NOTES for Eze 38:1-23
Through Ezekiel and other prophets, God repeatedly denounced false prophets who predicted prosperity to suit the desires of their listeners. One can say that the distinguishing feature of true prophecy, which comes from the Spirit of God, is the fullness of truth and an astonishing combination of tragedy and hope. This combination is based on the fact that people's real life is filled with suffering, and only the Cross of Christ brings light into it. And true prophets, messengers of the Almighty, never smooth over their words. Therefore, after the promise of the resurrection of the dead in the Kingdom of God, the prophet Ezekiel does not stop, but speaks the whole truth to the end.
Having seen the wondrous vision of dry bones being clothed again with flesh and filled with life, we together with the prophet seem to step back into the distance and see a picture depicting the meaning of history. It is a battle, a clash of God and His people with the forces of evil. So that we could see this and not die, and not despair in horror, the Lord speaks clearly of victory and resurrection, and only then shows us this battle. It takes place in history always, and continues after the victory of God has already become reality.
The people delivered by God do not hide in the cozy shelters of the garden of paradise - no, the saved people of God become a bastion in the battle with evil, and without this the fullness of God's plan cannot be opened to us. Ancient rulers of northern peoples, whose raids inspired terror in those who lived long before the era of the Babylonian exile, are taken as a symbol of the forces of evil. Faceless and terrible, this force comes against the land of Israel, but in the battle with it all the actions are performed by God Himself. The people of God, properly speaking, participate in the battle by their faithfulness to the God who saved them.
Since apostolic times, the Church has spoken of those who have accepted baptism as soldiers of Christ. This idea is most closely connected with the global battle against evil of which the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us here for the first time. We are all called to take part in it, and this participation consists in not surrendering to evil, in keeping faithfulness to the covenant of peace by which God saved us and gave us new life. As the Fathers of the Church emphasized more than once, the field of this battle is human hearts, and God acts in them when we open our hearts to Him.
"Without Me you can do nothing," the Lord Jesus Christ said to the disciples (and to us). These words apply first of all to the battle described by the prophet Ezekiel: none of us can withstand it by human strength. But, abiding in Christ as branches on the vine, we give Him the opportunity to conquer in us and through us.
Both in genre and in content, the prophecy about Gog's invasion is most closely connected with the Revelation of John the Theologian. Both of these witnesses of God, Ezekiel and John, speak of this as an inevitable, terrible, and difficult battle, in which our suffering is united with the suffering of the Son of God on the Cross. It is precisely in the sorrow and anguish of this battle that our suffering acquires meaning; it is precisely here that it becomes life-giving, because we are beside God, together with Him. And, of course, the most important thing for both Ezekiel and John is the good news that God has conquered.