Scripture Daily

Context No. 1225 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 38:7-13: in context

7“‘“Be prepared, yes, prepare yourself, you, and all your companies who are assembled to you, and be a guard to them. 8After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will 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 out of the peoples and they will dwell securely, all of them. 9You will ascend. You will come like a storm. You will be like a cloud to cover the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.” 10“‘The Lord GOD says: “It will happen in that day that things will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil plan. 11You will 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 plunder and to take prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are 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 earth.’ 13Sheba, Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all its young lions, will ask you, ‘Have you come to take the plunder? Have you assembled your company to take the prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”’

Ezekiel prophesies against Gog, a symbolic enemy who will one day come against God's restored people. God describes the scene: in the latter years, Gog will invade a land brought back from war, a people gathered from many nations, now dwelling securely on the mountains of Israel, unwalled and at peace. An evil scheme will arise in Gog's mind: I will go up against the quiet, unsuspecting land of unwalled villages, to seize plunder from a people who dwell securely without bars or gates.

The unsettling thing in this vision is how the enemy targets precisely the people who are at rest. Gog's plan forms because God's people are dwelling securely, unwalled, quiet, at peace; their very peace and defenselessness are what draws the predator. It is a sober picture of a reality the faithful must reckon with, that a season of God-given peace and security is not a guarantee against attack; sometimes the peace itself is what an enemy exploits. But the deeper truth in the chapter, developed in the verses that follow, is that God is the one who has drawn Gog out, hooks in his jaws, precisely so that God may be glorified in defeating him. The invasion of the secure people is not a failure of God's protection; it is set inside God's larger purpose, allowed and even orchestrated so that the nations may know the LORD when he defends his own. The people dwelling securely are not as exposed as the scheming enemy imagines; behind their unwalled peace stands the God who summoned the enemy for his own defeat. What looks like vulnerability is held inside a sovereignty the enemy cannot see. God's people at rest are safe not because no enemy schemes against them but because the God who allows the scheme has already planned its end.

When I am at peace and feel exposed to schemes I cannot control, can I trust that even the enemy's plans against God's resting people are held inside a sovereignty that has already planned their defeat?

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