Ezekiel 39: 1-10 The Destruction of the Armies of Gog

¹ And you, mortal, prophesy against Gog, and say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal! ² I will turn you around and drive you forward, and bring you up from the remotest parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel. ³ I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. ⁴ You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples that are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every kind and to the wild animals to be devoured. ⁵ You shall fall in the open field; for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD. ⁶ I will send fire on Magog and on those who live securely in the coastlands; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

⁷ My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. ⁸ It has come! It has happened, says the Lord GOD. This is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹ Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them — bucklers and shields, bows and arrows, handpikes and spears — and they will make fires of them for seven years. ¹⁰ They will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any trees in the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons; they will despoil those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord GOD.

Gog of Magog, the great leader of the worldwide forces arrayed against Israel is portrayed both as a powerful avaricious leader and as a powerless disarmed creature utilized by God to demonstrate the superiority of the LORD. Similar to the image of the Pharoah of Egypt as a great river ‘dragon’ hooked and pulled out of his residence in the Nile River, now Gog is driven out of its home in the north to its place of slaughter in the mountains of Israel. This leader who could rouse the armies of north, south and east to attack and plunder helpless Israel now finds himself helpless and being pulled into a trap by the Holy One in Israel. This conqueror of nations now looses the bow and arrows in their hands and his armies are reduced to carrion for the birds of the air and the wild animals. The mighty opponent of Israel has been brought low by the Divine Warrior, the God of Israel who both draws the opponent to the mountains of Israel and destroys this enemy to the land and people. Not only is the army of Gog destroyed, but even the homeland is destroyed by fire. Even those who perceive themselves safe from the consequences of war discover that the reach of the LORD can impact them in their safe places in the north and along the coastline.

Those who have been walking through Ezekiel will not be surprised that the motivation of the LORD is the reputation of the holy name of God. The LORD’s name has suffered by the exile of the people, even though for Ezekiel the punishment was justified, and now the defeat of Gog becomes a means by which the divine reputation is restored and the nations come to know the LORD. Never again would the LORD tolerate the disrespect and desecration of the holy name. In verse seven the attribute of holiness is lifted up three times, twice in relation to the name of God and once in the title the Holy One in Israel. The title the Holy One in Israel is similar to Isaiah’s Holy One of Israel[1] but rather than using the relation of a genitive case Ezekiel uses the locative ‘in.’ Ezekiel’s title locates God in the midst of the land of Israel, and although there is a restored relationship in the previous chapters the locative linkage is probably stronger in Ezekiel’s conception.

In the name Jerusalem is the Hebrew word for peace shalom, yet this city of peace has rarely known a peaceful generation. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright can remind us about Israel,

Every forty-four years out of the last four thousand, on average, an army has marched through it, whether to conquer it, to rescue it from someone else, to use it as a neutral battleground on which to fight a different enemy, or to take advantage of it as the natural route for getting somewhere else to fight. (Wright, 1992, p. 3)

Even today Israel remains a contested space where many long for an elusive peace. It is not surprising that throughout the scriptures of Israel there are numerous images of the LORD bringing an end to war.[2] Now the weapons of war are utilized as the wood for the fires for cooking and heating for seven years. In contrast to many other images creating a bonfire where spear and shield are consumed, now the dropped shield, bows, arrows, javelins,[3] and spears provide a sabbath for the war-torn land allowing seven years for the trees to regrow and recover after war.[4] Those who came to conquer are conquered, those who hoped to pillage are now pillaged, and the people and land in this image have a much needed rest from war.

Ezekiel 39: 11-16 The Burial of Gog and The Purification of the Land

¹¹ On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers east of the sea; it shall block the path of the travelers, for there Gog and all his horde will be buried; it shall be called the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹² Seven months the house of Israel shall spend burying them, in order to cleanse the land. ¹³ All the people of the land shall bury them; and it will bring them honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord GOD. ¹⁴ They will set apart men to pass through the land regularly and bury any invaders who remain on the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; for seven months they shall make their search. ¹⁵ As the searchers pass through the land, anyone who sees a human bone shall set up a sign by it, until the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹⁶ (A city Hamonah is there also.) Thus they shall cleanse the land.

There has always been a connection between humanity and the earth in the Hebrew scriptures, and for the Jewish people the burial of a corpse was not merely a sanitation requirement, it was placed in the law as a requirement for a right relationship with the land. That is why Deuteronomy 21: 23 refuses to allow for a person executed to remain unburied overnight. The removal and burial of the bones of the forces of Gog is a required portion of the purification of the land. Bones have played an important part of this section of Ezekiel, in chapter thirty-seven Ezekiel found himself amidst the bones of Israel which were regenerated into a large host of a reborn people but now Ezekiel and the people must deal with the bones of the army of Gog which are the remnants of a large host littering and contaminating God’s land.

Like many aspects of chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine, the location of the burial of the forces of Gog has prompted various speculations about the ‘Valley of Travelers’ which becomes the ‘Valley of Hamon-gog.’ The ‘Valley of Travelers’ may be a variant spelling of the Valley of Abarim (Valley East of the Sea-in this instance the Dead Sea).[5] But this mass of graves may be intended as a blockage of transit through Israel by the nations. The title the ‘Valley of Hamon-Gog” (ge hamon gog) may be a play on the Valley of Hinnom (ge hinnom) which in both the books of Kings and Chronicles is a place where child sacrifice was practiced in Molech worship. Jeremiah references this valley:

And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come to my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. Jeremiah 7: 32-33.

Regardless of whether the Valley of Hamon-Gog and the Valley of Hinnom are the same, these places become graveyards that are filled with the dead until there is no more room.

The land previously received a seven-year sabbath from the need of the people to cut wood, now the people spend seven months gathering and burying the bodies of the armies of Gog. A group of people are set aside for the purpose of gathering, transporting, and burying these bodies. The entire people is to participate in the identification of remains that need burying, and it is only once this period of burial is completed that the land can be cleansed from the defilement of death.

Ezekiel 39: 17-20 The Feast of the Carrion Eaters

¹⁷ As for you, mortal, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every kind and to all the wild animals: Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth — of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ You shall eat fat until you are filled, and drink blood until you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. ²⁰ And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with warriors and all kinds of soldiers, says the Lord GOD.

Both the ordering and the presence of commemoration of the feast for the carrion eaters is strange. Ezekiel does not shy away from grotesque subjects but he does also have a pretty strong orientation towards priestly ideas of purity and the language of ‘the sacrificial feast’ or zebah meal points to the meals shared around the sacrifices done in the temple. Here the zebah meal is turned on its head, instead of sacrificial animals feeding both the priests and the community, now animals gather to feast on this sacrificed community of Gog. In addition, this section follows a time of gathering together the bones of the army of Gog for burial in the valley of Hamon-gog, and would probably make better sense before that section. Yet, ancient writers are not bound by the same expectations of linear progression that most modern authors utilize.

In spite of the strange placement and the inverting of the sacrificial imagery it does point to a normal process in the aftermath of a battle where bodies cannot be swiftly buried. The language also continues to bring down the mighty where kings become carrion and the mighty the meat for the scavengers including vultures, eagles, ravens and crows along with the wild animals, presumably jackals, hyenas, wolves, and lions. Mighty warriors and princes are now linked with the sacrificial animals: lambs, goats, bulls. The bulls of Bashan are frequently mentioned throughout scriptures and are a highly valued animal for sacrifice and food. In addition to the warriors who are left on the field are the horses and other animals utilized by the army.

War is a destructive process and death and the animals who feed on dead corpses have always evoked a range of emotions from discomfort to disgust. Yet, these birds and wild animals are fulfilling an essential function in helping to remove the bodies from the battlefield. For Ezekiel, who viewed the world through the priestly lens of clean and unclean, this focus on both corpses and corpse eaters (both unclean) was probably distasteful. Yet, for Ezekiel there is also a desire to demonstrate God’s unopposed power. Even still, the sacrificial feast being comprised of unclean bodies for unclean animals may have been a challenging vision for Ezekiel and continues to be uncomfortable for those reading these words.

Ezekiel 39: 21-29 The Glorification of God and the Renewal of Israel

²¹ I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. ²² The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward. ²³ And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt treacherously with me. So I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. ²⁴ I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

²⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid, ²⁷ when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind; ²⁹ and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD.

Throughout the book of Ezekiel there has been a focus on the reputation of the LORD. The holy name of the God of Israel has been defiled and desecrated throughout the book, but now before both Israel and the nations the honor has been restored to God’s name and the LORD will jealously defend this honor. The nations who have assumed that Israel’s captivity and exile demonstrated the weakness of the LORD now understand that Israel’s exile was a result of their disobedience. God chose to allow the Assyrians and Babylonians to take the people of Israel away as a consequence for their sins. Yet, within the law there is always an ending to the consequences of disobedience. Deuteronomy 4: 30-31 is a good representation of this:

In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the LORD and heed him. Because the LORD your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.

In contrast to the language of Deuteronomy, the prophet Ezekiel rarely utilizes mercy as a characteristic of God, and here in verse twenty-five is the only occurrence of the word mercy (Hebrew rhm) in the entire book. Here God’s merciful action towards Israel is not motivated by Israel’s return to the LORD, but instead is a result of God being jealous for God’s holy name. Regardless, it does bring about a restoration of the fortunes of Jacob[6] and a regathering of the people from their exile back to the land of Israel. Ezekiel likely anticipates the people of Israel receiving the new heart and spirit he mentioned in chapter thirty-six as the spirit of God if poured out upon Israel. A restored reputation of the divine name requires a people of a new spirit of obedience so that God never hides God’s face in the future.

[1] Isaiah 12:6, 43:5, 55:5, 60:9,14.

[2] Isaiah 2:2-5, 9:5, Micah 4:3-4, and Psalm 46:9 are some of the images that resonate with Ezekiel’s imagery of the weapons of war being used as fuel for the fire.

[3] NRSV handpikes.

[4] In ancient warfare the trees of an invaded land were used for both the creation of weapons, but also siege works and the fires of the armies. Trees which bore fruit may also be destroyed as a way of denying produce to an invading enemy or to punish the people. Warfare has always exacted a heavy price on the land it occurs on.

[5] Numbers 33: 47-48 has the people of Israel camped in the mountains of Abarim before they enter the plains of Moab by the Jordan Sea at Jericho. (NIB VI: 1525)

[6] A phrase used only here and in Psalm 85:1.