Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 38:5

1. Persia

Persia is very obviously modern-day Iran, which is now Russia’s primary Islamic ally and a willing supplier of military drones to Russia’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine.

Unlike the other Islamic nations named here, Iran is Shia, whereas the rest are Sunni Muslims, and without wasting energy delving into the differences between those Satanic creeds, may it suffice for now to say that historically they have been very hostile (which, when combined with Islam, means murderous) towards each other.

It is well known that Iran is the primary state backer of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamic militant organisation, supplying it with large quantities of missiles which, even in recent years, it has eagerly lobbed into Israel.

So strong is this influence over Hezbollah, that some analysts insist that the massive terror group makes no major moves without Iran's approval or, perhaps more specifically, its actual direction, making Hezbollah an Iranian proxy force parked on Israel's northern flank.

And that all is, of course, to be expected from Iran which, as a country, holds a visceral hatred for Israel and whose parliament has notoriously called, with multi-partisan unity, for the utter destruction of Israel as a country (see the YouTube video below).

There is also the view among well informed anticommunist writers (and presumably among others) that Iran in turn makes no major geopolitical moves without the green light from Moscow, even though there exists no formal alliance between them, but rather, a de facto alliance or what we might term an "alliance in being".

2. Ethiopia

Ethiopia, meanwhile, seems less certain as being confined to the present-day multi-creed land that bears that name, but appears instead to refer to the Islamic nations occupying the Horn of Africa.

Writing in the 1700s, John Gill said of this Ethiopia reference:

Ethiopia or Cush does not design the country of the Abyssines [in modern language, Abyssinians] in the dominions of the Great Mogul [i.e. modern day Ethiopia], but Arabia Chusea [modern day Sinai peninsula], which lay between Judea and Egypt... (John Gill on Ezekiel 38:5)

However, Gill must have been wrong since the modern Sinai region is part of the far larger country of Egypt, which implies that this Ethiopia is indeed to be associated with either one of, more than one of, or all of, modern Ethiopia, Eritrea (both of which possess large "Christian" (esp. Orthodox) populations), and the near totally Islamic countries of Sudan (where Russia has a naval base), Djibouti (which currently hosts an American and a French military presence), or even Somalia, due to Russia’s documented recent efforts at securing basing rights for its armed forces on the shores of the Red Sea.

I believe one might reasonably refine the above-described definition of Ethiopia down to just the Islamic nations of the Horn of Africa, unless some argument for the largely Orthodox Ethiopia and Eritrea can be built around affinity with Russia's own Orthodoxy (which, aside from being part of the eastern fork of the Antichurch, is a key ingredient of a sham maintained by the lip-service of Putin and his acolytes for the purposes of building Russian morale in advance of global war.¹)

Somalia is also the breeding ground of some of the most vexatious naval pirates of the modern age, habitually attacking and hijacking shipping in that area of the Indian Ocean.

The participation of these dangerous, lawless, disorganised countries in the coming Russian-led assault might seem strange, given their very limited military capabilities (in terms of force numbers, quality of training, and equipment), but it appears Russia will be keen to use as much manpower as it can to overrun Israel, in a continuation of its longstanding policy (which originated in World War Two) of throwing vast numbers of expendable infantry at enemy defences in the hope of attritionally wearing the enemy down, even though the cost in lives lost on the Russian side has always been enormous.

And, like all the other participants in this coming attack on Israel, Russia will have promised these countries an economic bounty in addition to the opportunity to very violently erase Israel from existence.

3. Libya

Libya, both Gill and I hold to be the modern Islamic country of Libya, which again might seem an odd addition to the list due to its low profile since the days of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, when it was a bastion for state-sponsored globally projected Islamic terrorism and very much a client state of the Soviet Union, from whom it received training, intelligence and military hardware.

Infamously, Libya was also uncovered as a source of Russian-manufactured arms for the crypto-Marxist Irish Republican Army (the Provisional IRA or "Provos") during their campaign in Northern Ireland, presumably supplied in the hope of being a thorn in the side of the UK, a country always considered by the Kremlin to be Russia's chief European enemy.

Libya was also (at worst) the perpetrator of, or (at least) a tacit facilitator of, the Lockerbie terror attack, in which a Pan Am jumbo jet was downed over southern Scotland in 1988 en route to the US from Frankfurt to Detroit.

All of this, of course, establishes Libya's credentials as a committed proxy for Russia and a natural enemy of both Israel and the West.

"...all of them with shield and helmet..."

The above-named nations will array themselves with "shield and helmet", emphasising that these terrorist countries are to assume some kind of peculiarly defensive role, perhaps through sheer numbers at the flanks of the assembled invasion force; or it could refer to the limitations of their offensive capabilities (which seems unlikely in the case of Iran).

But above all, I suspect it might chiefly be the case, given the particular histories of these nations in expediting Islamic terror both regionally and far beyond, that their primary defensive role will be to protect the invasion force by stretching Israeli and western intelligence operations through a coordinated surge in terrorism worldwide, so as to hinder any potential western intervention in the Russian-led assault on Israel, even though by then the West will have stepped back from anything more than a hollow commitment to Israel's defence.

Why are these 3 Participants in the Attack Named first?

All that remains is to ask why these three are named first, before Gomer and Togarmah in Ezekiel 38:6, given that the latter are suffixed as having notable armies.

For one thing, they are definitely more passionately committed to Israel's annihilation than the latter two are and would, by most metrics, be considered as being far less "civilised" and therefore far more barbaric and fanatical than either of the latter two nations, placing them, although lesser allies of Russia, to the forefront in desiring Israel's ruination.

America's Operation Epic Fury Cannot Succeed

Naturally, if Iran is to be preserved as a major regional power on the side of Russia when "the kings of the East" irrupt into the Middle East, then Israel's and America's current military operations directed against Iran to destroy its nuclear programme and to effect regime change simply cannot succeed.

If anything, it is more likely to expedite the West's abandonment of Israel and set the scene for a possible (I say probable) Russian-brokered peace treaty in the Middle East (see the commentary on Ezekiel 38:14, all of which developments collectively would constitute the metaphorical drying up of the Great River Euphrates to make way for the kings of the East under the sixth of Revelation 16's Seven Last Plagues:

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." (Revelation 16:12-14)

Note that the objective of the symbolic drying up of the symbolic Euphrates is to remove all restraint from the kings of the East and is part of a plague that also entails a build-up to global war, stirred up by the demonic rage of the wicked spirits pushing the nations towards the last war mankind will experience, the "great hail" of Revelation 16's seventh and final plague.²