Ezekiel 39:9-16

The Clearing Up Operation and the Cleansing Of The Land (Ezekiel 39:9).

Concentration on the detail here can obscure the significance of the whole. The main points being brought out are the massiveness of what has to be dealt with, and the importance of making the land totally ‘clean'. Attention is drawn to the vast amounts of armour, the huge number of bodies picked clean by the scavengers (Ezekiel 39:17), and the awful judgment that has come upon the nations because they trifled with God and His people. Note the emphasis on the number seven, the number of divine completeness (throughout the whole of the Near East) (Ezekiel 39:9; Ezekiel 39:12; Ezekiel 39:14). This brings out the idealistic nature of the passage. The prophet's aim is not to bring out how long it will take as a matter of record, but the divine completeness of the judgment.

Another major point is that what is left of the nations will be buried. Not here dry bones that will live after the battle (Ezekiel 37:1), but bones that will be buried forever in the valley of Hamon-Gog, ‘the valley of the hordes of Gog' (Ezekiel 39:11), which will ever bear witness to the fact that for these there will no resurrection to life. Note the emphasis on the fact that all will be buried (Ezekiel 39:13), not one will be left uninterred. Then all that will be left is God's people in a pure land (Ezekiel 39:16). All will have been done away.

This was Ezekiel's way of presenting the final triumph of the people of God and the judgment of the nations opposed to God. From now on for ever the people of God will rest in safety and purity. All tears will have ceased. The last enemy has been destroyed.