I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 37-38.

    I have been looking forward to today’s passage since I began reading the Book of Ezekiel this year. I really love Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. We need to closely heed the message God gives us through Ezekiel here. Ezekiel was prophesying to the people of Israel who felt that the nation of Israel was dead and that it was just a matter of time until they ceased to exist as a people. Ezekiel prophesied to them that God was capable of breathing new life into dry bones. When I read this passage today I thought about several congregations I know which everyone thinks are dead and only still meeting waiting for the last members to die off. I believe that this is always a mistake. Those congregations may appear moribund and the congregants may seem to have become cold, but, as long as the word of God is given at least lip service there, God may breathe His Spirit on that congregation and light a fire for Him which will consume the entire nation. If you are part of a congregation which seems to have lost its fire and died, pray to God for guidance as to whether you should stay or move on. If God tells you to stay, pray that God breathe His Spirit upon the congregation and bring it back to life. If God can turn a valley of dry, scattered bones into a living army, He can bring light that congregation on fire for Him.

    The other prophecy in this passage I want to touch on is the one concerning Gog and Magog. When I was growing up most students of prophesy thought that it applied to the Soviet Union. It made sense because north of Israel there were really only four countries: Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the Soviet Union. Lebanon could hardly be considered the “far north” since it sat on Israel’s northern border, besides which Lebanon would have been known to Ezekiel by that name. Syria was known to Ezekiel as Aram, so he would not have called it Magog. So, we were really only left with two candidates, Turkey and the Soviet Union. At the time, Turkey was closely allied with the West against the Soviet Union and was one of the few Muslim countries which had diplomatic relations with Israel. Further, a historical study of the nations which Gog is listed as ruling over suggests that Meschech and Tubal could refer to lands which were then part of the Soviet Union (there were also people who associated Meschech with Moscow because of the similarities between the two words).
    However, for all of that, the best historical evidence places Magog, Meschech, and Tubal in what is now Turkey. And if we look at the areas which were part of the Soviet Union and could possibly be Meschech and Tubal, we discover that they are now former Soviet states which are majority Muslim. The frightening thing is that current political alignments make this interpretation of the prophecy something not hard to see happening. The allies which are listed seem feasible: Libya, Ethiopia, Persia (Iran). And those warning against such an attack seems plausible as well. Sheba and Dedan are the nations of the Arabian Peninsula and they are currently seeking closer relations with Israel as a counter balance to Iran. The “merchants of Tarshish” is vague, but could conceivably apply to the United Kingdom and the United States. I am simplifying the parts about those advising against because I have already spent more time on this than I like.