God will fight against the invading nations under Gog as He did in the former “day of battle.” This will occur after Jerusalem has been captured and half of the city is taken into exile. Gog and Magog will appear victorious and will be helping themselves to the goods. Then God will fight for Israel to show this is His victory. God will simultaneously use the various miracles that were done on separate occasions in the past—for example, overflowing rain, earthquake, disease, confusion. The miracles will remind the Holy Remnant that God is fighting for them as in days of old.
Note: Each of the coming dozen or so judgments would be sufficient to decimate the enemy, but Gog will be the recipient of many judgments. Some will die this way, some that way, etc. In retrospect, the Holy Remnant survivors will realize the Old Testament miracles were all true. This great battle of God Almighty will have greater significance along natural lines than anything in the past.
Earlier in Zechariah 14 we saw that Gog will take a spoil when Jerusalem is captured and the houses are rifled. However, when God saves Israel, the reverse will be true. Then Israel will take a spoil. Ezekiel 38:12 shows Gog’s taking a spoil. Ezekiel 39:9,10 tells of Israel’s spoil. It will take seven years to convert Israel’s booty from weapons of war to farm implements. “And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: 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.” Burning the weapons will eliminate the need to cut down trees for firewood.
