Ezekielchapter 39
29 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Gog's end on the mountains of Israel: the bow struck from his left hand, the arrows from his right, and the multitude given to the ravenous birds and the beasts of the field, with fire sent on Magog and on the isles. The clean-up is measured in years, seven years burning the weapons for fuel, seven months burying the dead in the valley of Hamon-gog. The birds are summoned to a sacrifice to eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of princes, the scene Revelation 19 calls the great supper of God. Then the turn homeward: the captivity of Jacob brought back, the face no longer hidden, 'for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel.'
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 39 falls in Gog and Magog (chapters 38–39). The northern confederacy gathered against restored Israel. Ancient-enemy, future-adversary, and symbolic readings are all surfaced.
Before it: Restoration promised, chapters 33–37. After it: The Temple vision, chapters 40–48.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 39The history
Burning the weapons for seven years sounds impossible until you remember what ancient weapons were made of. Bows, arrow shafts, spear shafts, clubs and the frames of wicker-and-hide shields were mostly wood. In a country where firewood was scarce and people cooked over dung and thorn scrub, an abandoned army's equipment really would be fuel, and the text says as much: they will not need to gather wood from the field or cut it from the forests.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The seven months of burial is a purity problem, not a tidiness problem. Under the Law, a body in the open field defiled anyone who touched it for seven days, and a hanged man's body had to be buried the same day so the land would not be defiled. A country covered in corpses could not function. So everyone buries, then professional searchers go through the land marking any bone they find with a stake so the buriers can come and remove it. The valley gets a new name, Hamon-Gog, the horde of Gog.
The birds and beasts summoned to eat are the opposite side of the same coin. Being left for scavengers was the standard curse in ancient treaties and inscriptions, the fate reserved for the enemy nobody would honour. Ezekiel turns it into an invitation to a sacrificial feast, which is a deliberately shocking way to put it.
The closing section steps back from the battlefield and explains the whole exile to the watching world. The nations will know that Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, not because God was too weak to protect them. He hid His face from them and gave them into the hand of their enemies; now He brings them back and pours out His Spirit on the house of Israel.
What it meant to them
The exiles' deepest wound was not the loss of the land; it was the suspicion that their God had failed. The last paragraph of this chapter is aimed straight at that, and it uses the word know four times over.
The promise it lands on is total: I will not hide my face from them any more. For people who had watched the glory leave the temple in chapter ten, that single sentence is the turn the whole book had been moving toward, and the next chapter opens the doors of a house it can come back into.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
A. Gog's weapons struck from his hand on the mountains
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.against thee, O Gog: Chapter 39 opens with the same summons that opened the oracle before it, prophesy against Gog, underscoring how certain the sentence already is before a single blow falls. The defeat is described with a soldier's precision, only a sixth part left, the bow struck from the left hand and the arrows made to fall from the right, a warrior stripped of the two things a bowman needs before he ever reaches the field. Fairbairn reads the doubling of the oracle across two chapters as the book's own habit of stating a judgment, then restating it from another angle to press the point home.
Ezekiel 39:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 39:1
“Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,.... As he had been ordered to do before, and must still continue to do it: behold, I am against thee, O Gog; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and to inject terror into him; for terrible it is to have God against any: the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; See Gill on Eze 38:2, the Septuagint version adds "Ros" here as there.”
Ezekiel 39:1
“The present chapter describes the defeat of Evil and the triumph of God and His people. As the prophet predicted the advance of Evil under the figure of the invasion of an actual army; so he declares the overthrow of Evil by the figure of a host routed and slain, and the consequent purification of a land, partially overrun and disturbed.”
Ezekiel 39:2, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:2
“And leave but the sixth part of thee - The margin has, strike thee with six plagues; or, draw thee back with a hook of six teeth.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:2
“And that is it which is here enlarged upon. His soldiers shall be disarmed and so disabled to carry on their enterprise. Though the men of might may find their hands, yet to what purpose, when they find it is put out of their power to do mischief, when God shall smite their bow out of their left hand and their arrow out of their right?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:3, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:3
“I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand - The Persians whom Antiochus had in his army, Eze 38:5, were famous as archers, and they may be intended here. The bow is held by the left hand; the arrow is pulled and discharged by the right.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 4-5)
a.ravenous birds of every sort: To fall to the ravenous birds and the beasts of the field is the curse Deuteronomy pronounces on covenant breakers, unburied and unmourned, and here it falls instead on the invader rather than on Israel. Thou shalt fall upon the open field, for I have spoken it names the certainty of the sentence in the same formula the book has used before, the word itself doing the work no army needs to do. Gill notes the tension the chapter itself will resolve only partly: the birds are called here, yet Israel buries the dead for seven months beginning a few verses later, and the text does not explain how both belong to the same scene.
3. (vv. 6-7)
a.a fire on Magog: The fire sent on Magog and on those who dwell carelessly in the isles extends the judgment past the battlefield to the wider world Gog represents, and the coastlands named echo the same distant reach the previous chapter's coalition list already drew. So will I make my holy name known answers the earlier complaint at 36:20-23, that Israel's exile had let the nations profane God's name by saying of his people, these are gone out of his land; here the name is defended rather than profaned, and the heathen learn it is the Holy One in Israel. The recognition formula lands on both audiences in one pair of verses, Israel and the watching nations together.
Ezekiel 39:6, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:6
“And I will send a fire on Magog,.... On the land of Magog; see Eze 38:2, while Gog is in the land of Israel, and he and his army perish there, his country shall be destroyed by fire, or by some judgment or judgments of God, which shall consume like fire.”
Ezekiel 39:6
“I will send a fire on Magog - On Syria. I will destroy the Syrian troops. And among them that dwell carelessly in the isles - The auxiliary troops that came to Antiochus from the borders of the Euxine Sea. - Martin.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:7, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:7
“In the midst of my people Israel - This defeat of Gog is to be in Israel: and it was there according to this prophecy, that the immense army of Antiochus was so completely defeated. Ands I will not let them pollute my holy name any more - See on 1 Maccabees 1:11, etc., how Antiochus had profaned the temple, insulted Jehovah and his worship, etc. God permitted that as a scourge to his disobedient people; but now the scourger shall be scourged, and he shall pollute the sanctuary no more.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4. (v. 8)
Ezekiel 39:8-10
a.it is come, and it is done: states the oracle's certainty as accomplished before it happens, the prophetic perfect the book uses throughout for what the Lord has determined. Israel burns the invader's weapons for seven years, needing no wood from the forests because the enemy's own armor and spears supply the fuel, a domestic detail the commentators read as making waste itself a sign of how total the defeat was. They shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them turns the coalition's own stated purpose from the previous chapter, to take a spoil and a prey, back upon the takers.
Ezekiel 39:8, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:8
“Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God,.... That is, the salvation of his people, and the destruction of their enemies; the prophecy concerning all this is come to pass, and the whole is accomplished; thus, because of the certainty thereof, it is represented as if the time was actually come, and the thing was really done; for the event is as sure as if it was now fulfilled: this is the day whereof I have spoken; by the Prophet Ezekiel and others; See Gill on Eze 38:17.”
B. Seven years of fuel and seven months of burying
1. (vv. 9-10)
Ezekiel 39:9, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:9
“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).”
2. (vv. 11-13)
a.graves in Israel: Gog is given a place of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers east of the sea, a location the older commentators place near the Dead Sea along a route travelers used, renamed the valley of Hamon-gog for the multitude buried there. Seven months of burying by the whole house of Israel answers the corpse defilement law of Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21, where an unburied or lingering body makes the land unclean, so the cleansing is as thorough as the law requires rather than a mere clearing of a battlefield. It shall be to them a renown makes the labor itself a testimony, the scale of the burial witnessing to the scale of what the Lord did.
Ezekiel 39:11, 3 voices
Ezekiel 39:11
“The prophet pictures to himself some imaginary valley (compare Zec 14:5) at the “east of the sea,” the Dead Sea, a place frightful in its physical character, and admonitory of past judgments. He calls it “the valley of the passengers” (or, passers-by), because they who there lie buried were but as a passing cloud. In Eze 39:11-15 there is a play upon words - there were “passengers” to be buried, “passengers” to walk over their graves, “passengers” to bury them; (or, a play upon the treble meaning of passing in (invading), passing by, and passing through.)”
Ezekiel 39:11
“The publicity of the road would cause many to observe God's judgments, as the stench (as English Version translates) or the multitude of graves (as HENDERSON translates, "it shall stop the passengers") would arrest the attention of passers-by.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 39:11
“There therefore where the greatest number lay slain shall the burying-place be appointed. In the place where the tree falls there let it lie. And it shall be called, The valley of Hamon-gog, that is, of the multitude of Gog; for that was the thing which was in a particular manner to be had in remembrance.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:12, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:12
“And seven months - It shall require a long time to bury the dead. This is another figurative expression; which, however, may admit of a good deal of literal meaning. Many of the Syrian soldiers had secreted themselves in different places during the pursuit after the battle, where they died of their wounds, of hunger, and of fatigue; so that they were not all found and buried till seven months after the defeat of the Syrian army.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:12
“This is an intimation that times of eminent deliverances should be times of reformation. The more God has done for the saving of a land from ruin the more the inhabitants should do for the cleansing of the land from sin.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:13, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:13
“Note, It is for the glory of God when his Israel do that which adorns their profession; others will see their good works and glorify their Father, Matt. v. 16 . And when God is honoured he will put honour upon his people. His glory is their renown.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 14-16)
a.men of continual employment: After the seven months a standing crew of men of continual employment keeps searching the land for any bone still exposed, marking it with a sign so the buriers can find and inter it, a second and finer pass beyond the first general burial. Even a city takes the name of the multitude, Hamonah, so that the land's own map records what happened there. The bench reads the doubled search as the same meticulous thoroughness the book will show again in the measured sanctuary of the chapters ahead, nothing left unaccounted for.
Ezekiel 39:14, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:14
“Men of continual employment - literally, as margin, i. e., men regularly appointed to this business. As the land of Israel represents figuratively the Church of Christ, the purification of that land is a proper part of the figure to indicate such a sanctification and cleansing of His Church, as Paul describes Eph 5:26-27.”
Ezekiel 39:16, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:16
“A city in the neighborhood was to receive the name Hamonah, "multitude," to commemorate the overthrow of the multitudes of the foe [HENDERSON]. The multitude of the slain shall give a name to the city of Jerusalem after the land shall have been cleansed [GROTIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
C. A sacrifice spread for the birds and the beasts
1. (vv. 17-20)
a.every feathered fowl: The sacrifice summons every feathered fowl and every beast of the field to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the mighty, rams, lambs, goats, and bullocks standing for the ranks of a defeated army rather than for animals on an altar. Revelation 19:17-18 takes up the same summons to the birds almost feature for feature at the supper of the great God, a connection the brief for this book names as the reading it is. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots turns the language of a feast on its head, the mighty men and men of war become the meal rather than the guests who eat one.
Ezekiel 39:17, 3 voices
Ezekiel 39:17
“The purposes of the past dispensation shall be made clear to God’s people themselves and to the pagan. His judgments were the consequence of their sins; and these sins once abandoned, the favor of their God will return in yet more abundance. Eze 39:29 Compare Act 2:17. Peter distinctly appropriates these prophecies (marginal references) to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and the inauguration of the Church of Christ by that miraculous event. This was the beginning of the fulfillment. They shall find their consummation when time shall be no more.”
Ezekiel 39:17
“The city - That is, the multitude: the city which is next to this common tomb of Gog. I do sacrifice - The punishment of these God calls a sacrifice, which he offers to his own justice. Upon the mountains - Where more thousands are offered at once, than ever were at any time offered; 'tis a sacrifice so great, that none ever was, or will be like it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:17
“We find a great slaughter represented by this figure, Rev. xix. 17 , &c., which is borrowed from this. There is a general invitation given,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:18, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:18
“Ye shall - drink the blood of the princes of the earth - I need not mention the custom of the Scandinavians: they were accustomed to drink the blood of their enemies out of the skulls of the dead. But this is spoken of fowls and beasts here - rams, lambs, and goats. The feast shall be as grateful and as plenteous to the fowls and beasts, as one made of the above animals, the fattest and best of their kind, (because fed in the fertile fields of Bashan), would be to the guests of him who makes a sacrifice.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:18
“What a mortification is this to the princes of the blood, as they call themselves, that God can make that blood, that royal blood, which swells their veins, a feast for the birds and beasts of prey! (3.) It is the flesh and blood of wicked men, the enemies of God's church and people, that they are invited to.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:19, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:19
“And ye shall eat fat - and drink blood - Who shall eat and drink, etc.? Not the Jews: though Voltaire says they ate human flesh, and are invited here by the prophet to eat the flesh and drink the blood of their enemies; which is a most unprincipled falsehood.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 21-24)
a.set my glory among the heathen: I will set my glory among the heathen states the purpose behind the whole episode, and the recognition formula lands twice in these four verses, once on Israel and once on the watching nations. The chapter is honest about the reason for the exile in the first place, for their iniquity, because they trespassed against me, the same charge the book has laid since its opening chapters rather than blaming the strength of Babylon alone. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them keeps the responsibility where chapter 18 already placed it, on the sinning soul rather than on circumstance.
Ezekiel 39:22, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:22
“They had sometimes been ready to question whether the Lord was with them or no; but the events of this day shall silence their doubts, and, the matter being thus settled and made clear, it shall not be doubted of for the future. As boasting in themselves is hereby for ever excluded, so boasting in God is hereby for ever secured. Mercy Promised to Israel.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:23, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:23
“And it will appear much for the glory of God when the world is made to know, 1. That God punishes sin even in his own people, because he hates it most in those that are nearest and dearest to him, Amos iii. It is the praise of justice to be impartial.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:23
“This prophecy begins as that before ( ch. xxxviii. 3, 4 , I am against thee, and I will turn thee back ); for there is need of line upon line, both for the conviction of Israel's enemies and the comfort of Israel's friends. Here, as there, it is foretold that God will bring this enemy from the north parts, as formerly the Chaldeans were fetched from the north, Jer. i.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D. Israel brought home and the Spirit poured out
1. (vv. 25-29)
a.bring again the captivity of Jacob: The chapter turns from judgment to promise in one sentence, now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, the same named people the dry bones vision has already promised in the chapter before this one. The shame borne and the trespasses confessed come first, and the gathering from the nations follows, mercy answering honest guilt rather than erasing it. I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel closes the book's restoration language on the same note Joel uses and Acts 2 later cites, a connection the church has long read here, while the exposition keeps the verse's own stated recipient, the house of Israel, as the text names it.
Ezekiel 39:25, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:25
“Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob - Both they and the heathen shall know that it was for their iniquity that I gave them into the hands of their enemies: and now I will redeem them from those hands in such a way as to prove that I am a merciful God, as well as a just God.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:25
“Now God will have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, (1.) Because it is time for him to stand up for his own glory, which suffers in their sufferings: Now will I be jealous for my holy name, that that may no longer be reproached. (2.) Because now they repent of their sins: They have borne their shame, and all their trespasses.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:26, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:26
“After that they have borne their shame - After they shall have borne the punishment due to a line of conduct which is their shame and reproach, viz. idolatry.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:27, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:27
“As God was reproached in the reproach they were under during their captivity, so he will be sanctified in their reformation and the making of them a holy people again, and will be glorified in their restoration and the making of them a happy glorious people again.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 39:28, 1 voice
Ezekiel 39:28
“And have left none of then any more there - All that chose had liberty to return; but many remained behind. This promise may therefore refer to a greater restoration, when not a Jew shall be left behind. This, the next verse intimates, will be in the Gospel dispensation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:29, 2 voices
Ezekiel 39:29
“For I have poured out my Spirit - That is, I will pour out my Spirit; see the notes on Eze 36:25-29 (note), where this subject is largely considered. This Spirit is to enlighten, quicken, purify, and cleanse their hearts; so that, being completely changed, they shall become God’s people, and be a praise in the earth. Now, they are a proverb of reproach; then, they shall be eminently distinguished.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 39:29
“And then, [2.] He will never hide his face any more from them, will never suspend his favour as he had done; he will never turn from doing them good, and, in order to that, he will effectually provide that they shall never turn from doing him service. Note, The indwelling of the Spirit is an infallible pledge of the continuance of God's favour.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 39. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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