Page 209 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XXXIX. 203

Thus the doom of the beast and the false prophet is
beyond all experience appalling; the solemn and final
adjudication without further process to the lake of fire.
And so, it would seem, will it be with the little horn of
Daniel viii. (or king of the north in Daniel xi.). They
had meddled with the things of God against His people,
having a character of apostate contempt for His truth or
perverting it to their destructive ends. Gog is judged
as a more vulgar aggressor, actuated as he will be with
greed of territorial acquisition and relying on brute
force. So he is confronted with a power mightier than
his own, which beats him down ignominiously without
relenting.
Nor is this all. God will deal with the land whence
Gog came as well as with those isles which contributed
their contingents to his host. a And I will send a fire
on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the
isles: and they shall know that I am Jehovah. So will
I make my holy name known in the midst of my peo­
ple Israel ; and I will not let them pollute my holy
name any more : and the heathen shall know that I am
Jehovah, the Holy One in Israel.” (Yers. 6, 7.) No
distance nor isolation shall screen from consuming
judgment in that day; for the Lord is awaking to call
the quick to account, as one out of sleep, like a mighty
man that shonteth by reason of wine. Then at length
shall the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Can argument be wanted by the believer to prove that
these solemn dealings ending in so blessed a result have
never yet been fulfilled ? Magog is not Rome or spiri­
tual Edom or any other than the Scythia of the
ancients.