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 39-40.

    Yesterday, I spoke about how Gog appears to be the ruler of Turkey and that current political circumstance makes the alliance and attack described feasible. In today’s passage Ezekiel describes the results of this prophesied attack. Gog’s forces will be overwhelming in size and armament. Their defeat will be just as overwhelming. Ezekiel tells us that after the battle the people of Israel will use the arms and armor (bows, arrows, spears, shields, etc.) as fuel for seven years. Over the years I have read many speculations about how that will be fulfilled, but I have no opinion on the answer to that question. However, a more understandable prediction in this prophecy is that it will take seven months to bury the bodies and clean up after the dead. The part which makes that so believable is that when Ezekiel describes the defeat of Gog he says that fire will rain down on his armies and on his allies, “who live safely on the coast”. That description could be fulfilled with many modern bombs or missiles, but suggests the use of nuclear weapons.
    Having said all of that, the key element of this prophecy is that God will, at some point, bring the people of Israel back to the land of Israel, establish them as a nation, and never allow them to be defeated again. I do not know if we are living in the times described in this prophecy by Ezekiel. There is one portion which has yet to be fulfilled as I would expect from reading this (although perhaps that is because my expectation is inaccurate rather than because it is unfulfilled). The people of the nation of Israel, and the rest of the world, do not yet acknowledge God to the degree i read this as predicting.