
would entail a "civic killing", that is, wicked laws drafted to gag the Lord's people.
2. The United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and other western nations all
formally recognised Palestine as a state at the
United Nations in October 2025 in a move that outraged Israel and drew strong words of disdain from the US.
However, American
displeasure was merely cosmetic, designed for superficial optics only, because not long after, when the Israeli Knesset started to
push for a reoccupation of the West Bank,
the White House angrily insisted Israel do no such thing
lest it jeopardise American efforts at stabilising the conflict in Gaza.
Cutting through the charade of accountable democracy and its public theatrics, the West is run by a singularity, that is, the beast system,
the ultra rich power elites (royals included) who are ideologically globalist (technically, a transnational form of modern Chinese Marxism)
and who operate on a supranational basis and who dictate policy
to every elected government that fronts for them.
Hence the western governments (styled as the beast's "ten horns" in Revelation 17:3) "receive power as kings one hour with the beast" (Revelation 17:12),
i.e., they lack true sovereignty of their own and are hired and fired through controlled electoral processes (to maintain the charade of accountable democracy)
at the leisure of the power elites,
and these all have one mind (privately agreeing on all major western policies in what amounts to a transnational uniparty political system) and give
their power and strength unto it (Revelation 17:13), as its willing servants.
With that fact established, it becomes clear that all high profile spats between western nations,
such as American threats to forsake Europe's defence, are staged to build and manage public perception and build narratives for consent in the various
western countries; for example, US President Donald Trump's threats to forsake NATO has led to Europe investing heavily in its own armed forces after
decades of decadent carelessness caused by over reliance on American protection.
3. I agree with the old writers who understood the Seven Last Plagues of Revelation 15-16 to commence shortly after the killing of the Two Witnesses, although I don't interpret those plagues entirely as they do, despite using their historicist interpretive principles.
