Ezekiel 39King James Version
Gog falls on the mountains of Israel. It takes seven months to bury the dead. The birds and beasts are called to a great feast. Then Israel will know that the Lord is their God, from that day and forward. And I will not hide my face any more from them.
God continues the Gog oracle: Gog will fall on the mountains of Israel. His weapons will fuel Israel's fires for seven years. The dead will be buried in a valley renamed Hamon-gog, taking seven months to bury. Then God will restore Israel from captivity, pour out his Spirit on all of them, and hide his face from them no more. The chapter ends with the promise that the nations will know God's holiness through the defeat of Gog and Israel's final gathering.
The defeat of Gog is not just military: it is the moment the nations understand that Israel's exile was discipline, not divine abandonment, and that discipline is now over.
29: "Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD." The end of the hidden face is the most intimate form of the restoration promise.
Around 585 to 571 BC. The burial of Gog's army for seven months is a massive operation suggesting the scale of the final assault and the thoroughness of its defeat. The seven-year burning of weapons captures the idea that the last enemy's defeat provides for Israel rather than costing her.
Gog whose army falls on the mountains; Israel whose citizens bury the dead for seven months; the nations who watch and interpret; the LORD who concludes the cycle with Spirit-poured restoration.
The transition from the Gog defeat to the Spirit outpouring at the end of chapter 39 connects the apocalyptic vision to the heart of the restoration promises: chapters 36 and 37's new heart and new spirit now apply globally and permanently. The nations watching Israel's final gathering will at last understand what exile was and what restoration means.
For when you wonder if the estrangement is permanent. The chapter's last word is not about Gog but about the face no longer hidden. That image of restored relationship, after everything, is the real resolution.
1Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:
2And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
9And 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:
10So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.
11And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.
12And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.
13Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD.
14And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search.
15And the passengers that pass through the land, 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 Hamongog.
16And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
17And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.
18Ye 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 bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
20Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.
21And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.
22So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.
23And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword.
24According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.
25Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; 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;
26After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
27When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations;
28Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.
29Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.