Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 39:4
"Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured." (Ezekiel 39:4)
And now so disempowered, in a state of weakness, disarray, disease, in-fighting and supernatural battering, Gog, both personally himself and
as corporate head of, and thereby as metaphor for, the Russian army and those of his allies, and their vast multitude of supply and support regiments,
shall lie dead, ready to be stripped to the bone by vultures and other carnivorous birds and wild animals.
This I take to be a literal stripping of the flesh of the Gog and his fallen armies by the aforesaid creatures, and is a
prolepsis for what
will follow later in a metaphorical fashion (as outlined in Revelation 19:17-18), when all traces of the ungodly who rule over the
nations today,
along with their loyal subordinates and the godless masses who follow them, shall be removed by the godly rulers of the nations under
the coming
Philadelphian age of Daniel 2's nation-after-nation transformation of the earth into a world in which every government is run
righteously in service
to Christ as King over the nations:
"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great." (Revelation 19:17-18).1
(Note that Ezekiel 39:4 is expanded upon by Ezekiel 39:17-20).
FOOTNOTES
1. See also Isaiah 34:1-3, which I view as using similar language to describe the coming great slaughter of the armies of the
nations (especially the nations of the East) in the final war mankind shall experience, a war that ensues and is triggered by the Gog-led
assault against Israel in Ezekiel 38-39, a war that in Revelation 16 is called Armageddon (Rev 16:16) and "the great hail" (Rev 16:21),
and in Joel 3:14 is called the "day of the LORD"; whereas the Revelation 19 reference emphasises the removal of the ungodly from all power and
influence in the world in the near future, these passages are primarily focussed on the dreadful war that precedes and brings on that happy
development.
(See Footnote 1 in my commentary on Ezekiel 38:22 for an explanation as to
what Isaiah 34
chiefly refers to, i.e., the destruction of the forces of the nations of the East, led by Russia, in the near future as of 2026).
