Ezekiel 39:16 - Exposition

As another mark to distinguish Gog's tomb, a city should arise in its vicinity, bearing the name Hamonah , or "Multitude" (comp. Isaiah 19:18 , "the city of destruction"), though Schmieder thinks it must have been "a city of graves," since a city of houses could not exist in such a valley of the dead, and indeed the LXX . gives as the city's name πολυάνδριον , by which later Greek writers were accustomed to call the common ground in a cemetery as distinguished from its paternal sepulchers. If quite improbable that Bethshan or Scythopolis near Megiddo was Ezekiel's Hamonah, it is possible the actual city may have been named after the ideal. Plumptre cites as a modern parallel the English town of Lichfield (or "Field of corpses"), which, according to tradition, commemorates the destruction of the Danes. When the work of the buriers should be finished, the land would be completely cleansed.