Ezekiel 38:20 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Here is a lofty strain indeed, giving us the description of the tokens of God's presence against his enemies; the effects of his displeasure against them are seen on all the creatures, sensible that their Maker is angry, though they know not with whom or for what. If to be interpreted literally, we shall find some parallels: when our God. marched before Israel through the Red Sea, as the waters, so the fishes, saw, trembled, and fled, Psalms 77:16,19. When he breaketh the cedars, Psalms 29:5, and discovers the forests, the birds that make their nests there shake at his presence and power. When Sinai trembled, Lebanon and Sirion skipped like a young unicorn, the creeping things in them no doubt shook, and the beasts feeding on them did no less, Psalms 29:6. But men, apprehensive of God's displeasure, and shaken with their own guilt, shall much more shake. But I think it is a very elegant allusive description of those strange troubles and consternation of men's minds at that day, and so metaphorically to be understood. Mountains may be great ones. Or, possibly, when God comes to judge Gog, he will by his mighty power give the world so great a shake, that it shall be a preface to his dreadful judgment day.