Ezekiel Chapter 37

This section contains a striking vision and a plain explanation of it. It is a question neither of the conversion of the soul nor of the resurrection of the body, but of God's causing Israel to live once more by-and-by as a people. They were at that time swept away and without a political existence; and greater troubles than those inflicted by Assyrian or Babylonian were before them, of which law and prophets clearly forewarned; but the word of Jehovah shall stand. And here again it was revealed to the sorrowing captives for their consolation after their earlier exile and before the later that they might be sustained in presence of such overwhelming disasters by the sure hope of their national revival under the gracious working of the Lord.

"The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of Jehovah, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, [there were] very many in the open valley; and, lo, [they were] very dry." (Vers. 1, 2) There is no disguise as to the estimate intended of those meant by the bones in the valley. There was not only no strength, but not even life. In order to bring out this the more we read, "And be said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord Jehovah, thou knowest." (Ver. 3) The impotence thus implied and confessed opens the way for the word of the Lord. "Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah." (Ver. 4-6)

Truly it was man's extremity and God's opportunity. He is the God that quickens the dead; and where should He exercise His glorious power if not on behalf of His people? And the prophet was given to see as well as to hear and speak. "So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but [there was] no breath in them." (Vers 7, 8) Still more solemnly is this followed up in verses 9, 10: "Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army." (Vers. 9, 10) It is impossible to apply such a statement as this with any show of propriety to the return of less than 43,000 from Babylon: especially as the armies of old far exceeded those usual in modern times. The returning remnant was a very small army compared with that of Judah alone under their kings. And we shall find later on that Ephraim as well as Judah are expressly contemplated: indeed it is implied immediately after in "the whole house of Israel." The past return from captivity is therefore out of the question.

But we are not left to reasoning of ours on the scope of this book and the general aim of Ezekiel. He who gave us the vision through His servant has added the most explicit interpretation. "Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I Jehovah have spoken [it], and performed [it], saith Jehovah." (Ver. 11-14)

To a mind simple and subject to scripture there can be no hesitation here. To whatever use or application we may turn the vision, its direct and express meaning is God's revival of His ancient people Israel then utterly destroyed, dead and buried, but yet to quit their graves according to the word of Jehovah "These bones are the whole house of Israel." And God would comfort His people as well as rebuke the unbelief which said, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts." His own faithful grace will undertake to do what is manifestly beyond the power of man. He declares that He will not only disinter them from the graves wherein they now lie buried as a nation, but will bring them into the land of Israel - an issue suitable neither to those risen from the dead nor to souls converted to God now by the gospel, for what have we to do with the land of Israel? But restoration to their land is the simple and necessary complement of the national resuscitation of Israel. And so all the Old Testament testifies. Continually we see the people and their land bound up: blessing by-and-by on both, as now alas! a curse on both.

The meaning therefore seems incontestable, save to men whose minds have been corrupted by the Patristic or Puritan schools, who can see none of the ways of God in Israel for the earth, any more than they read aright His heavenly counsels for the church; and this because the starting-point of both, though in different forms, is the substitution of self for Christ. Their interpretation of prophecy in particular is vitiated by this fatal mistake, which practically razes the hopes of Israel from the Bible and lowers ours to a mere succession to their hope and inheritance with somewhat better light and privilege. It is a part of the first and widest and most tenacious corruption of Christianity against which the apostle fought so valiantly. And it comes in the more insidiously, because it seems to those under its influence that they are of all men the most distant from the false brethren Paul denounced. To their minds the truest guard against judaising is to deny that the Jews will ever be reinstated as a people, or be restored consequently to their own land. All the predictions of future blessedness and glory to Israel they turn over to Christendom now or to the church in glory. Most pernicious error! For this is exactly to judaise the Christian and the church by making them simply follow and inherit from Israel. The truth is thus swamped; Israel's bright prospects are denied; Gentile conceit is engendered; and the Christian is rendered worldly, instead of being taught his place of blessing on high in contrast with Israel's on the earth.

But there is another and connected revelation. The revival of Israel as a people is not all that the prophet here learns and communicates. This was given in the first half of the chapter, not their quickening individually, however true it may be, but their national resuscitation under the operation of the Spirit, not of man's will or the world's politics, as becomes the people chosen and now finally to be blessed of Jehovah. There was a distinct fresh blessing to be conferred on them, the disappearance of an old reproach which had long dishonoured Israel from the days of Rehoboam as long as it had subsisted in the land. When God sets to His hand for their restoration in the latter day, He will re-unite them as they were of old under David and Solomon, never to have their unity broken or even threatened again; This is reserved for the true Beloved when He reigns as the Prince of peace.

"The word of Jehovah came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and [for] the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and [for] all the house of Israel his companions: and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand." (Ver. 15-17)

It is indeed no obscure proof of human perverseness that words like these should ever have been mistaken. Yet they have been and are, not among the despised Jews who cleave to their future hopes, but in contempt of their present responsibility by Christians under the gospel of God's indiscriminate grace in the dead and risen Christ to every soul that believes, be he Jew or Gentile. Thus it is then that Satan deceives all. The Jews are right in maintaining that Israel are yet to be blessed in their land under Messiah and the new covenant, and this, not vaguely nor partially, but after apostasy as well as divine judgments shall have thinned them down, all Israel that shall then be saved, gathered and united, Judah and Joseph as one whole. They are utterly, fatally, wrong now in not seeing their Messiah, the Saviour, in Jesus of Nazareth, and consequently perish because they obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Satan deceives Christendom in this that, while they rightly confess the Crucified One to be the Son of God, they not only mix up the law with the gospel and so lose all the comfort and power and certainty of God's salvation in Christ, but yearn after the predicted glories of Israel on earth as if they were descriptive of their own privileges to the almost total ignoring of their heavenly standing as well as to the denial of God's faithfulness and future mercy to Israel.

There is indeed no excuse for misunderstanding a symbol so plain as that in verses 16, 17. But, as if to clench the application, we have as before an explanation appended. "And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou [meanest] by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which [is] in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, [even] with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God." (Ver. 18-23)

It is as vain to wrest such language to the remnant of Jews that returned from Babylon as to the church at Pentecost. There is not even analogy. It is a union of the two long-divided houses of Israel, and nothing else. Not even a shadow of its accomplishment has appeared yet. Words cannot be conceived more explicit. Every sense but the future ingathering and union of all Israel as a single nation under one king is excluded. Never more shall they be divided, never more defiled. Nay more, they shall be Jehovah's people, and He their God. As the Jew cannot say that this has yet been, so it is absurd for any Gentile to say it of or for them. Still more absurd is it for the Gentile to claim it for himself. In no case is it applicable to the christian body. A remnant of Jews returned from Babylon to be defiled not merely with transgressions, but with a more detestable thing than their old idolatry, even the rejection and crucifying of their Messiah: was this a fulfilment of Ezekiel's glowing words?

But further it is added, "And David my servant [shall be] king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them." (Ver. 24) Here again what confirmation if this were needed! For no sober believer can doubt that Christ only can be meant, and Christ, not as Head of the church in heaven, but as king of Israel when He reigns over the earth. Never, since the prophecy was uttered, has there been an approach to its accomplishment. Never since have they all had one shepherd; nor have Israel walked in His judgments, nor observed His statutes and done them. Christians all over the world cannot be meant here, still less when they go to heaven, but Israel only. "And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, [even] they, and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and my servant David [shall be] their prince for ever."

It is, as Isaiah says, the sure mercies of David - that everlasting covenant Jehovah makes with Israel; and this the resurrection of Christ explains. Thus was He to reign - not merely to ascend and become the beginning and Head of a new work on high, but to reign - over Israel in their land. Indeed, in language strongly resembling the prophet referred to, Ezekiel follows with the assurance of Jehovah. "Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I Jehovah do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore." (Ver. 26-28) The humbling thought is that Christians could question what is here meant. Only one thing explains it all - the deep and wide-spread departure of men in Christendom from an adequate or indeed any real sense of their own blessings. From the peace and joy proper to the Christian, they have through judaizing and the influence of Babylon slipped away into doubt and darkness and error; and in their lack of comfort in the Holy Ghost, through unbelief of the grace in which the Christian stands, they are tempted to covet their neighbours' goods to the ruin of truth and to the confusion of relationship with God, whether of the church now or of Israel by-and-by. The issue of the prophecy is of so plain and positive and glorious a nature that the very heathen shall know that Jehovah sanctifies His people, when His sanctuary shall be in their midst for ever. Who can affirm that this is true now, either of Israel, of whom it is said, or of the church, of whom it is not?

*It is to the shame of Christians that they who know the truth and grace of God in Christ should be so beguiled, in reading the prophecies at least, as to be justly rebuked for their dark unbelief by a Jew - himself so prejudiced as Don Balthasar Orobio. I am indebted to another for the following extract: -

"If it be Israel mentioned in the passages they quote, it is the spiritual (that is, the nations who have embraced the christian religion), and not the temporal, or in other words the Jewish seed of Abraham. If the text affirm that Israel and Judah shall return to the land of their fathers to possess it for ever, they uphold that this land is heaven, and those who have acknowledged Messiah are Israel and Judah. The wars and desolation of which the prophet speaks are also taken in a metaphorical sense. We must believe, according to them, that it is the struggle of vice with virtue - impiety with justice. Thus to annihilate the proofs which we expect will mark the fulfilment of the Almighty's promises, they confound heaven with earth, this world with paradise, the holy city with the assemblings of Christians; Israel, Jacob, and Judah, with the Gentiles; the disorder of war with the spiritual opposition of vice to virtue; the temple, evidently temporal as it is, with the salvation of souls, the religion they profess, etc.

"The prophet Ezekiel completely destroys all these chimerical opinions. The true Israelites, he says, will be redeemed - the real need of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not the Gentiles. He does not say that the land which they will re-possess will be the church or heaven, but that same land which they had inhabited before they were scattered, and wherein they will dwell for ever. The Lord commands him to take two sticks; on the one to write the name of Judah and his companions; and on the other the name of Ephraim, son of Joseph, and all the house of Israel; that is to say, the remnant of the tribes which were divided into two kingdoms after the death of Solomon: and to say to the children of Israel that at the time of the redemption the kingdoms shall be united never to be divided again. He was then to show these two sticks to the people and say to them, 'Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children from among the nations whither they be gone, and will gather them from every side, and bring them unto their own land: and I will make them but ONE nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel: and one king shall be king to them all: they shall be no more two nations neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein their fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children's children for ever. And the nations shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.'

"Can the Gentiles who have embraced the christian faith believe that they are the Israelites to whom the prophet alludes? Are the nations ever termed Judah and Ephraim? Or have they been divided into two kingdoms? Neither reason nor plain sense is the foundation of the persuasion that the land of which the prophet speaks is spiritual; that it is the church signified when he assures the people of Israel of their return to their own land - to that happy country which they had before possessed in the land of Canaan, that which the Lord had given to their ancestors. Can the mountains where the people were to assemble be spiritual? Fiction never went so far in metamorphosis."