Amalek debunks Hyperpreterism – 3
Saul and Agag
I puzzled over Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 for years. Bible commentators suggested many things but nothing seemed to fit the historical context of the surrounding chapters. It seems James B. Jordan was the first to put the pieces together.1
The resurrection of the ‘Valley of Dry Bones’ undoes the bone-scattering prophecy of Jeremiah 8. It is a “Trumpets” resurrection, and “Atonement” against God’s enemies follows in chapters 38-39. The vision of Ezekiel’s Temple in 40-48 is thus “Tabernacles.”
The attack upon Jerusalem and the defeat and plunder of the attackers in the Land is none other than the attempted destruction of the Jews under Haman the Agagite—Amalek—recorded in the book of Esther. The Persian empire stretched from India to Africa, but Ezekiel 38 and 39 focus on the results in Jerusalem. The theological structure of Ezekiel makes this a re-conquest of the Promised Land.
Like King Saul, Mordecai was a son of Kish. Unlike Saul, the Lord’s restored people would cut Agag/Amalek to pieces and would not keep the plunder. It would be “devoted” to the Lord to glorify His house. There are a number of clues that link these chapters to Esther:
- The Lord put a hook into Gog’s jaws, as He does with dragons, and brought many nations against Israel. It was Mordecai who incurred Haman’s anger against all Jews;
- The Jews at the time were living in “unwalled cities”;
- He was attacking a people who had been gathered from the nations, living at the “navel” of the world;
- A miracle in the Land suddenly turned the tables on the enemy, seen by Ezekiel as fire from heaven;
- Gog and his multitude were buried in the valley of Hamon-Gog, a possible pun on Haman the Agagite.
The Canaanite (Hamite) nations lost their kingdoms in the flood of Babylon, but this gave Judah priestly Dominion over a greater Land. In Esther, we see Japhethite nations incited to attack the Lord’s people like a pack of wolves. With the Hebrews as the last true remnant of Shem (Garden), ruling over remnant Canaanites from Ham (Land), the Japhethite Amalek was a beast that rose from the Abyss to stir the Gentile Sea into a conspiracy of nations. But under Mordecai, they submitted like lambs. As the Lord predicted, Ham was outside the ark of Shem, but Japheth was in. Canaanites are always out.
And so was fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of animals lying down together in peace in a restored covenant ark.
But there would be two more attacks from Amalek, both using a conspiracy of nations to attack the people of God.
1 James B. Jordan, Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (I), BIBLICAL HORIZONS, Vol. 8, No. 3.
See also “But Is It In The Bible?” by Gary DeMar, dealing with dispensationalism’s misuse of these chapters in Ezekiel.
