Ezekiel 39:4-6 - Exposition

I will give thee unto ravenous birds of every sort ; or, wing. The language depicts an army on the march, followed by jackals, vultures, and other birds of prey, ready to feast upon the corpses of slaughtered men (comp. Ezekiel 33:27 ; 1 Samuel 17:46 ; and Homer's 'Iliad,' 1.4, 5). In addition to destroying Cog, causing him to fall upon the mountains of Israel and upon the open field ; literally, upon the face of the field , Jehovah engages to carry the fire of war and generally of devastation (cf. Ezekiel 33:22 ; Amos 2:2 , Amos 2:5 ; Revelation 20:1-15 :29) into Cog's own land, Magog (see on Ezekiel 38:2 ), and among them that dwell carelessly (better, securely ) in the isles ; or, coast-lands ( Ezekiel 27:7 ); i.e. not merely the merchants of Tarshish or the "isles" of the trading nations mentioned in Ezekiel 38:13 , as Hengstenberg and Plumptre prefer, but, as Smend, Schroder, and Keil explain, all the distant peoples of the coast-lands from whom Gog's armies were drawn ( Ezekiel 38:5 , Ezekiel 38:6 ), and in whom were many of Gog's sympathizers.