| Ezekiel 39 | Notes |
| 1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: | This passage is divine prophecy in a prophetic book of Scripture–it is not a narrative passage. |
| 2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: | |
| 3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. | |
| 4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. | God will employ birds of prey and beasts of the field to devour the multitudes of people on whom He will render divine judgment. |
| 5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. | |
| 6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord. | |
| 7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. | |
| 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: | There will be such an abundance of wood available from the weapons of the slain that the Israelites will burn them for 7 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. | Because of the abundance of that flammable material, the Israelites will not take any wood out of the field or cut it down from the forests. This statement shows that the Israelites did both of those things in other circumstances in which they needed to burn things. |
| A Profound Divine Emphasis on Burial | |
| 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 Hamongog. | God Himself will provide graves for Gog and all his multitude. Even though there will be an abundance of wood available that could be used for cremating these people, God has ordained that they all will be buried and not cremated. Clearly, a supposed lack of wood that would have been necessary for cremation will not at all be the reason why these multitudes of humans will be buried. |
| 12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. | For seven months, the Israelites will bury these multitudes of people so that the land will be cleansed. Burial of their divinely executed bodies is what will 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. | All the Israelites will be active in burying them. Their doing so will be to their renown! Burying dead bodies of divinely executed people will bring divine commendation to all those who do that burying! |
| 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. | For the second time, the passage states that burying the dead bodies is what will be done to cleanse the land. |
| 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 Hamongog. | Even a single remaining bone of a human will be and must be buried. |
| 16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land. | In order for the land to be cleansed, all the bones of all the divinely executed people will have to be buried. This third statement of that truth profoundly emphasizes the importance of burial of the bones of divinely executed people. |
| 17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. | |
| 18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. | |
| 19 And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. | |
| 20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God. | |
| 21 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. | |
| 22 So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward. | |
| 23 And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. | |
| 24 According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them. | |
| 25 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; | |
| 26 After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid. | |
| 27 When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; | |
| 28 Then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. | |
| 29 Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God. |
There will be no shortage of wood for cremation on this occasion. Nonetheless, God has ordained that there will be no cremation–all the multitudes will still be buried, including all remaining bones of any humans. Such burial of those bones will be necessary in order for the land to be cleansed.
Cremation of those bones will not cleanse the land. By the direct ordination of God, multitudes will be buried in order to cleanse the land.
This passage proves conclusively that burial is the will of God even for vast hordes of unbelievers even when there will be far more wood available than would be needed to cremate all of them.
There is zero biblical basis for any Christian to support cremation.
Note: I will likely be adding to this table and revising its contents repeatedly in the future. Its content, therefore, will likely be continually changing.
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