The Glorious Janitorial Work of God Text: Ezekiel 39:11-16
Introduction: The Aftermath of Audacity
We live in an age that has a high view of man and a correspondingly low view of God. Men strut and posture on the world stage, imagining that their plans, their armies, and their ideologies are the engines of history. They gather their multitudes, their Gogs and Magogs, and set their faces against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us." This is the constant, monotonous rebellion of man, from Babel to the United Nations.
But the God of the Bible is not a celestial spectator, wringing His hands over the course of events. He is the sovereign Lord of history, and He laughs at the audacity of His enemies. In the previous chapter, God lures the great northern horde of Gog down into the mountains of Israel. This is not an accident of history; it is a divine appointment. God sets a hook in their jaw and drags them to the place of their own destruction, all so that He might vindicate His holy name before the nations.
What we have in our text today is the aftermath. It is the cleanup. And we must not miss the profound theology embedded in this graphic, almost grotesque, description of a massive burial operation. We tend to spiritualize things in a way that detaches them from the grimy realities of history. We like our victories clean and abstract. But God's victories are earthy. They have consequences that you can see, smell, and touch. The defeat of God's enemies is not a theoretical concept; it results in a valley full of bones that must be dealt with. This passage is a picture of the overwhelming, comprehensive, and definite nature of Christ's victory over His foes. It is a victory so vast that it takes seven months of sanitation work just to tidy up the battlefield.
This is not, as some would have it, a prophecy about a future battle with Russia that we are to watch for on CNN. That kind of newspaper exegesis dishonors the text and misses the point entirely. Ezekiel is using the prophetic language of his day to describe the great collision between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men that would be inaugurated by the coming of Christ. Gog is a symbolic name for the archetypal enemy of God's people. This is about the triumph of the Church over the world, a triumph so complete that the world itself is cleansed of the filth of its rebellion. This is a postmillennial vision, a vision of the steady, inexorable advance of the kingdom of God in history, an advance that leaves the corpses of its defeated enemies behind.
The Text
“And it will be in that day, that I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea, and it will block off those who would pass by. So they will bury Gog there with all his multitude, and they will call it the valley of Hamon-gog. And for seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. Even all the people of the land will bury them; and it will be unto their name on the day that I glorify Myself,” declares Lord Yahweh. “Now they will set apart men who will continually pass through the land, burying those who were passing through, even those left on the surface of the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search. And those who pass through the land will pass through, and when anyone sees a man’s bone, he will set up a marker by it until the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. And even the name of the city will be Hamonah. So they will cleanse the land.”
(Ezekiel 39:11-16 LSB)
God's Appointed Grave (v. 11)
We begin with the divine initiative in this great burial project.
"And it will be in that day, that I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea, and it will block off those who would pass by. So they will bury Gog there with all his multitude, and they will call it the valley of Hamon-gog." (Ezekiel 39:11)
Notice who is the active agent here. "I will give Gog a burial ground." Gog came to seize a land, and God gives him one, but it is only six feet of it, multiplied by millions. This is the biting irony of our sovereign God. The enemies of God always receive what they seek, but never in the way they intended. They seek glory and find shame. They seek a kingdom and are given a grave. God is the one who appoints the very place of their final humiliation.
The location is significant. It is "in Israel," the very land they came to destroy. Their lust for conquest ends with their bones fertilizing the soil of God's people. The valley is described as being "east of the sea," likely the Dead Sea, and it is a major thoroughfare, a place for "those who pass by." The sheer number of corpses is so immense that it blocks the road. The normal traffic of life and commerce is brought to a halt by the scale of God's victory. The world has to stop and take notice. This is not a quiet, back-alley victory. It is a public, road-blocking, world-stopping triumph.
And God not only gives the grave, He names it. Or rather, He prompts His people to name it. "They will call it the valley of Hamon-gog." Hamon simply means "multitude." It is the Valley of the Multitude of Gog. This is a permanent memorial to the utter futility of rebelling against the Almighty. Every time someone passed by that valley, they would be reminded of what happens when the pride of man crashes against the rock of God's sovereignty. History is littered with the valleys of Hamon-gog, places where the enemies of Christ made their last stand and were obliterated.
A Seven-Month Cleansing (v. 12-13)
The sheer scale of the cleanup operation is described next, and it is a task for the entire covenant community.
"And for seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. Even all the people of the land will bury them; and it will be unto their name on the day that I glorify Myself," declares Lord Yahweh. (Ezekiel 39:12-13 LSB)
The number seven in Scripture is the number of completion, of perfection. A seven-month burial project signifies a complete and total cleansing. The land had been threatened with defilement by this pagan horde, and now it must be thoroughly purified. Under the Old Covenant law, contact with a dead body rendered a person ceremonially unclean (Numbers 19:11). The presence of these unburied corpses is a massive source of ritual defilement for the entire nation. Therefore, the burial is not just a practical matter of sanitation; it is a religious duty, an act of consecrating the land back to God.
This is a picture of the work of the Church. The gospel comes into the world, which is a vast graveyard of spiritual corpses, a land defiled by sin and death. The task of the Church, over the course of this age, is to "cleanse the land." We do this by proclaiming the resurrection of Christ, which buries the old man of sin and raises a new man to life. Every conversion is a burial of Gog. Every time a sinner is brought from death to life, the land is being cleansed.
Notice that this is a corporate effort: "the house of Israel," "all the people of the land." This is not a job for a specialized few. The cleansing of the land, the work of the Great Commission, is the task of the entire Church. And what is the result? It will be "unto their name," that is, it will bring them renown and honor, "on the day that I glorify Myself." God is glorified in the defeat of His enemies, and His people share in that glory as they participate in the work. When we engage in the work of the gospel, we are not just saving souls; we are participating in God's great project of glorifying His own name by cleansing the world.
Systematic Sanctification (v. 14-16)
The process is not haphazard. It is organized, diligent, and systematic, pointing to the thoroughness of God's work.
"Now they will set apart men who will continually pass through the land, burying those who were passing through, even those left on the surface of the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search." (Ezekiel 39:14 LSB)
After the initial, massive, seven-month effort by everyone, a permanent crew is established. These are men "set apart" for the specific task of continually patrolling the land. Their job is to find any remaining vestiges of death and deal with them. This is a picture of the ongoing work of sanctification in the life of the believer and the Church. The initial victory is decisive, just as our justification in Christ is decisive. But there is a cleanup operation that follows. We must continually be about the business of finding and burying the remaining pockets of sin in our lives and in our communities.
This is not a passive activity. At the end of the seven months, "they will make a search." They are actively looking for any remaining defilement. We are to be diligent in rooting out sin. We are to search our own hearts, our families, and our churches for any stray bone of rebellion that would defile the land God has given us.
The process for dealing with this is specific and orderly.
"And those who pass through the land will pass through, and when anyone sees a man’s bone, he will set up a marker by it until the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. And even the name of the city will be Hamonah. So they will cleanse the land." (Ezekiel 39:15-16 LSB)
Here we see a division of labor. The ordinary person who is just "passing through" is not to touch the bone himself, lest he become unclean. His job is to identify it and mark it. He sets up a signpost. Then the specialists, the "buriers," come and dispose of it properly in the designated place, the valley of Hamon-gog. This is a beautiful picture of how the body of Christ ought to function in dealing with sin. Some have the gift of discernment, of pointing out the problem. They see the bone and set up a marker. Others, the pastors and elders, are the designated "buriers," who have the responsibility to handle the matter, to exercise church discipline, and to see that the defilement is properly removed and cast into the place of destruction.
The goal is always the same: "So they will cleanse the land." This is stated three times in our short passage (vv. 12, 14, 16). God is serious about the purity of His people and His place. He will not tolerate the defilement of death. The victory over Gog is not complete until the last bone is buried.
And a city is even named to commemorate the event: Hamonah, which again means "Multitude." This victory is so central to the life of God's people that their very civilization, their cities, are named in remembrance of it. Our entire culture should be a monument to the victory of Christ over His enemies. Our laws, our art, our families, our work, should all be signposts pointing back to the great victory of the cross and the empty tomb, where the great Gog of our age, Satan, was dealt his death blow.
Conclusion: The Unending Cleanup
This prophecy is being fulfilled now. The Lord Jesus Christ, at His first coming, defeated the prince of this world. He bound the strong man and began to plunder his house. The history of the Church is the history of this great cleanup operation. We are the people of the land, tasked with cleansing it.
Every time the gospel is preached and a soul is converted, we are burying one of Gog's multitude. Every time a Christian family raises their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, they are setting up markers against the bones of rebellion. Every time a church faithfully practices discipline and calls its people to holiness, it is acting as the designated buriers, cleansing the camp.
This is a long and arduous task. It is a seven-month project, which is to say, it is a complete and perfect work that will take the entire age to accomplish. But the outcome is not in doubt. The victory is already won. The head of the serpent has been crushed. We are not fighting for victory; we are fighting from victory. Our job is the glorious janitorial work of mopping up. We are the cleanup crew of a triumphant king.
The world may look at the Church and see a small and insignificant band. But God sees a victorious army, diligently cleansing the land He has given them. He sees us burying the dead philosophies, the dead ideologies, and the dead rebellions of fallen men. And He promises that as we are faithful in this task, His name will be glorified. The land will be cleansed. And the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea. The Valley of Hamon-gog will one day encompass the entire globe, and it will be a testament not to the multitude of God's enemies, but to the even greater multitude of His mercies in Jesus Christ.