Gog and Magog

Today's reading begins with what appears to be another vision regarding a valley of dry bones. Though the text does not specifically say that this was a vision as opposed to an actual occurrence, the phrase 'the hand of the Lord was upon me" precedes the account. This same terminology was used to preface Ezekiel's vision regarding the four headed vehicle with four wheels mentioned in chapter one. So the dry bones account seems to have been a prophetic vision, which was characteristic of the way God communicated with Ezekiel. Most scholars believe that the dry bones being restored to life was a picture of the exiles being returned to Israel and breathing new life into the nation. This was fulfilled when Cyrus of Persia released all of the captives held by Babylon, thereby releasing the Jews 70 years into their captivity. Other scholars believe that the dry bones are a reference to God restoring the nation of Israel in 1948. Others see this vision as a depiction of a spiritual awakening of Israel, yet to occur but expected to be part of end times events.

Ezekiel moves on to prophesy about "Gog and Magog", two nations the figure prominently into end times theology as recounted in the book of Revelation. There has not been a judgement of this severity in history, so this prophecy is considered yet to be unfulfilled as of yet. Scholars are not sure who Gog and Magog are and whether the names refer to individual rulers or nations. It seems that Gog is the ruler of Magog, and Magog corresponds to the territory now known as turkey, Iran, and the southern provinces of the former Soviet Union. Magog is listed as the land of Meshech and Tubal, who were sons of Japeth (one of Noah's three sons). Interestingly, Magog is also listed as a son of japeth. The sons of Noah repopulated the earth, with Shem forming the Semitic peoples of the Middle East, Ham forming the Cushites who migrated into Africa, and Japeth moving into the region identified in our day as Europe. So the fact that it is the people of Japeth who are identified here, leads most to believe that the European nations will play a large role in attacking israel in the end times. When Russia was a superpower, many assumed that nation to be the "Magog" of Ezekiel and Revelation, but we do not know what nation God will raise up for this purpose. Whoever they are, their destruction will be brutal. The Bible does not sanitize the violence that will occur during the end times, though our sensibilities are certainly troubled by wild animals feasting on the corpses of all the dead from Magog. There would be so many corpses that it would take seven years to bury them all and seven years to burn all their weapons. Seven years seems like a long time, and it may be that the number seven (used in Scripture to personify perfection and holiness as opposed to the number 6, which is incomplete and unholy) is used to simply convey the complete annihilation of the enemy rather than a literal increment of time.

Hopefully all of this will make sense when we get to revelation, but I have a feeling it is only going to get weirder!

Tomorrow's reading: Ez. 32:17-33:20; Jer. 52:28-30; Ps. 137; 1 Chron. 4:24-5:17