Burn them with fire – Or, kindle fire with them; or, as in the margin. The weapons of the army left on the field of battle shall be so numerous as to supply fuel for the people of the land for seven years. Seven was a number connected with cleansing after contact with the dead (Num 19:11 ff), and this purification of the land by the clearance of paganish spoils was a holy work (compare Eze 39:12).

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 9. And shall set on fire – the weapons] The Israelites shall make bonfires and fuel of the weapons, tents, c., which the defeated Syrians shall leave behind them, as expressive of the joy which they shall feel for the destruction of their enemies and to keep up, in their culinary consumption, the memory of this great event.

They shall burn them with fire seven years] These may be figurative expressions, after the manner of the Asiatics, whose language abounds with such descriptions. They occur every where in the prophets. As to the number seven, it is only a certain for an indeterminate number. But as the slaughter was great, and the bows, arrows, quivers, shields, bucklers, handstaves, and spears were in vast multitudes, it must have taken a long time to gather them up in the different parts of the fields of battle, and the roads in which the Syrians had retreated, throwing away their arms as they proceeded; so there might have been a long time employed in collecting and burning them. And as all seem to have been doomed to the fire, there might have been some found at different intervals and burned, during the seven years here mentioned. Mariana, in his History of Spain, lib. xi., c. 24, says, that after the Spaniards had given that signal overthrow to the Saracens, A.D. 1212, they found such a vast quantity of lances, javelins, and such like, that they served them for four years for fuel. And probably these instruments obtained by the Israelites were used in general for culinary firewood, and might literally have served them for seven years; so that during that time they should take no wood out of the fields, nor out of the forests for the purpose of fuel, Eze 39:10.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Shall go forth, out of their houses and out of the cities, with joy to see and admire the great goodness of God towards them, and the greatness of his power against their enemies. Shall set on fire: this expression seems to intimate that they should burn these things in the open field or mountains, where they found them; here is no mention made of the carrying any into city or houses, to burn in their chimneys: it may be they should make those fires in token of joy.

The weapons; the warlike provision, instruments, engines, carriages, and waggons, &c., as well as those recounted.

The shields: see Eze 38:4.

The hand-staves, that either their leaders used, like our halfpikes, or perhaps such as they cast like darts at the enemy.

They shall burn them with fire seven years: it may be wondered they burn these weapons, which might be of use to them for defence and safety; but it was done, partly, because they were weapons of the uncircumcised; partly, because they were anathemata, as all Jericho was; but chiefly, in testimony that God was their safety and defence, on which they relied, and would ever since he had so wonderfully delivered, We might read the words thus, they shall kindle with them a fire of seven years, and then the sense would be plain, that there should be such store of weapons and warlike utensils, that, heaped together, they would last so long, being cast into the fire still by such as found them; for it is not unlike they gathered up the weapons, as they did scattered bones, on their walks, as they lighted on them. Others tell us it is a certain number for an uncertain; others, that it is somewhat a proverbial speech, they shall have enough by the spoil of the enemy to make them and keep them warm, much as we sometimes say of one well provided, He is a warm gentleman; and some others tell us it is an expression of the Jews, who love to use this number in extraordinary cases, though they intend not precisely the same, as we say of a thing delayed, It will be seven years ere it come, or of a thing that will serve us a good while, It will last seven years. Or else, since the Hebrew hath not a distinct way of declaring what might be, or the potential mood, as the Latin, but they express possible by future, and say, that shall be, which we express by that may be, the meaning of these futures, they shall, in this and the next verse, is no more than,

they may or might burn for seven years; and so Kimchi glosseth it as to countenance this last guess. They shall be sufficient; and in such a country, where the need of fire is much less than with us, it will not seem very incredible that the warlike utensils of so numerous an army might be enough to furnish them with fuel for so many years, or more.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9, 10. The burning of the foe’sweapons implies that nothing belonging to them should be left topollute the land. The seven years (seven being thesacred number) spent on this work, implies the completeness of thecleansing, and the people’s zeal for purity. How different from theancient Israelites, who left not merely the arms, but the heathenthemselves, to remain among them [FAIRBAIRN],(Jdg 1:27; Jdg 1:28;Jdg 2:2; Jdg 2:3;Psa 106:34-36). Thedesolation by Antiochus began in the one hundred and forty-first yearof the Seleucid. From this date to 148, a period of six years andfour months (“2300 days,” Da8:14), when the temple-worship was restored (1 Maccabees4:52), God vouchsafed many triumphs to His people; from this timeto the death of Antiochus, early in 149, a period of seven months,the Jews had rest from Antiochus, and purified their land, and on thetwenty-fifth day of the ninth month celebrated the Encnia, or feastof dedication (Joh 10:22) andpurification of the temple. The whole period, in round numbers, wasseven years. Mattathias was the patriotic Jewish leader, and histhird son, Judas, the military commander under whom the Syriangenerals were defeated. He retook Jerusalem and purified the temple.Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, succeeded him: the independence ofthe Jews was secured, and the crown vested in the Asmonean family, inwhich it continued till Herod the Great.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth,…. Out of their houses into the streets, where Gog’s soldiers will lie dead, and their armour by them; or rather out of their cities, where they dwelt safely, and where they kept themselves, and were secure from the enemy: these seem to be distinct from the militia of Israel, engaged in battle with Gog; these were the inhabitants that will stay at home, and yet share in the spoil and plunder; see

Ps 68:12, these, after the battle is over, and the victory obtained, of which they will have information, will then march out without fear into the open fields and mountains, where the army of Gog will fall,

Eze 39:4:

and shall set on fire and burn the weapons; the armour of Gog’s army, which they shall find lie by the dead, or upon them; or which they that flee will cast away; these they shall gather together, and lay on a heap, and burn, as sometimes has been the practice of conquerors; or rather they shall take them to their own houses, and make fuel of them, and burn them, instead of wood out of the fields and forests, as the following verse shows:

both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows; which were the weapons that Gog and his associates used; see Eze 38:4,

and the handstaves, and the spears; the “handstaves” were either half pikes or truncheons, as some think; or javelins, as others:

and they shall burn them with fire seven years; which some take to be a certain number for an uncertain, and others an hyperbolical expression; but when it is considered what a vast army this of Gog’s will be, and what prodigious numbers of weapons of all sorts must be carried by them, and the little use of fire in those hot countries: it may be very well taken in a literal sense, and the meaning be, that so great will be the quantity of warlike weapons that will be found and gathered, that they will serve for fuel for the space of seven years.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Total Destruction of Gog and his Hosts

Eze 39:9. Then will the inhabitants of the cities of Israel go forth, and burn and heat with armour and shield and target, with bow and arrows and hand-staves and spears, and will burn fire with them for seven years; Eze 39:10. And will not fetch wood from the field, nor cut wood out of the forests, but will burn fire with the armour, and will spoil those who spoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 39:11. And it will come to pass in that day, that I will give Gog a place where his grave in Israel shall be, the valley of the travellers, and there will they bury Gog and all his multitude, and will call it the valley of Gog’s multitude. Eze 39:12. They of the house of Israel will bury them, to purify the land for seven months. V.1 3. And all the people of the land will bury, and it will be to them for a name on the day when I glorify myself, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 39:14. And they will set apart constant men, such as rove about in the land, and such as bury with them that rove about those who remain upon the surface of the ground, to cleanse it, after the lapse of seven months will they search it through. Eze 39:15. And those who rove about will pass through the land; and if one sees a man’s bone, he will set up a sign by it, till the buriers of the dead bury it in the valley of the multitude of Gog. Eze 39:16. The name of a city shall also be called Hamonah (multitude). And thus will they cleanse the land. Eze 39:17. And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Say to the birds of every plumage, and to all the beasts of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come, gather together from round about to my sacrifice, which I slaughter for you, to a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, and eat flesh and drink blood. Eze 39:18. Flesh of heroes shall ye eat, and drink blood of princes of the earth; rams, lambs, and he-goats, bullocks, all fattened in Bashan. Eze 39:9. And ye shall eat fat to satiety, and drink blood to intoxication, of my sacrifice which I have slaughtered for you. Eze 39:20. And ye shall satiate yourselves at my table with horses and riders, heroes and all kinds of men of war, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. – To show how terrible the judgment upon Gog will be, Ezekiel depicts in three special ways the total destruction of his powerful forces. In the first place, the burning of all the weapons of the fallen foe will furnish the inhabitants of the land of Israel with wood for firing for seven years, so that there will be no necessity for them to fetch fuel from the field or from the forest (Eze 39:9 and Eze 39:10). But Hvernick is wrong in supposing that the reason for burning the weapons is that, according to Isa 9:5, weapons of war are irreconcilable with the character of the Messianic times of peace. This is not referred to here; but the motive is the complete annihilation of the enemy, the removal of every trace of him. The prophet therefore crowds the words together for the purpose of enumerating every kind of weapon that was combustible, even to the hand-staves which men were accustomed to carry (cf. Num 22:27). The quantity of the weapons will be so great, that they will supply the Israelites with all the fuel they need for seven years. The number seven in the seven years as well as in the seven months of burying (Eze 39:11) is symbolical, stamping the overthrow as a punishment inflicted by God, the completion of a divine judgment.

With the gathering of the weapons for burning there is associated the plundering of the fallen foe ( Eze 39:10), by which the Israelites do to the enemy what he intended to do to them (Eze 38:12), and the people of God obtain possession of the wealth of their foes (cf. Jer 30:16). In the second place, God will assign a large burying-place for the army of Gog in a valley of Israel, which is to be named in consequence “the multitude of Gog;” just as a city in that region will also be called Hamonah from this event. The Israelites will bury the fallen of Gog there for seven months long, and after the expiration of that time they will have the land explored by men specially appointed for the purpose, and bones that may still have been left unburied will be sought out, and they will have them interred by buriers of the dead, that the land may be thoroughly cleansed (Eze 39:11-16). , a place where there was a grave in Israel, i.e., a spot in which he might be buried in Israel. There are different opinions as to both the designation and the situation of this place. There is no foundation for the supposition that derives its name from the mountains of Abarim in Num 27:12 and Deu 32:49 (Michaelis, Eichhorn), or that it signifies valley of the haughty ones (Ewald), or that there is an allusion to the valley mentioned in Zec 14:4 (Hitzig), or the valley of Jehoshaphat (Kliefoth). The valley cannot even have derived its name ( ) from the , who passed through the land to search out the bones of the dead that still remained unburied, and have them interred (Eze 39:14, Eze 39:15). For cannot have any other meaning here than that which it has in the circumstantial clause which follows, where those who explored the land cannot possibly be intended, although even this clause is also obscure. The only other passage in which occurs is Deu 25:4, where it signifies a muzzle, and in the Arabic it means to obstruct, or cut off; and hence, in the passage before us, probably, to stop the way. are not the Scythians (Hitzig), for the word is never applied to their invasion of the land, but generally the travellers who pass through the land, or more especially those who cross from Peraea to Canaan. The valley of is no doubt the valley of the Jordan above the Dead Sea. The definition indicates this, viz., , on the front of the sea; not to the east of the sea, as it is generally rendered, for never has this meaning (see the comm. on Gen 2:14). By we cannot understand “the Mediterranean,”as the majority of the commentators have done, as there would then be no meaning in the words, since the whole of the land of Israel was situated to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. is the Dead Sea, generally called (Eze 47:18); and , “on the front side of the (Dead) Sea,” as looked at from Jerusalem, the central point of the land, is probably the valley of the Jordan, the principal crossing place from Gilead into Canaan proper, and the broadest part of the Jordan-valley, which was therefore well adapted to be the burial-place for the multitude of slaughtered foes. But in consequence of the army of Gog having there found its grave, this valley will in future block up the way to the travellers who desire to pass to and fro. This appears to be the meaning of the circumstantial clause.

From the fact that Gog’s multitude is buried there, the valley itself will receive the name of Hamon-Gog. The Israelites will occupy seven months in burying them, so enormously great will be the number of the dead to be buried (Eze 39:12), and this labour will be for a name, i.e., for renown, to the whole nation. This does not mean, of course, “that it will be a source of honour to them to assist in this work;” nor is the renown to be sought in the fact, that as a privileged people, protected by God, they can possess the grave of Gog in their land (Hitzig), – a thought which is altogether remote, and perfectly foreign to Israelitish views; but the burying of Gog’s multitude of troops will be for a name to the people of Israel, inasmuch as they thereby cleanse the land and manifest their zeal to show themselves a holy people by sweeping all uncleanness away. is an accusative of time: on the day when I glorify myself. – Eze 39:14, Eze 39:15. The effort made to cleanse the land perfectly from the uncleanness arising from the bones of the dead will be so great, that after the great mass of the slain have been buried in seven months, there will be men specially appointed to bury the bones of the dead that still lie scattered here and there about the land. are people who have a permanent duty to discharge. The participles and are co-ordinate, and are written together asyndetos, men who go about the land, and men who bury with those who go about. That the words are to be understood in this sense is evident from Eze 39:15, according to which those who go about do not perform the task of burying, but simply search for bones that have been left, and put up a sign for the buriers of the dead. , with the subject indefinite; if one sees a human bone, he builds (erects) a , or stone, by the side of it (cf. 2Ki 23:17). – Eze 39:16. A city shall also receive the name of Hamonah, i.e., multitude or tumult. To we may easily supply from the context, since this puts in the future the statement, “the name of the city is,” for which no verb was required in Hebrew. In the last words, , the main thought is finally repeated and the picture brought to a close. – Eze 39:17-20. In the third place, God will provide the birds of prey and beasts of prey with an abundant meal from this slaughter. This cannot be understood as signifying that only what remain of the corpses, and have not been cleared away in the manner depicted in Eze 39:11-16, will become the prey of wild beasts; but the beasts of prey will make their meal of the corpses before it is possible to bury them, since the burying cannot be effected immediately or all at once. – The several features in the picture, of the manner in which the enemies are to be destroyed till the last trace of them is gone, are not arranged in chronological order, but according to the subject-matter; and the thought that the slaughtered foes are to become the prey of wild beasts is mentioned last as being the more striking, because it is in this that their ignominious destruction culminates. To give due prominence to this thought, the birds and beasts of prey are summoned by God to gather together to the meal prepared for them. The picture given of it as a sacrificial meal is based upon Isa 34:6 and Jer 46:10. In harmony with this picture the slaughtered foes are designated as fattened sacrificial beasts, rams, lambs, he-goats, bullocks; on which Grotius has correctly remarked, that “these names of animals, which were generally employed in the sacrifices, are to be understood as signifying different orders of men, chiefs, generals, soldiers, as the Chaldee also observes.”

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

B. The Completeness of the Destruction 39:920

TRANSLATION

(9) And the inhabitants of the cities of Israel shall go out, and they shall burn the weapons and make fuel of them, even the shields, bucklers, bows, arrows, hand staves, and spears; and they shall make fires of them seven years. (10) And they shall not take wood from the field, nor shall they cut down any out of the woods, for they shall make fires of the weapons; and they shall take spoil of those who spoiled them, and they shall plunder those who plundered them (oracle of the Lord GOD). (11) And it shall come to pass in that day I will give to God a place there for burial in Israel, the valley of those who pass through on the east of the sea; and it shall stop those who pass through; and they shall bury there God and all his multitude; and they shall call it the valley of Hamon-gog. (12) In order to cleanse the land, the house of Israel shall bury there seven months. (13) Yea, all the people of the land shall bury there, and it shall acquire for them a reputation, in the day when I am glorified (oracle of the Lord GOD). (14) And they shall set apart men of continual employment who shall pass through the land burying with those who pass through those who remain upon the face of the ground to cleanse it; at the end of the seven months they shall search. (15) When they that pass through have passed through the land and see the human bones, then a sign shall be erected beside it until the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. (16) And Hamonah shall be the name of a city. Thus they shall cleanse the land. (17) And as for you son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Say to the birds of every sort, and to every beast of the field: Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to MY feast which I am preparing for you, even a great feast, upon the mountains of Israel, that you may eat meat and drink blood. (18) The flesh of the mighty you shall eat, and the blood of the princes of the earth you shall drink; rams, lambs, goats, bullocks, fatlings of Bashan are all of them. (19) And you shall eat fat until you are full, and you shall drink blood until you are intoxicated because of My feast which I have prepared for you. (20) And you shall be filled at My table with horses and horsemen, with mighty men, and with all men of war, (oracle of the Lord GOD).

COMMENTS

In stressing the completeness of the destruction of God Ezekiel flashes three somewhat gruesome pictures before his readers.

1. He points out the immense quantity of spoil which Gods people would obtain from the fallen foe. So vast would be the multitude of the enemies slain that the wood of their weapons would serve Gods people as fuel for seven years (Eze. 39:9). During that period it would not be necessary for men to resort to their usual sources of fire wood. The tables would be turned in that day. Gods people would take spoil from those powerful enemies who had previously plundered Israel (Eze. 39:10).

2. Ezekiel describes the length of time which it would take Israel to bury the dead and cleanse the land from defilement. In Eze. 39:11 God seems to take pity on the fallen multitude of God in that He provides a burial place for them. That spot is identified as the valley of them that pass by. This may be taken as a reference to the valley through which one might pass from the west to the east side of the Dead Sea. The multitude of bodies there would block that thoroughfare. The valley would receive the name Hamon-gog, i.e., the multitude of God (Eze. 39:11). For seven months the house of Israel would transport dead bodies to this remote burial spot. An unburied corpse was a defilement of the land (Deu. 21:23) which had to be removed (Eze. 39:12). The whole population would take part in this mass burial. They would be famous for this noble and horrendous effort. They would share the glory of their God in that day of victory (Eze. 39:13).

After the seven-month period a permanent burial committee would be appointed. They would scour the land looking for unburied bones (Eze. 39:14). Travelers would aid the committee by marking any spot where they noticed bones (Eze. 39:15). Near that valley of Hamon-gog a city would be built to commemorate the victory over Cog. That city would be called Hamonah, multitude (Eze. 39:16).

3. Ezekiel depicts the horrible carnage which would result from the overthrow of Cog. The slaughter of the multitude is regarded as a sacrificial feast to which the birds and beasts are the invited guests. The flesh and blood of the fallen men of God would serve as the sacramental elements (Eze. 39:17). The victims of this sacrificial feast are described as rams, Iambs, goats and the like (Eze. 39:18) which are figures for the mighty warriors of God (Eze. 39:20). The birds and beasts of prey would eat of Gods sacrificial feast, Gods table (Eze. 39:19).

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(9) Shall burn them with fire seven years.The representation of this and the following verse, that the weapons of the army of Gog shall furnish the whole nation of Israel with fuel for seven years, cannot, of course, be understood literally, and seems to have been inserted by the prophet to show that we are to look for the meaning of his prophecy beyond any literal event of earthly warfare.

Eze. 39:11-16 again present the magnitude of the attack upon the Church by describing the burial of the host after it is slain. The language, if it could be supposed it was meant to be literally understood, would be even more extravagant than that of Eze. 39:9-10. The whole nation of Israel is represented as engaged for seven months in burying the bodies (Eze. 39:12-13); after this an indefinite time is to be occupied by one corps of men appointed to search the land for still remaining bones, and by another who are to bury them.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

“And those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go forth, and will make fires of the weapons and burn them, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, the handstaves and the spears. And they will make fires of them for seven years, so that they will take no wood from the field, nor cut down any from the forests. For they will make fires of the weapons, and they will spoil those who spoiled them, and rob those who robbed them, says the Lord Yahweh.”

Note that Israel were all this time safe in their  unwalled  cities (compare Psa 31:21; Psa 127:1; Isa 26:1). Yahweh was their refuge (Jer 16:19; Deu 33:27; 2Sa 22:3; Psa 46:1; Psa 57:1; Psa 59:16 and often). The huge forces had not been able to harm them. They were invulnerable. But now they can safely go out and collect up the weapons, and there will be so many that it will take seven years to burn them. We need not ask how many of the weapons would burn (the inflammable ones, made largely of wood, are mentioned). The emphasis is on the greatness of the victory, demonstrated by the huge quantity of weapons, the fact that Israel now had no need for such weapons, and the fact that what their enemies had intended to harm them with had become a blessing to them. The spoilers had become the spoiled. God’s people have triumphed. As mentioned above seven years is a God-ordained period and a picture of divine completeness. In the end it is the people of God who will triumph.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Clearing Up Operation and the Cleansing Of The Land ( Eze 39:9-16 ).

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 (Eze 39:17-20), 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) (Eze 39:9; Eze 39:12; Eze 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 (Eze 37:1-14), but bones that will be buried forever in the valley of Hamon-Gog, ‘the valley of the hordes of Gog’ (Eze 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 (Eze 39:13-15), not one will be left uninterred. Then all that will be left is God’s people in a pure land (Eze 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.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Eze 39:9. And they shall burn them, &c. That is, for a long time; a certain for an uncertain number. There shall be in the country so great a quantity of military weapons, that they shall serve them for a long time for fuel. We should remember, that they do not make very large fires in those hot countries. Mariana, in his Spanish History, book 2: chap. 24 relates, that after the victory which the Spaniards gained over the Saracens in 1212, they found so many spears, and other warlike weapons of wood, as served them four years for fuel. See Calmet. Bishop Lowth observes, on Isa 9:4-5 that some heathen nations burnt heaps of arms to the supposed god of victory; and that among the Romans this act was an emblem of peace. Among God’s people it might shew trust in him as their defender. Archbishop Newcombe observes on the present passage, “The victory shall be so great, that, during this period of time [seven years], they shall suffice for fires on the mountains, and in the open fields; where the rain shall fall, and whither the inhabitants of the adjoining cities shall occasionally go forth.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eze 39:9 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:

Ver. 9. And they that dwell. ] Hyperbolical expressions; though the Jews hold otherwise. See on Eze 39:1 .

Shall set on fire and burn the weapons. ] Do not the Church’s champions so at this day, ever since they proclaimed and proved the Pope to be that antichrist; burning up his weapons – his false doctrines and heresies – by the fire of God’s Word, and giving their bodies to be burned for the testimony of Jesus?

And they shall burn them with fire seven years, ] i.e., Diutissime et saepissime! Most long and most often. This seven years is not yet out. The Jesuits say Satan sent Luther, and God sent them to withstand him. But there is a succession of Luthers to find them work enough still, and to burn up their weapons that the churches may be at rest.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Eze 39:9-16

Eze 39:9-16

“And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall make fires of the weapons and burn them, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves and the spears, and they shall make fires of them seven years; so that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any of the forest; for they shall make fires of the weapons; and they shall plunder those that plundered them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord Jehovah. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place for burial in Israel, the valley of them that pass through on the east of the sea; and it shall stop them that pass through: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude; and they shall call it the valley of Hamon-god. And seven months shall the house of Israel be in burying them, that they may cleanse the land. Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown in the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord Jehovah. And they shall set apart men of continual employment, that shall pass through the land, and, with them that pass through, those that bury them that remain upon the face of the land, to cleanse it; and after the end of seven months shall they search. And they that pass through the land shall pass through; and when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. And Hamonah shall also be the name of a city. Thus shalt thou cleanse the land.”

TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF GOG AND HIS HOSTS

(Eze 39:9-20)

We have already mentioned our conclusion that these rather long statements about the firewood for seven years and the seven months period of burying the dead are inert features of the prophecy designed merely to stress the great numbers of the hosts of Gog. We have discovered no other meaningful interpretation.

“On the east side of the sea …” (Eze 39:11). Keil informs us that the Hebrew from which this translation is taken literally means “on the front of the sea which, of course, means “east of the sea.” See our full discussion of this under Gen 2:14, where we have exactly the same Hebrew words (Vol. 1 of the Pentateuchal Series, p. 51). The “sea” here “Undoubtedly means the Dead Sea.

“And it shall stop them that pass through …” (Eze 39:11). This is another one of the passages where translators thought they were improving upon the King James Bible when they were not! The KJV has this, “It shall stop the noses of the passengers.” “This means that the strong odor of decay would arrest the attention and impede the progress of all who passed by. This same author also pointed out that this burial place east of the Dead Sea was in the vicinity of the final resting places of Sodom and Gomorrah, both of those having also received terminal judgments from God because of their wickedness.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

shall go: Psa 111:2, Psa 111:3, Isa 66:24, Mal 1:5

and shall: Eze 39:10, Jos 11:6, Psa 46:9, Zec 9:10

set on fire: The language here employed seems to intimate that the army of Gog will be cut off by miracle, as that of Sennacherib; for the people are described as going forth, not to fight and conquer, but merely to gather the spoil, and to destroy the weapons of war, as no longer of use., hand staves, or, javelins

and they: When the immense number and destruction of the invaders are considered, and also the little fuel comparatively which is necessary in warm climates, we may easily conceive of this being literally fulfilled.

burn them with fire: or, make a fire of them

Reciprocal: Jos 11:9 – General 2Sa 1:27 – weapons 2Sa 22:35 – a bow 2Ch 20:25 – it was so much Psa 76:3 – There Jer 51:56 – every Hos 2:18 – I will break Zec 14:14 – and the

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Eze 39:9. The subject is still the successful resistance of Israel against the forces of God. That success is pictured as being so great that they will be able to make fuel out of the weap-ons that were intended to be used against them.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

39:9 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall {e} go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the javelins, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years:

(e) After this destruction the Church will have great peace and tranquillity and burn all their weapons because they will no more fear the enemies. This chiefly refers to the accomplishment of Christ’s kingdom when by their head Christ all enemies will be overcome.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

After the Lord destroyed the forces of Gog, the Israelites would use the enemy’s numerous implements of warfare for fuel for seven years. The Israelites would not need to burn traditional fuel because there would be so many old weapons and implements left to burn. They would also take as spoil what the invaders had brought into the land when they came to despoil the Israelites. God would turn the tables on the invaders.

As in much apocalyptic prophecy (cf. the Book of Revelation), the Lord revealed to His prophet what would take place in pictures that were familiar to him (i.e., contextualized revelation). This language does not preclude the use of modern implements of warfare in the fulfillment. Here the meaning seems to be that there would be so much combustible material utilized in the invasion that the Israelites would burn it for seven years.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)