Context No. 2577 of 4322 · Ezekiel
Context · Reflection
Ezekiel 39:12-16: in context
12“‘“The house of Israel will be burying them for seven months, that they may cleanse the land. 13Yes, all the people of the land will bury them; and they will become famous in the day that I will be glorified,” says the Lord GOD. 14“‘“They will set apart men of continual employment who will pass through the land. Those who pass through will go with those who bury those who remain on the surface of the land, to cleanse it. After the end of seven months they will search. 15Those who search through the land will pass through; and when anyone sees a man’s bone, then he will set up a sign by it, until the undertakers have buried it in the valley of Hamon Gog. 16Hamonah will also be the name of a city. Thus they will cleanse the land.”’
After the defeat of Gog's army, Ezekiel describes an unglamorous, months-long task: the burial of the dead to cleanse the land. For seven months the people bury bodies, and then men are appointed to go through the land continually, searching. When one of them spots even a single human bone, he sets up a marker beside it, so the buriers can come and remove it. Every last remnant is to be found and cleared.
What strikes you is the thoroughness. The cleansing is not a quick sweep; it is a patient, systematic search that flags even a stray bone so nothing defiling is left behind. God wanted the land genuinely clean, not clean on the surface. There is a picture here of how real purification works in a life. We prefer a fast, cosmetic tidy-up, dealing with the obvious and leaving the hidden remnants where they lie. God's way is the seven-month search, the marker set beside the buried thing, the willingness to keep going through the ground until even the small, concealed defilements are found and removed.
Am I content with a surface tidy-up of my life, or will I let God do the patient, searching work that finds and removes even the hidden remnants?
Sources
- Ezekiel 39:14: They will set apart men of continual employment who will pass through the land... to cleanse it.
- Ezekiel 39:15: when anyone sees a man's bone, then he will set up a sign by it, until the undertakers have buried it in the valley of Hamon Gog.
- Psalm 139:23: Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.