Ezekiel

Ezekiel 38-39
When? Where? Who?
The First Question: When?

Nothing frustrates me more than the inability to figure out the meaning of a critical text – such as Ezekiel 38-39. It eluded me for many years. No rapture position (Pretrib, Prewrath, or Posttrib) has dealt with the text to my satisfaction. Now, however, I am comfortable with my conclusion that the fulfillment of this passage must occur after the 1000-year kingdom.

The inherent problem for me was always the references to burning weapons for seven years and burying the dead for seven months in Ezekiel 39:9 and 39:15, respectively. The normal, natural, customary sense of the text demands that those numbers be taken in a literal sense. Nothing about the context, grammar, or historical fulfillment suggests that a non-literal sense is intended. And since the numbers are to be taken literally, Israel must be back in the land and living under divine protection.

In my research I am working through a monograph on Biblical theophanies entitled, God At Sinai: Covenant & Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East by Jeffrey J. Niehaus (PhD Harvard). He is an expert in Ancient Near Eastern literature and Old Testament theology. I was blessed to have him as a professor when I took a course on Old Testament prophetical books and learned a lot from him to which I am grateful.
His work unpacks the different features and kinds of theophanies in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, as well as Ancient Near Eastern backgrounds.
There are a number of nuggets in his work that I will be incorporating into the book I am writing on Prewrath. There are a myriad of theophanies in the Bible, but just to pick out one that strikes me as awesome is when God appeared to Ezekiel. Just to quote one paragraph from Niehaus, he writes:

God appeared also to Ezekiel by the Kebar River–no less awesome (and perhaps more) than at Sinai: “I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north–an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light….This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard a voice like thunder” (Eze 1:4-28, author’s translation)

Just picture that theophany on a global scale! When I read this, I just envisioned how this would play out when Christ comes back. Truly, when Scripture notes that the sign of his Coming with be as lightening, this is certainly not natural lightening, but rather nothing short than his Shekinah-Brightness piercing the darkness with booming-thunder.
It is no wonder that people will be running for the caves to hide. Not just because of the power behind the theophany, but primarily his holiness. Isaiah says of the Day of the Lord that for the ungodly “all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage” and “they look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red.” And Luke exclaims that “people will be fainting from fear.”
But for believers we are told to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
For the ungodly that par excellence of theophanies will be a Shekinah-Judgment. For believers, it will be Shekinah-Deliverance.
Is your spiritual house ready for his awesome Shekinah-Parousia? Will your hands hang limp, or will your head be lifted up?

Ezekiel 38-39

The Awesome Shekinah-Parousia on a Global Scale