Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 39:15
"And 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 Ha-mon-gog." (Ezekiel 39:15)
Ezekiel 39:15 adds to the statement begun in verse 12
on the disposal of the human remains from Gog's invasion force by describing what appears to be a mandate upon casual travellers
("passengers" in the archaic English of the King James Bible), whether of local or foreign origin.
One might speculate further and suggest that a special perimeter or a metaphorical cordon sainitare will be placed around the valley
(the location of which
is covered in my notes on Ezekiel 39:11), so that anyone intent on passing through the area
must first be met by an official and given some prefabricated and presumably lightweight, weatherproof signposts that can be manually
thrust into the soil at any location where the aforesaid travellers might chance upon exposed skeletal remains.
It seems improbable that this burden should be placed simply upon travellers transiting the area by road, however, as one would imagine that
all or most bones visible therefrom in the open landscape would have long since been cleared up by the initial sweep through the area described
in previous verses, and so it may be the case that the travellers referred to are primarily agricultural labourers employed in that area,
which is, be it
noted (proceeding on the basis that it is indeed the
plains of Megiddo, or even the
equally lush Jordan Valley), very fertile country.
The stated purpose of placing a sign by such gruesome remains is so that the professionally employed buriers of
verse 14 can subsequently come along, take notice of the sign, and remove the bones
indicated by it, all of which points to the methodical approach to the task that the Israeli authorities will insist on; that is, rather than
demanding that anyone transiting the region or entering it to undertake any kind of labour therein should dispose of exposed bones themselves,
it will be a legal requirement that they leave that particular work to those specfically employed to perform it, which means no grievous or
unhygienic burdens will be placed upon those entering the area.
As mentioned in my notes on the previous verses, all of the foregoing attests to the fact that the obliteration of Gog's invasion force will
either not entail radioactive weaponry as some have imagined, or else, if it does, the radiation therefrom would have
decayed by the time of this gleaning process; but I think such considerations are moot anyway, insofar as Ezekiel 38-39 is describing a direct Divine
intervention1, without human hands involved,
in delivering the newly Messianic2 but internationally
isolated3 nation of Israel from the clutches of its attackers.
FOOTNOTES
1. It may be deduced from Ezekiel 39:6 (among other verses in Ezekiel 38-39), that God will make a supernatural display of His power in delivering Israel from the Gog-led assault, since one of the objectives in this whole affair is to demonstrate to even the atheists and to all the heathens that He lives (latter part of Ezekiel 39:6) and to show His great glory (Ezekiel 39:21) and His sovereign grace (Isaiah 66:8 and Jeremiah 24:7) in reconciling an erstwhile vile and ungodly nation of Israel to Himself (as per the sweet epilogue to the Gog-led assault in Ezekiel 39:22-29, since it is only through Christ as Redeemer that mankind can be reconciled to God, as shown in 2 Corinthians 5:18), thereby confirming to all the so-called Christians who espouse Arminianism that the despised doctrine of election is, in fact, correct.
2. Again, it is a Christian - not Judaist - nation of Israel that is delivered in Ezekiel 38-39, as the closing words of the passage infer.
3. Israel's isolation from its erstwhile allies in the West is being prepared as I write these words and began in September 2025
with (a) the
Charlie Kirk assassination
and the almost immediate and seemingly obviously coordinated attempts from conservative vloggers online to
assign blame for it to Israel and (b) the
formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations
by Britain, France, Australia,
Canada and others; the process has gained extra impetus with the joint American-Israeli assault on Iran that started in the spring of 2026, with near universal
expressions of hatred of Israel from grassroots American conservatives and a proliferation of attacks on so-called "Christian Zionism" directed at anyone
on the right who sympathises with Israel, with the primary target (from the diabolical perspective) being those of us who know the prophecies pertaining
to Israel's near future return to the Messianic fold.
None of the foregoing should be taken by the reader as my support for Israel's present actions; rather, I assert that it is run by wicked men and is
pursuing very ungodly, Anti-Christian policies, but it will nevertheless, by the grace of God, be transformed by an outpouring of His Spirit into a
holy and very godly nation in the very near future, and so we are discussing a nation filled with elect indivduals, soon to be united and to become one with,
and an integral part of, Christ's church transcendent.
