Ezekiel 39:10 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

So, Heb. And, they shall not, &c. They shall take: this, as noted before, taken potentially, or speaking what they might, not what they eventually should do; such store of fuel from the weapons and utensils of war left by these Gogites, that the Jews will not need to go to the forests to cut down wood. Or else comparatively, as some will; what they shall need to fetch from the forests shall be nothing in comparison to what they were wont to fetch. They shall burn; they may if they will: it is not preceptive, to make it duty, nor doth it necessarily determine that they must, but there were and would be for all that time who would be burning these weapons, and save the labour and cost of buying and fetching wood; and these who should do this I would look for among the poorer sort. They shall spoil; strip the dead, rifle their waggons and tents, searching what they may find of value and use, in which it is likely the poor among the Jews would be earliest and most diligent. Those that spoiled them; the army of Gog, and his followers. And rob: it was not theft or robbery in the Jews to do this, though it was robbery in Gog and his company to spoil the Jews; but for decorum of the phrase, the prophet useth the same word in both cases.

Ezekiel 39:10

10 So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.