Reformational Commentary on Ezekiel 39:16

"And also the name of the city shall be Ha-mo-nah. Thus shall they cleanse the land." (Ezekiel 39:16)

Ezekiel 39:16 concludes the statement began in verse 12 on the burial of the remains from Gog's invasion force and makes mention, of either a new "city" (i.e. settlement) founded in that location or else an extant settlement renamed, literally so or by sobriquet, as Ha-mo-nah.

Gill explains the meaning of the name as follows, and expands on my own impressions above:

"And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah"

The name of the city nearest to this place, where Gog and his multitude shall be buried, shall be called Hamonah from thence, which signifies a multitude; or Polyandrion [chambered graves], as the Septuagint version, a place where many graves are; or perhaps a new city will be built near this place, and so called, to perpetuate the memory of it; or else, as Kimchi observes, Jerusalem will be so called, from the multitude of those that will be slain near it; but, however, neither that nor any other city in the land of Israel have ever bore any such name; from whence it may be concluded that this prophecy does not refer to the times of Antiochus¹ [as some have inexcusably imagined], or any yet past, but to time to come" (John Gill on Ezekiel 39:16).

Finally, the burial process and the developments annexed thereto are summarised as the "cleansing" of the land; this is by no means any allusion to a special restoration of the cleansings of the Mosaic ceremonial law, which things have been obsolete since Christ's first advent, but refer simply to the prosaic and perfunctory clearing of the land of all artefacts of the terrible event that unfolded in that location when God intervened to deliver from destruction the newly Christian, godly nation of Israel.