(5) Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya.--Having summoned the nations from the extreme north, the prophet now turns first to the east, and then to the south and west. No neighbouring nations are mentioned at all, but only those living on the confines of the known world are summoned to this symbolic contest. The supposition of a literal alliance of nations so situated is out of the question.

Verses 5-7. - These allied nations are depicted as coming from the four quarters of the globe. Persia (see Ezekiel 27:10), from the east; Ethiopia (see Ezekiel 30:5), or Gush (Genesis 10:6), from the south; Libya, or Phut (see Ezekiel 27:10; Ezekiel 30:5), from the west; and Gomer (see Genesis 10:2, 3; 1 Chronicles 1:5), the Cimmerians of Homer ('Odyss.,' 11:13-19), whose abodes were the shores of the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and the Gimirrai of the Assyrian Inscriptions (see Schrader, 'Die Keilinschriften,' etc., p. 80); with the house of Togarmah, from the north, or the extreme regions of the north, as in Isaiah 14:13 (see Ezekiel 27:14). The first three are portrayed as armed with shield and helmet, or more accurately as being all of them shield and helmet, which might signify that they should serve as a shield and helmet to Cog, who in truth should be unto them and their confederates a guard; i.e., according to Keil and Schroder, one who keeps watch over them; according to Miehaelis and Havernick, one who gives them law; according to Hengstenberg, one who is their authority; according to Ewald and Smend, one who serves to them as an ensign, t.¢. acts to them as a leader or commander. The LXX. translation, with which Hitzig agrees, "And thou shalt be to me for a guard," is manifestly wrong.

38:1-13 These events will be in the latter days. It is supposed these enemies will come together to invade the land of Judea, and God will defeat them. God not only sees who are now the enemies of his church, but he foresees who will be so, and lets them know by his word that he is against them; though they join together, the wicked shall not be unpunished.Persia, Ethiopia, and Lybia with them,.... These are the confederates or auxiliaries of the Turks, which shall join with them in this expedition. Persia is a neighbouring kingdom to the Turks, and may fall into their hands before this comes to pass; and is in a fair way for it at this time, through the internal divisions in it; however, it will be confederate with them. Ethiopia or Cush does not design the country of the Abyssines in the dominions of the Great Mogul, but Arabia Chusea, which lay between Judea and Egypt, and is now in the hands of the Turks; and Lybia or Phut is the name of one of the sons of Ham, Genesis 10:6 who, according to Josephus (g), founded Lybia; and from him the inhabitants of it were called Phuteans (as they are here by the Targum); and he observes that there is a river of his name in Mauritania. Lybia is a country in Africa, to the west of Egypt and subject to the Turks:

all of them with shield and helmet; the Lybians are described by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 46:9, as

those that handle the shield; and the Egyptians, to whom the Lybians were near neighbours, and whom they might imitate in their warlike arms, as in other things, wore shields down to the feet, as Xenophon (h) relates.

(g) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 2.((h) Cyropaedia, l. 6. c. 14. & l. 7. c. 11.