Verse 12
To take a spoil, and to take a prey ,.... These are the words of Gog continued; suggesting that he should have no occasion to fight; should have nothing else to do but to seize upon the goods and plunder the substance of these people:
to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited : such as were before desolate, and had lain long so, but now peopled and cultivated; these he would attack and demolish, and make a spoil and prey of:
and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations ; a description of the Jews, as before; Ezekiel 38:8 .
which have gotten cattle and goods ; so that it should seem that Gog or the Turks will not immediately attack the Jews upon their possession of the land of Judea; but some time after, when they have settled in it, and have acquired much wealth and riches in cattle and goods, and then think to have a fine booty of them:
that dwell in the midst of the land ; or, "the navel of the land" F16 על טבור הארץ επι τον ομφαλον της γης , Sept.; "in vel super umbilico terrae", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Starckius. ; which may design Jerusalem, situated in the midst of the land of Israel, and so called the navel of it, as that is in the midst of the body; as Enna is said by Cicero to be the navel of Sicily: or, as Kimchi thinks, the land of Israel itself is meant; which is in the midst of the world, and so the navel of it; though the former seems best.
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