For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them: The process of burying all the corpses of Gog’s army will go on for more than half a year. The people of Israel will bury them. For the house of Israel, that is, the people of Israel, see the comments on 3.1.

In order to cleanse the land: Their work to bury all the dead bodies will be to “make the land clean again” (Good News Translation, New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version). The cleansing refers to the land being ritually clean and an appropriate place for worship (see the comments on 22.24).

A model for this verse is:

• It will take seven months for the people of Israel to bury them all and make the land clean [or, acceptable again for them to worship me].

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .