Ezekiel 39:23

And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. BECAUSE THEY TRESPASSED AGAINST ME, THEREFORE HID I MY FACE FROM THEM - (, "I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?" , "Your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear")....

23-29 When the Lord shall have mercy on the whole house of Israel, by converting them to Christianity, and when they shall have borne the shame of being cast off for their sins, then the nations shall learn to know, worship, and serve him. Then Israel also shall know the Lord, as revealed in and by Christ. Past events do not answer to these predictions. The pouring out of the Spirit is a pledge that God's favour will continue. He will hide his face no more from those on whom he has poured out his Spirit. When we pray that God would never cast us from his presence, we must as earnestly pray that, in order thereto, he would never take his Holy Spirit from us....

The purposes of the past dispensation shall be made clear to God’s people themselves and to the pagan. His judgments were the consequence of their sins; and these sins once abandoned, the favor of their God will return in yet more abundance. Ezekiel 39:29 Compare Acts 2:17. Peter distinctly appropriates these prophecies (marginal references) to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the inauguration of the Church of Christ by that miraculous event. This was the beginning of the fulfillment. They shall find their consummation when time shall be no more....

EXPOSITION Of the two main divisions of this chapter, the first (Ezekiel 39:1) depicts the greatness of the overthrow of Gog; the second (Ezekiel 39:21) records the impression made by it upon Both Israel and the heathen, and adds a closing promise to the former. EZEKIEL 39:1 In the first main division Ezekiel repeats the substance of what has already been advanced concerning the defeat of Gog (verses 1-8), after which he strives to represent its completeness (verses 9-20), by setting forth (1) the immense quantity of spoil Israel should obtain from the fallen foe (verses 9, 10). (2) the length of time it should take Israel t

AND THE HEATHEN SHALL KNOW THAT THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL WENT INTO CAPTIVITY FOR THEIR INIQUITY,.... Before this they thought the captivity of the Jews, and all their distresses, were owing to their own weakness, and the weakness of the God they served, and to the superior strength of their enemies, and the power of their gods; but now, by this strange and amazing destruction of Gog and his army, they will see that it was not owing to those things, but to the sins and transgressions of the people of the Jews: BECAUSE THEY TRANSGRESSED AGAINST ME; prevaricated with him, acted a perfidious and treacherous part to him, as the word i signifies; which they did, when they delivered Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah, into the hands of the Gentiles, to be crucified; it is their disbelief of Christ, and rejection of him, and maltreatment of him, that is here more especially pointed at; and which is...

Ezekiel 38:1; Ezekiel 39:1. There will be at that time of restoration a great and final invasion of the land of Israel. Gog and Magog will invade the land “that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people.” The invaders come “against the mountains of Israel which have always been waste; but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely, all of them.” In Ezekiel 38:11, the evil purpose of the invader is made known. From all this we learn that the invasion takes place at the time when the Lord has brought back His people and resumed His relationship with the remnant of Israel. The invasion will happen some time after the beastly empire with its beast head, the revived Roman e

- THE PURPOSE OF THE JUDGMENT. The effect of this decisive judgment is to bring glory to Yahweh's name: for the world must now see that it is not His impotence but His horror of sin that accounts for the calamities and exile of His people. But now their redemption is complete: they will forget (rather than bear in Ezekiel 39:26) the shame of bygone days, and they will live secure and blessed in their own land for ever, because Yahweh has put His spirit within them. The way is now completely prepared for the reconstruction with which the book closes (Ezekiel 40-48)....

INIQUITY. Hebrew. _avah_. App-41. TRESPASSED. committed treachery. Hebrew. _ma'al_ App-44....

Jehovah's dealing with his people Israel is the great lesson which he reads to the heathen; it is the history of Israel in the hand of Jehovah their God that reveals to the nations what Jehovah is. For the nations knew Jehovah only as God of Israel, and it was thus only through Israel that he could reveal himself to them. This last great event in the history of Israel, Jehovah's signal defence of them now that they are his people in truth, casts light on his former hiding of his face from them. Deeper elements than mere power enter into his rule of his people; a conception of God is suggested to the nations unlike any they had hitherto entertained there is a God who is omnipotent and who rules the nations in righteousness, the God of Israel....

2. LEAVE BUT THE SIXTH PART OF THEE] RV 'lead thee on.'...