CHAPTER 38 Oct. 12 
Against Gog, of the Land of Magog
The word of Yahweh came to me saying, 2Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him 3and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. 4I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and will bring you out with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armour, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them handling swords; 5Persia, Ethiopia and Libya with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north and all his hordes; even many peoples with you. 7Be prepared, yes, prepare yourself, you, and all your companies who are assembled to you, and be a guard to them. 8After many days you shall be visited. In the latter years you shall come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, on the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste; but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they shall dwell securely all of them. 9You shall ascend, you shall come like a storm, you shall be like a cloud to cover the land, you, and all your hordes, and many peoples with you. 10Thus says the Lord Yahweh: It shall happen in that day, that thoughts shall come into your mind, and you shall devise an evil plan. 11You shall say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates; 12to take the spoil and to take the wealth; to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten livestock and goods, who dwell in the middle of the land. 13Sheba, Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all her young lions, shall say to you: Have you come to take the spoil? Have you assembled your company to take the wealth? To carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great spoil? 14Therefore, son of man, prophesy and tell Gog, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In that day when My people Israel dwells securely, shall you not know it? 15You shall come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army; 16and you shall come up against My people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land. It shall happen in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, that the nations may know Me, when I shall be sanctified in you, Gog, before their eyes. 17Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Are you he of whom I spoke in old time by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them? 18It shall happen in that day, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, says the Lord Yahweh, that My wrath shall come up into My nostrils. 19For in My anger 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; 20so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field and all creeping things which creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth, shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall and every wall shall fall to the ground. 21I will call to all My mountains for a sword against him, says the Lord Yahweh. Every man’s sword shall be against his brother. 22With pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his hordes and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and sulphur. 23I will magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself, and I will make Myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

Commentary

38:2 Gog is an individual, not a nation; he is portrayed as the singular leader of a confederacy of Scythian tribes, several of whom have been mentioned previously in Ezekiel and were known at the time. 
38:5 Persia, Ethiopia and Libya- These areas don’t exactly correspond to the areas bearing those names today. But clearly they refer to a group of people from what is now Iran and north Africa.
38:8 The invasion is to come against Israel after the Jews have returned to the land from many nations and are dwelling there confidently and in material prosperity (:11,12).  In the prophetic schema which God had made potentially possible, the exiles were intended to return in faith and repentance, rebuild the land and temple and receive great material blessing from God. If that had happened, there would then have been this invasion outlined in chapter 38, dramatic Divine intervention (chapter 39) and then the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom based around a rebuilt temple and the returned glory of God in Zion as detailed in chapters 40-48. But Israel failed in all this, and so the prophecies will have a re-scheduled and re-applied fulfilment in the last days before Christ returns. The nations and tribes mentioned are from the areas today occupied by the Islamic enemies of Israel. The fact there is a nation of Jews in Israel is also an encouragement that the Middle East situation is moving towards the time of fulfilment of this prophecy. 
38:11 This dwelling securely sounds like the time of Messiah’s Kingdom described in 37:24-27. Psalm 2 predicts a scenario where Christ is King in Jerusalem, surrounded by His enemies, whom He then goes out and destroys. There is no suggestion in Ezekiel 38 that the invasion is successful
38:13 “Young lions” is a term elsewhere used in Ezekiel to refer to leaders or princes (19:2,6; 32:2). The Hebrew of this verse could imply that these three nations notice that the seven others are going to take spoil from Israel, and decide to join in with them. This would bring the number of Israel’s invaders in this prophecy to ten- which is the number of horns of the beast which desecrates the land of Israel in the last days, and the number of surrounding nations who attack Israel according to Psalm 83.