Ezekiel 39:12
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For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This chapter continues and concludes the prophecy against Gog and Magog, in whose destruction God crowns his favour to his people Israel, which shines very brightly after the scattering of that black cloud in the close of this chapter. Here is, I. An express prediction of the utter destruction of Gog and Magog, agreeing with what we had before (Eze 39:1-7). II. An illustration of the vastness of that destruction, in three consequences of it: the burning of their weapons (Eze 39:8-10), the burning of their slain (Eze 39:11-16), and the feasting of the fowls with the dead bodies of those that were unburied (Eze 39:17-22). III. A declaration of God's gracious purposes concerning his people Israel, in this and his other providences concerning them, and a promise of further mercy that he had yet in store for them (Eze 39:23-29).
Open source ↗39:12-16 The body count would be so large that everyone in Israel would be involved in the clean-up process for seven months. Even after that initial period, there would be a continuing need for teams of professional morticians to go through the land, tagging remains so that they could be properly disposed of.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
And men will be employed to continually pass through the land to cleanse it by burying the invaders who remain on the ground. At the end of the seven months they will begin their search.
(Even the city will be named Hamonah.) And so they will cleanse the land.
Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.