Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 38:19

"For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;" (Ezekiel 38:19)

The unfolding spectacle of God's intervention on behalf of a newly Christian nation of Israel will not just be visible to "the heathen" (the nations of the barbarian "sea"¹, i.e., the East (Russia with its atheism and its apostate Christianity, plus China, North Korea and all the Islamic hordes allied with them)), but also (presumably through the means of televised media and radio) to the people of West, albeit without suffering the instant retribution that the armies of the East shall suffer; rather, the West's final and most terrible temporal judgment follows very soon after the annihilation of the armies of the East engaged in attacking Israel, as the Armageddon slaughter goes global.

This therefore makes Jerusalem the "cup of trembling" (Zechariah 12:2) of the ungodly worldwide, and when at that moment they in the West see the Lord’s public witness against error restored (Revelation 11:11), so much more shall the dreadful spectacle of the Lord stirring in defence of His people, both converted Jew and erstwhile oppressed Gentile in the West, shake and terrify them.

"The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel." (Joel 3:16)

Gone will be all faith in atheism and gone will be all Islamic delusions of a coming Caliphate; in ruins will be the vain hopes of apostate Christianity and false eschatologies, for it will be plainly known that the Jews will have become adherents of biblical, evangelical, sovereign grace Christianity.

Who could then deny the hated, but true and Reformational doctrines of Calvinism when an entire nation converts en bloc to Christ in a moment?

"Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:8)

Returning to Ezekiel 38:19, of the "great shaking" Gill notes thus:

"surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

...not a consternation among the people of Israel frightened at the armies of Gog, and the terrible appearance they shall make, and the devastations they threaten [though the Jews will initially be alarmed and affrighted, as per Zechariah 14:2; but this shaking concerns their enemies, as Gill says]; but in Gog himself, and his army, through the wrath of God upon them, and the vengeance he will take of them in the land of Israel, they will enter upon to destroy; not but that there may be some dread in the minds of the Jews upon the appearance of so formidable an army in their land: this shaking, according to Jarchi², will be by thunder and lightning. Kimchi³ understands it of an earthquake, in a literal sense, and compares with it Zechariah 14:4,5, see also Revelation 16:18, which speaks of an earthquake that will be about this time." (John Gill on Ezekiel 38:19).

However, while I take the "great earthquake" of Revelation 16:18 to be a geopolitical earthquake, I also think that the shaking in the land of Israel described here in Ezekiel 38:19 refers first and foremost to the great terror upon the invading armies, and secondarily either to a supernatural battery from the heavens (hence the asteroid / meteorite strike theory proposed by some, perhaps accompanied with a literal earthquake) or to whatever undeniable acts of God constitute the levelling of the vast armies arrayed against Israel; but by no means will this shaking in the land of Israel result in the destruction of the Jews’ property or that of the Lord’s faithful few in the world beyond and so it seems chiefly a metaphorical shaking, but with a localised physical, literal component affecting only the enemies of Israel, so that all will know and understand the great and dreadful presence of the Lord in the land of Israel and that the time of final temporal retribution upon the nations has come, in accordance with Joel 3:9-16.