Ezekiel 39:14

14 They will set apart men regularly employed, with the help of a search party, to pass through the land and bury those bodies remaining on the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search.

Ezekiel 39:14 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 39:14

And they shall sever out men of continual employment
That is, the principal of the house of Israel, their magistrates and governors, shall select certain persons, to be daily employed in the following work, till ended: passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain
upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it;
these men will be appointed to go through the land of Israel, to gather up such carcasses and bones of dead men as remain anywhere after the seven months' burial before observed; and all passengers or travellers shall be assisting to them in it, both in directing where any such carcasses and bones may lie, and in bringing them to the common place of burial; that so the land may he thoroughly cleansed from such disagreeable objects: after the end of seven months shall they search
or begin to search, as the Targum; when seven months are ended, in which the people in general will be employed in burying the dead; these men before mentioned will be sent out into each part of the land, to search in caves, and dens and ditches; among thickets, thorns, and briers, where the slain may fall; or where soldiers, being wounded, might betake themselves and die; or their carcasses or bones be dragged and left by beasts and fowls; to find them out, and bring them to the place of interment.

Ezekiel 39:14 In-Context

12 For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land.
13 Indeed all the people of the land will be burying, and they will gain renown for it on the day that I am glorified," says the Lord God.
14 They will set apart men regularly employed, with the help of a search party, to pass through the land and bury those bodies remaining on the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search.
15 The search party will pass through the land; and when anyone sees a man's bone, he shall set up a marker by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon Gog.
16 The name of the city will also be Hamonah. Thus they shall cleanse the land." '

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Literally those who pass through
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.