And it shall come to pass in that day _that_ I will give unto Gog a
place there of a grave in Israel, the valley of the passengers on
the east of the sea; and it shall stop the passengers; and there
shall they bury Gog and all his multitude; and they shall call _it_
The valley of Hamon-gog. And seven months shall the house of Israel
be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. 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. 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. 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. And also the
name of the city _shall_ be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the
land (verses 11-16).
Gog's delusion was to take Israel's land for a possession. Territorial
aggrandizement was the motive of the invasion, besides the wicked
defiance of God; but instead God gives them graves in the land of
Israel. All the multitude of Gog will be buried in the valley of the
passengers of the east of the sea, which is the Dead Sea, outside of
Israel's territory; that place will be called then "the valley of
Hamon-gog," which means "the multitude of Gog." Seven months will it
take to put away the bodies of the slain. And those who pass through
that region will stop there to consider the judgment of the Lord which
was executed upon Gog. It will be a solemn memorial of what God hath
done; even a city will be named on account of the disaster which has
come upon Gog, the city Hamonah. The whole land will be cleansed of the
defilement. Whenever, after the seven months, one who passes that way
sees a man's bones, he shall mark the place with a sign and the buriers
will put these bones away in Hamon-gog.
The day will surely come when all these events will come to pass. Much
may be obscure at this time but God will see to the fulfilment in His
own time. As we have shown in the exposition of the previous chapter,
Russia is the leader of this final assault. In these significant days
Russia is in the grasp of anarchy. What will be the outcome? Will Russia
side with Germany? Will the two form a strong confederacy with other
semi-oriental and oriental nations? Are these things, as seen by the
prophet at the river banks of Chebar, even now preparing? No mortal man
can forecast the immediate future. God alone knows what is about to
come.