Week 48 - Ezekiel 37-40, Revelation 19 (Nov. 26 - Dec. 2)

Notes

EZEKIEL 38:2:GOG AND MAGOG

We have already read Ezekiel prophesying against nations like Egypt, Phoenicia, and Edom. He did so as Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonian army as a way of assuring the Israelite exiles that their enemies would also face God’s judgment. Ezekiel has one more other-nation prophecy here in this week’s reading - it concerns Gog and Magog. However, there are a number of unique things about this section of Ezekiel. The prophecy against Gog and Magog comes in the middle of the “apocalyptic” section of Ezekiel when Ezekiel turns his attention to the promise of restoration for God’s exiled people. Furthermore, Gog and Magog is really hard to identify both as a people who enact the things that Ezekiel prophecies, and then simply as the names of any kingdoms that existed in the time of Ezekiel.

This is a representation of where most commentators would locate Magog and many of the other places listed in Ezekiel 38 & 39 - a sort of “best guess” map

The identification of Gog has perplexed commentators for centuries. The most likely explanation is that the name is a derivative of Gyges, who was a Lydian king mentioned in Assyrian and Greek sources. In the former he is call Gugu and he rules over mat Gugu, which is Akkadian for the “land of Gugu.” His reign, however, is fifty or more years prior to the time of Ezekiel, so some have argued that the name became a dynastic title used by his royal descendants (the same way that Omri became a dynastic name for the nation of Israel). The king of Lydia at the time of Ezekiel is Alyattes. There is no evidence that lydia ever threatened Judah, but the Lydians were involved in a serious war against Cyaxanes and the Medes in 585. Magog is likely a Hebrew form of Akkadian Mat Gugu “the land of Gog” which the Jewish historian Josephus identified as Lydia in western Anatolia (Modern-day Turkey). The association of Gog and Magog with western Anatolia is reinforced by the mention of Meschech and Tubal also in verse two which were well-known Anatolian kingdoms conquered by Sargon II of Assyria. (IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, 722).

I think that this prophecy of Ezekiel is a teaching tool of hope employed by the prophet. Ezekiel makes clear that the prophesied conflict and demise of Gog is something that will occur after* Israel is restored to the promised land (38:8, 11, 14). By including this prophecy here, Ezekiel is showing the exiles that God is already thinking about and planning their new life in the restored Promised Land, to which they will soon return. This prophecy is a means of emphasizing the certainty of God’s promise to restore His people to their land.

Keep this in mind for next week’s reading when “Gog and Magog” will be appearing in Revelation 20!

EZEKIEL 40-48: EZEKIEL’S TEMPLE

Most of the final nine chapters of Ezekiel are a description of Ezekiel’s vision of a temple. There are many similarities to the temple that Ezekiel describes and the temples of Solomon and Herod, for instance. the dimensions for the holy room and the great hall described in 41:13-14 are identical to both of these versions. However, neither of the temple versions that have actually been constructed match what Ezekiel describes here. I think that it is best to understand Ezekiel’s description of the temple as apocalyptic. It was a revelation given to Ezekiel meant to portray the spiritual reality of the promised and coming restored relationship between God and His chosen people. Understood this way, Ezekiel’s prophecy may extend further beyond the second temple, to a description of the messianic age

We have observed how the book of Ezekiel is related to apocalyptic literature. If one views this passage in that way, chapters 40-48 predict in highly symbolic terms the Messianic age. The proponents of the position insist that the prophecy must remain anchored in history and not lifted above it. Further, some future realities transcend the ability of human language to describe them, so the familiar and fundamental realities of Israel’s life became the basis for representing the indescribable. It seems that, because the prophecy demand the historical fulfillment, and because the literature is so characteristically apocalyptic, we must insist that the prophecy is fulfilled in part by the historical reconstruction of the Temple in 520-516. Yet to restrict the meaning of these chapters to the historical is to ignore the supernatural elements. So although the restoration led by Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah fulfilled the prophecy in one respect (the Temple was rebuilt), in another respect they did no more to exhaust its full meaning than did the historical return from exile to deplete Isaiah’s program of restoration (e.g. Isaiah. 35, 40, 43 - frequently cited messianic passages in the New Testament). The prophecy calls for both the historical and the eschatological, for as A.B. Davidson says, there is “so much of earth, so much of heaven” in it. (C Hassell Bullock, An Introduction to the Old Testament: Prophetic Books 304).

Revelation 19: The Analogy of Marriage

Jesus himself employed the theme of a king's marriage supper for his son (Matthew 22.1-14; see too Matthew 25.1-13), and hinted at the further related theme, that of the appropriate clothing for the wedding. Here John's vision, drawing on all of these, focuses on the fact that the great moment has come at last. This is what the world had been waiting for, ever since Genesis 1, ever since the covenant with Abraham (which always envisaged the birth of a family), ever since the covenant with Moses, ever since the renewal of the covenant promised at the time of the exile. Marriage is the ultimate covenant, Jesus is the ultimate bridegroom. And though John uses his imagery freely enough to allow the church to be both the bride and the guests invited to the bridés wedding party (verse 9), this should not distract us from the sense of fulfilment, of excitement, of rightness and fitness, that emerge at last after the sorry tale of human rebellion, wickedness, pride and arrogance has run its course.

NT Wright, Revelation for Everyone, 170

Revelation 19: The Conquering Jesus

Once more, this is symbolic language, truly pointing to a reality which lies beyond it. It would be as much a mistake to suppose (as some, sadly, have done) that this passage predicts, and legitimates in advance, an actual military battle between followers of Jesus and followers of other gods as it would be to suppose that the reality which corresponds to the monster that comes up from the sea is an actual physical creature with the heads, horns and so on described in chapter 12. The victory here is a victory over all pagan power, which means a victory over violence itself. The symbolism is appropriate because it is taken directly from the passages which speak most powerfully, and are most regularly referred to in the New Testament, of the triumph of the Messiah: Isaiah 11, where the Messiah will judge the nations with the sword of his mouth; Psalm 2, where he will rule them with a rod of iron; Isaiah 63, where he will tread the winepress of the wrath of God. As John's readers know well by now, the actual weapons which Jesus uses to win the batle are his own blood, his loving self-sacrifice:

It is in the light of such imagery that we can make the best sense of the spectacular portrait of Jesus in verses 11-16. This is how the King of kings and Lord of lords comes before the world. The ultimate justice which drives his victorious battle (verse 11) is the justice of God's love, which will not work with anything other than the Word (verses 13, 15), and will not be dressed in anything other than purity and holiness (note the 'shining, pure linen' of verse 14, matching the bride's dress in verse 8). Love will win the day, because in the person of Jesus it has trampled the grapes of wrath once and for all (verse 15).

NT Wright, Revelation for Everyone, 174