[8]
Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day
whereof I have spoken. [9] And they that dwell in the cities of Israel
shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the
shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves,
and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: [10] So
that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out
of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they
shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them,
saith the Lord God. [11] And it shall come to pass in that day, that I
will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the
passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the
passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and
they shall call it The valley of Hamon-gog. [12] And seven months shall
the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.
[13] Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to
them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord God.
[14] And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing
through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the
face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall
they search. [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 Hamon-gog. [16] And also the
name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
Verse 8 informs us
that the day of the Lord is done. The events daily appearing in the
Middle East are presently leading us to that great day of the Lord.
Finally, it will be over - God’s wrath will have passed - and a remnant
of Jews still in physical flesh will dig themselves out of the ashes of
the Great Tribulation Period. They will begin to build a new millennial
world with their Messiah, Jesus Christ, as their King.
Verse 9 pictures
these Jews gathering the war weapons of Armageddon and smelting them
with fire into weapons of agriculture and commerce. It will be seven
years before the metals have all been recycled into materials to be used
by a nation in peaceful pursuits.
Verse 10 advises us
that wood will not be used to provide the fire necessary for smelting
the metal in the weapons of war. They will take the oil of the Arab
nations that spoiled them in the Tribulation Period. They will use
their oil to produce the fire that fires the metal into useful peacetime
products.
Verse 11 describes
the massive cleanup of the millions of corpses from the Battle of
Armageddon that still clutter the hills of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea.
They will bury them in a valley they will name “the valley of
Hamon-gog.” Hamon-gog means “multitude of Gog,” and Gog is the
Antichrist, so this valley can be referred to as “the graveyard of the
Antichrist.” The exact location is unknown. We are merely told it will
be to the east of the Dead Sea. You will not find directions listed as
being anything other than north, east, west, and south in the Old
Testament. Any direction from NE to SE was referred to as east, SE to
SW as south, SW to NW as west, and NW to NE as north. So this burial
zone could be anywhere from northeast to southeast of the Dead Sea. I
rather suspect it will be to the southeast of the Dead Sea near Petra.
Verse 12 gives the
length of time required to cover and bury the countless numbers of
exposed bodies - seven months. However, many bodies will be buried
under massive landslides associated with earthquake activity, and it
will be necessary to continue to search for bodies for a much longer
period of time.
Verse 13 tells us
that all the Israelites will take their turn during the seven-month
period of massive burials. It may be that each Israelite will be
required to do one months service during the period. By the end of the
seven-month period they will have buried most of the bodies.
Verse 14 advises us
the compulsory graveyard service of all the Israelites will end after
seven months, but that a new system will be instituted to continue the
search as long as is required. It may work something like this: the
nation of Israel will take some of its men, employed in other aspects of
continuous nation rebuilding, and divert them to a full-time job of
overseeing and performing the removal of the remaining bodies from the
land. These full-time body disposers will work together with other
Israelites (passengers) that travel routinely through the land.
Verse 15 describes
how the full-time grave providers and passengers will work together
toward a common goal. After seven months only skeletons will remain, so
when a traveler happens across a skeleton, in his normal daily
pursuits, he will stick up a clearly visible marker by it. When the
full-time grave providers see the marker, they will carry the bones to
the Antichrist’s graveyard for burial.
Verse 16 informs us
there will be so many grave provider
personnel that a city named Hamonah will spring up by the Antichrist’s
graveyard. Since the name Hamonah means “multitude,” it is only natural
to assume the city is named in memory of its permanent residents.