(8) After many days thou shalt be visited.--This clause has been variously interpreted. The expression "after many days" is the common one to indicate that what is predicted is yet far in the future, and corresponds to the "latter years" of the next clause. The words "thou shalt be visited" are the usual form of expressing a coming judgment. Various ingenious attempts have been made, with no great success, to give the words a different sense here. The supposed difficulty arises from not observing that the whole course of Gog is here viewed together as a single transaction. It is not merely his ultimate destruction, but the steps which led to it, his hostile attacks upon the Church, which are represented as brought about under God's providence and forming a part of the visitation upon him. It is as if one spoke now of a man's whole career of sin as a Divine visitation upon the sinner in consequence of his neglect of proffered grace, instead of speaking only of his ultimate punishment.

The land.--Rather, a land. Judaea had been long desolated, but was now restored. The word people here, as in Ezekiel 38:6, is in the plural and marks the gathering back, not from one, but from many quarters.

Always waste.--Literally, continually waste. The mountains of Israel had been by no means always waste, but during the period of the captivity had been so constantly. Yet the word is commonly used for a relatively long period, for which the time of the captivity seems too short. It may therefore, with the dispersion among "many peoples" of the previous clause, indicate the time of the later and longer continued dispersion of the Jews. In the last clause "shall dwell" is not to be taken as a future, but as a description of the existing condition of the people.

Verse 8. - After many days thou halt be visited. The principal controversy raised by these words is as to whether they signify, as Hitzig, Fairbairn, and Kliefoth suppose, that after many days Gog should be entrusted with the command of the aforementioned nations, or, as Ewald, Hengstenberg, Keil, Schroder, Plumptre, and Currey translate, that Gog, who intended to visit Israel, should himself be visited, in the sense of being punished. In support of the former rendering appeal is taken to Nehemiah 7:1; Nehemiah 12:44; and Jeremiah 15:3; but the verb פָםקד when used in this sense is commonly followed by עַל with the accusative of that or those with reference to which or whom the appointment is made or commission issued, and in addition no such commission with reference to these other nations was ever given by God to Gog. In vindication of the second meaning of the words, Isaiah 24:22 and Isaiah 29:6 are ordinarily quoted: while in answer to the objection that it is too soon to talk of punishment for an offense not yet committed, it is customary to reply that, as Jehovah's stirring up of Gog was the first step towards his ultimate overthrow, that stirring up might fairly be described as at least the beginning of his judicial visitation. Havernick's translation, "For a long time thou wilt be missed," i.e. considered as a people that has utterly vanished," is forced; Smend's is better, "After many days thou shalt be mustered," or numbered. In any case Gog's first movement should take place in the latter years; literally, at the end of the years - a frequent prophetic phrase (see Genesis 49:1; Numbers 24:14; Isaiah 2:2; Daniel 10:14; Micah 4:1), here denoting the Messianic era, and should assume the form of an invasion of the land of Israel, which is next described by a threefold characterization.

(1) As a land brought back from the sword, not in the sense of its people having been made to desist from war, through being henceforth peacefully inclined (comp. Isaiah 2:4; Micah 2:8), or of their having ceased to expect war, because of living ever after securely (ver. 11), but in that of having been recovered from its devastations (Ezekiel 6:3-5);

(2) as a land whose inhabitants had been gathered out of many nations - a phrase, which while starting from and including the return from Babylon, manifestly looked beyond that event to the wider dispersion of Israel that should precede the final ingathering; and

(3) as a land whose mountains had been always waste; literally, for a waste continually. If such was their condition prior to the return from captivity, it is undeniable that such has practically been their condition ever since, and such it is likely to continue to be, until the final ingathering of the dispersed of Israel.

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.After many days thou shalt be visited,.... After the Ottoman empire has stood a long time, as it has already; when the many days will be ended that Israel should be without a king and a prince, &c. Hosea 3:4, then shall Gog or the Turk be visited of God, not in a way of grace, but vengeance; he shall be punished for all his iniquities, and his punishment or destruction will be brought about in the following manner:

in the latter years thou shall come into the land that is brought back from the sword; that is, into the land of Judea, the right owners of which shall now be returned unto it; who have been for many years drove and kept out of it by the sword of their enemies; see Jeremiah 31:2 and these "latter years" are the same with the "latter days", in which these people shall seek the Lord and the Messiah, and fear him and his goodness, and return to their own land, Hosea 3:5, when the Turks, enraged at it, will raise a numerous army, and enter it, in order to repossess it. The description of the Jews, who are most manifestly pointed at, is continued: and

is gathered out of many people against the mountains of Israel; or rather, "to the mountains of Israel" (o); for it seems to design the land of Judea, that is, the people of it; who shall be gathered out of the several nations where they are now dispersed, and brought into their own land; described by the mountains of Israel, because a mountainous country, and a very fruitful one; Ezekiel 34:13, and not the army of Gog gathered out of many nations, as before observed, to march against the people of the Jews; though this seems to be the sense of the Targum,

"in the end of years thou shalt come into the land, against which are turned those that slay with the sword, who are gathered out of many people against the mountains of the land of Israel:''

which have been always waste: of a longer time than the seventy years' captivity, even ever since the destruction of it by the Romans; and if the time of the carrying captive of the ten tribes by Salmanezer is respected, it is longer still:

but it brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them; that is, the people of the Jews, the proprietors of the land of Israel, shall now be brought forth out of each the nations where they are scattered, and shall inhabit their own land, and dwell in the utmost security, having nothing to fear from their most potent enemies, even Gog himself; and though he shall come against them in the following manner.

(o) "ad montes Israel", Pagninus, Cocceius, Starckius.