Ezekiel 38:13

“Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish, with all their young lions (or ‘all its villages'), will say to you, ‘Are you come to take the spoil? Have you gathered your company to take the prey? To carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil?'

These merchants of Tarshish probably came from the African coast. (We can gather this from 1 Kings 10:22; 1 Kings 22:48; 2 Chronicles 20:36, for Ezion-geber, mentioned in these verses, would not be a port from which ships sailed to Sardinia or Spain). So Arabia and East Africa are seen as standing by ready to trade in the spoils. While they have not attacked the people of God they are ready to benefit from what had happened. There is no earthly support anywhere for God's people. And ‘the young lions' may be intended to indicate that they too were waiting, eager and ready to seize the prey, like a lion pack circling the quarry.

Note.

There is no way that all this can all be referred to Israel in the present day. Israel today is not defenceless (‘unwalled', ‘without walls, and having neither bars nor gates'), indeed she has powerful defences. No one will descend and catch her napping. But she does not ‘dwell securely' She has to be constantly on the alert. Nor is she now the true Israel of God. Nor is she established in an everlasting land (Ezekiel 37:26).

However if there were a great movement of the Spirit bringing a large number of Israelis to recognise Jesus as their Messiah and become part of the new Israel, so that there was a firm witness in Jerusalem (see Revelation 11), there might be a case for seeing a secondary more literal fulfilment alongside the spiritual fulfilment.

Then interestingly the situation could be applied to the Muslim threat against Israel. All the places mentioned are mainly Muslim countries. They take in much of the Muslim world. And fanatical Muslims gathered round a fanatical Muslim leader could also theoretically be the source of the monotheistic religion spoken of in Revelation in the worship of the beast who came from the Abyss (Revelation 16:12; Revelation 17:11; Revelation 19:19) which sought to destroy the people of God. But this is secondary to the main issue and interpretation. And we must be wary of speculation. For a long time it was Russia that was seen as the great enemy. History makes fools of us all.

End of note.