1 And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal;
2 and I will turn thee back, and lead thee, and will cause thee to come up from the uttermost north, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the peoples that are with thee: I have given thee to be meat for the birds of prey of every wing, and to the beasts of the field.
5 Thou shalt fall on the open field; for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell at ease in the isles: and they shall know that I [am] Jehovah.
7 And my holy name will I make known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not suffer my holy name to be profaned any more: and the nations shall know that I [am] Jehovah, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it cometh, and shall be done, saith the Lord Jehovah. This is the day whereof I have spoken.
9 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall kindle fire, and burn weapons, and shields, and targets, bows, and arrows, and hand-staves, and spears: and they shall make fires with them seven years.
10 And no wood shall be taken out of the field, neither cut down out of the forests; for they shall make fire with the weapons; and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and plunder those that plundered them, saith the Lord Jehovah.
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] I will give unto Gog a place there for burial in Israel, the valley of the passers-by to the east of the sea; and it shall stop [the way] of the passers-by; and there shall they bury Gog and all the multitude; and they shall call it, Valley of Hamon-Gog.
12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying them, that they may cleanse the land;
13 and all the people of the land shall bury [them]; and it shall be to them for renown in the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord Jehovah.
14 And they shall sever out men of continual employment to go through the land, who, with the passers-by, shall bury those that remain upon the face of the land, to cleanse it: at the end of seven months shall they make a search.
15 And the passers-by shall pass through the land, and when [any] seeth a man's bone, he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-Gog.
16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
17 And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Speak unto the birds of every wing, and to every beast of the field, Gather yourselves together and come, assemble yourselves on every side to my sacrifice which I sacrifice for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.
18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, [and] of bullocks, all of them fatted beasts of Bashan.
19 And ye shall eat fat till ye are full, and drink blood till ye are drunken, of my sacrifice which I sacrifice for you.
20 And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord Jehovah.
21 And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid upon them.
22 And the house of Israel shall know that I [am] Jehovah their God from that day and forward.
23 And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful against me; and I hid my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies, so that they fell all of them by the sword.
24 According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I did unto them, and I hid my face from them.
25 Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name:
26 and they shall bear their confusion, and all their unfaithfulness in which they have acted unfaithfully against me, when they shall dwell safely in their land, and none shall make them afraid;
27 when I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations.
28 And they shall know that I [am] Jehovah their God, in that I caused them to be led into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.
29 And I will not hide my face any more from them, for I shall have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 39
Commentary on Ezekiel 39 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 39
Eze 39:1-29. Continuation of the Prophecy against Gog.
1. Repeated from Eze 38:3, to impress the prophecy more on the mind.
2. leave but the sixth part of thee—Margin, "strike thee with six plagues" (namely, pestilence, blood, overflowing rain, hailstones, fire, brimstone, Eze 38:22); or, "draw thee back with an hook of six teeth" (Eze 38:4), the six teeth being those six plagues. Rather, "lead thee about" [Ludovicus De Dieu and Septuagint]. As Antiochus was led (to his ruin) to leave Egypt for an expedition against Palestine, so shall the last great enemy of God be.
north parts—from the extreme north [Fairbairn].
3. bow—in which the Scythians were most expert.
4, 5. (Compare Eze 39:17-20).
upon the mountains of Israel—The scene of Israel's preservation shall be that of the ungodly foe's destruction.
6. carelessly—in self-confident security.
the isles—Those dwelling in maritime regions, who had helped Gog with fleets and troops, shall be visited with the fire of God's wrath in their own lands.
7. not let them pollute my holy name—by their sins bringing down judgments which made the heathen think that I was unable or unwilling to save My people.
8. it is come … it is done—The prediction of the salvation of My people, and the ruin of their enemy, is come to pass—is done: expressing that the event foretold is as certain as if it were already accomplished.
9, 10. The burning of the foe's weapons implies that nothing belonging to them should be left to pollute the land. The seven years (seven being the sacred number) spent on this work, implies the completeness of the cleansing, and the people's zeal for purity. How different from the ancient Israelites, who left not merely the arms, but the heathen themselves, to remain among them [Fairbairn], (Jud 1:27, 28; 2:2, 3; Ps 106:34-36). The desolation by Antiochus began in the one hundred and forty-first year of the Seleucidæ. From this date to 148, a period of six years and four months ("2300 days," Da 8:14), when the temple-worship was restored (1 Maccabees 4:52), God vouchsafed many triumphs to His people; from this time to the death of Antiochus, early in 149, a period of seven months, the Jews had rest from Antiochus, and purified their land, and on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month celebrated the Encænia, or feast of dedication (Joh 10:22) and purification of the temple. The whole period, in round numbers, was seven years. Mattathias was the patriotic Jewish leader, and his third son, Judas, the military commander under whom the Syrian generals were defeated. He retook Jerusalem and purified the temple. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, succeeded him: the independence of the Jews was secured, and the crown vested in the Asmonean family, in which it continued till Herod the Great.
11. place … of graves—Gog found only a grave where he had expected the spoils of conquest.
valley—So vast were to be the masses that nothing but a deep valley would suffice for their corpses.
the passengers on the east of the sea—those travelling on the high road, east of the Dead Sea, from Syria to Petra and Egypt. The publicity of the road would cause many to observe God's judgments, as the stench (as English Version translates) or the multitude of graves (as Henderson translates, "it shall stop the passengers") would arrest the attention of passers-by. Their grave would be close to that of their ancient prototypes, Sodom and Gomorrah in the Dead Sea, both alike being signal instances of God's judgments.
13. I … glorified—in destroying the foe (Eze 28:22).
14. with the passengers—The men employed continually in the burying were to be helped by those happening to pass by; all were to combine.
after the end of seven months shall they search—to see if the work was complete [Munster].
15. First "all the people of the land" engaged in the burying for seven months; then special men were employed, at the end of the seven months, to search for any still left unburied. The passers-by helped them by setting up a mark near any such bones, in order to keep others from being defiled by casually touching them, and that the buriers might come and remove them. Denoting the minute care to put away every relic of heathen pollution from the Holy Land.
16. A city in the neighborhood was to receive the name Hamonah, "multitude," to commemorate the overthrow of the multitudes of the foe [Henderson]. The multitude of the slain shall give a name to the city of Jerusalem after the land shall have been cleansed [Grotius]. Jerusalem shall be famed as the conqueror of multitudes.
17. (Re 19:17).
sacrifice—Anciently worshippers feasted on the sacrifices. The birds and beasts of prey are invited to the sacrificial feast provided by God (compare Isa 18:6; 34:6; Zep 1:7; Mr 9:49). Here this sacrifice holds only a subordinate place in the picture, and so is put last. Not only shall their bones lie long unburied, but they shall be stripped of the flesh by beasts and birds of prey.
18. rams … lambs … goats—By these various animal victims used in sacrifices are meant various ranks of men, princes, generals, and soldiers (compare Isa 34:6).
fatlings of Bashan—ungodly men of might (Ps 22:12). Bashan, beyond Jordan, was famed for its fat cattle. Fat implies prosperity which often makes men refractory towards God (De 32:14, 15).
20. my table—the field of battle on the mountains of Israel (Eze 38:8, 20).
chariots—that is, charioteers.
22. So the house of Israel shall know … Lord—by My interposition for them. So, too, the heathen shall be led to fear the name of the Lord (Ps 102:15).
23. hid I my face—(De 31:17; Isa 59:2).
25. bring again the captivity—restore from calamity to prosperity.
the whole house of Israel—so "all Israel" (Ro 11:26). The restorations of Israel heretofore have been partial; there must be one yet future that is to be universal (Ho 1:11).
26. After that they have borne their shame—the punishment of their sin: after they have become sensible of their guilt, and ashamed of it (Eze 20:43; 36:31).
27. sanctified in them—vindicated as holy in My dealings with them.
28. The Jews, having no dominion, settled country, or fixed property to detain them, may return at any time without difficulty (compare Ho 3:4, 5).
29. poured out my Spirit upon … Israel—the sure forerunner of their conversion (Joe 2:28; Zec 12:10). The pouring out of His Spirit is a pledge that He will hide His face no more (2Co 1:22; Eph 1:14; Php 1:6).