Ezekiel 37

Introduction

Today’s chapter contains what is probably the most well known passage in the book of Ezekiel and many of us are familiar with Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, which come back to life at the word of the Lord.

Every time I read this passage, I think of the old Jason and the Argonauts film from the 1960s, which some of you may be familiar with. In that film, an army of skeletons rises from the ground to attack Jason and his men. You can look it up on YouTube afterwards if you want to refresh your memory of that iconic scene. But the film is not like Ezekiel’s vision, because in the film, the skeletons remain skeletons, whereas the bones in the vision are covered in flesh before they’re brought back to life. And the skeletons in the film were brought back to life to attack Jason and his men, whereas bringing the bones back to life in the vision signifies how God will bring his people back from the land of the dead to experience new life in the Promised Land.

And then, in the second part of today’s passage, the Lord tells Ezekiel to perform another sign-act to announce to God’s people that he’s going to reunite the two kingdoms of Israel. So, you’ll remember that after Solomon’s death, the one kingdom of Israel was divided into two: there was larger, northern kingdom which kept the name Israel; and there was the smaller, southern kingdom which was known as Judah. The northern kingdom was taken into exile by the Assyrians. many years before Ezekiel was alive. Its people were scattered among the nations. The southern kingdom was taken into exile by the Babylonians and Ezekiel was among those who were taken away. And God was announcing through Ezekiel that he will bring his people back to the Promised Land, where they will become one nation again, with one king over them. And God will dwell in their midst once again. And so, the second half of the chapter is about the three Ps which I’ve mentioned before. The three Ps are people, place and presence. The Bible is about what God does so that all of God’s people are able to live in the place he has prepared for them, where they will enjoy his presence.

It’s clear, then, that today’s chapter is in two parts. In the first part, God reveals that he will bring his people back from the land of the dead to experience new life in the Promised Land. In the second part, he reveals that he will reunite them.

And that means that this chapter fits well with the other chapters in the second half of the book of Ezekiel. As I’ve said before, the first 32 chapters contain mostly messages of judgment. God was going to destroy the city of Jerusalem and its people because of their persistent unbelief and rebellion. And he was also going to destroy the nations for what they had done to his people and for their foolish pride. So, the first 32 chapters contain messages of judgment. Then, in chapter 33, a man came from Jerusalem to announce that Jerusalem had fallen. What the Lord said would happen has happened. And that chapter is the turning point in the book, because the remainder of the chapters are much more positive and they contain a message of hope and of good things to come in the future. And as part of that, God was planning to bring his people out of the land of death and back to the Promised Land; and he was planning to unite his people and dwell among them.

Verses 1 to 14

According to verse 1, the hand of the Lord came on Ezekiel and the Lord brought him out by his Spirit to the middle of a valley, where he received this vision of a great number of dry bones on the floor of the valley. And we read that Ezekiel walked to and fro among them and he saw that the bones were not only dry, but they were very dry. Nothing was left of these people apart from their bones.

In verse 9 the Lord refers to them as ‘these slain’. So, that tells us that these people — whoever they are — must have died in battle. And since their bones were very dry, then they must have been killed some time ago, because their flesh had decomposed and all that was left of them were their bones which had now become very dry.

And the Lord asked Ezekiel whether these bones can live. Now, in 1 and 2 Kings we read of the prophets Elijah and Elisha being able to bring back to life two people who died. Elijah brought back to life a widow’s son and Elisha brought back to life the son of the Shunammite. And so, we know that God can revive the dead. But on those occasions, the people who died had just died. Their bodies were still intact. So, we know God was able to do that. But can he bring back from the dead people who had died so long ago that nothing is left but their bones? Can he do that? Well, Ezekiel replied that only the Lord knows whether these dry bones can live.

And Ezekiel is about to find out that they can live. The Lord tells him to prophesy to them. That is, the Lord wants him to preach to these dry bones. He wants him to tell them to hear the word of Lord, who is saying to them that he will make breath enter them and they will come to life. And the Lord also says to the dry bones that he will attach tendons to them and he’ll make flesh come upon them and he’ll cover them with skin. And once again he says that he’ll put breath in them and they will come to life. And once he brings them back to life, then they will know that he is the Lord, their covenant-keeping God who loves them with a steadfast love.

So, that’s what the Lord wants Ezekiel to say to the dry bones. And according to verse 7, Ezekiel preached to the bones as the Lord commanded him to do. And as he was preaching to the bones, something began to happen. First of all, he heard a noise. It was a rattling sound. It was the sound of the bones coming together, knocking against one another, bone against bone. And then, when he looked, he could see tendons and flesh appearing on the bones. And then skin covered them. The dry bones had become bodies.

But the bodies were lifeless. There was no life in the bodies yet. And so, in verse 9 the Lord commanded Ezekiel to preach to the breath and to say to it that the Sovereign Lord is commanding the breath to come from the four winds, or from the four corners of the world, to fill them. And once again, Ezekiel did as he was told and he preached to the breath. And the breath entered the lifeless bodies and they came to life and they stood up on their feet. This recalls how God created Adam in the beginning, because at first the Lord created his body from the dust of the earth. And then he breathed into him the breath of life so that he became a living being. And in Ezekiel’s vision, God breathed into these lifeless bodies to make them live. And they stood up on their feet like a vast army. Once they had been destroyed by an enemy army. But now they had become a vast and mighty army.

So, who are these people? The Lord reveals in verse 11 that they are the whole house of Israel. And what follows in verses 11 to 14 is the Lord’s interpretation of the vision which Ezekiel has just seen. And we need to remember that what he saw was a vision. And visions are about things which signify other things. So, when Ezekiel saw dry bones, those dry bones signify something. And when he saw the dry bones coming back to life, then that too signifies something. This was a vision which signifies something. It symbolises something. It symbolises what God was doing to do for his people in exile.

And so, in the interpretation of the vision, the Lord quotes what the people in exile were saying among themselves. The whole house of Israel — all of God’s people from the northern and southern kingdoms — were saying to themselves that they are dried up and their hope is gone. They are saying to themselves that they are cut off. So, the Lord’s people regard themselves as being as good as dead. They are like the dead bones in the vision, because they’re living in the land of the dead and whatever hope they once had about returning to the Promised Land had dried up. Their hope is gone. It seems to them that they are cut off from the Lord and they are cut off from all hope for the future. They are in despair. They’re living in the land of the dead, because that’s where they will die.

That what the dry bones signify: God’s people are living in the land of death and there’s no hope for them. So, what does bringing the dry bones to life signify? It signifies how the Lord is going to bring them back to the Promised Land. They think they’re as good as dead. Living in exile is like lying in their graves. But God is going to open their graves and he’s going to bring them up out of exile and he’s going to restore them to the land of Israel.

And he says in verse 14 that he’s going to put his Spirit in them. And so, when he said in the vision that he would put his breath in them, he meant that he will put his Spirit in them. He will fill them with the Holy Spirit. And so, this matches what we read last week, where he said that he will put his Spirit in his people to move them to follow his decrees and to be careful to keep his laws. He sent them into exile because of their persistent disobedience. But now he was going to fill them with his Spirit to sanctify them and to make them more and more willing and able to do God’s will here on earth. He has going to put his Spirit in them so that they will live a new kind of life: not a life of unbelief and disobedience, but a life of faith and obedience to God’s will. And he will settle them in the Promised Land and they will know that he is the Lord, their covenant-keeping God, and that he has done this for them because he loves them with a steadfast, never-ending love.

Application

God’s people in exile regarded themselves as being as good as dead. Being in exile was like lying in their graves, waiting to die. Since Jerusalem had been destroyed, they had no hope for the future. They couldn’t see themselves ever returning to the Promised Land. They were in despair. But God had good thing in store for them.

And according to the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2, we are by nature or by birth dead in our transgression and sins. That is to say, we are by nature or by birth spiritually dead. And therefore, by ourselves, we have no future. No hope. There’s nothing for us in the future apart from condemnation and eternal punishment. And our life on earth is dominated by three great powers: there’s the sinful world around us; there’s satan; and there our own own sinful desires within us. The people around us in the world lead us astray by their own wicked example and influence on us. Satan leads us astray by tempting us. And our own sinful desires within us lead us astray. And so, we end up doing what’s evil and we therefore provoke God’s wrath and become liable to his curse for ever. That’s what we all are by nature or by birth. As Paul says, we are by nature objects of God’s wrath. We are by nature living in the land of death and we have no hope.

But God — who is gracious and merciful, and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love — sent his Only Begotten Son into the world to lay down his life on the cross as the ransom to set us free from our sin and misery in this world. He took the blame for us, so that everyone who believes in him as the only Saviour of the world is pardoned and accepted by God and receives the free gift of eternal life.

And God, who is rich in mercy, raises us up with Christ from death to life. He raises us from the land of death to begin a new life with Christ which will last for ever. And he also fills us with his Spirit to enable us to walk in his ways to do his will. By his Spirit, he helps us to stand firm against the evil influence of the world around us; and he helps us to resist the temptations of the devil; and he enables us to say no to our own sinful desires. He gives us his Spirit to renew us and to enable us to live this new life for Christ our Saviour.

And so, if you’re a believer today, then you should rejoice and give thanks to God for his kindness to you, because you were once dead in your transgressions and sins. Though you may not have realised it, you were destined to suffer eternal punishment away from the presence of God. You were living in the land of death. But God had mercy on you and he raised you with Christ from death to life. And God has done this for you, because he is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and he’s abounding in steadfast love.

And before we move on to the next part of the chapter, I think it’s significant that in the vision God commanded Ezekiel to preach to dry, dead bones, because that’s what God commands his preachers to do in every generation. He commands them to preach to dead people. He commands them to preach to people who are spiritually dead. And being spiritually dead, they are unable to respond to the message they hear by themselves. They are incapable of hearing. But just as God was able to give life to the dry, dead bones in the vision whenever Ezekiel preached to them, so he’s able to give life to spiritually dead people today through the preaching of his word and by his Spirit, who is the Lord and the Giver of Life. And what God did for you, he can do for others also.

And so, if you’ve ever doubted the power of God to use the preaching of his word about Christ to save sinners, then you must confess it to God and you must repent of it; and we must pray that God will do what he has said he will do and use the preaching of his word to bring dead sinners to new life in Christ.

Verses 15 to 28

Through the preaching of God’s word, and by his Spirit, God raises us from spiritual death to live a new life with Christ. And after this life is over, he will bring us into the new heavens and earth, where all of God’s people will join together to worship our great God and Saviour, who will dwell with his people for ever and for ever. And that leads us to the second part of this chapter, which is from verse 15 to verse 28.

The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel and he was commanded to perform a sign-act. He was commanded to perform sign-acts or mimes before. But for this one, he had to take a stick of wood and write on it: ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ So, this stick of wood represents the people who belonged to the southern kingdom of Judah. And then he was commanded to take a second stick of wood and write on it: ‘Ephraim’s stick, belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ Tribe of Ephraim lived in the northern kingdom of Israel. And so, this stick represents the people of that kingdom. As I said at the beginning, these two kingdoms were once one kingdom under David and Solomon. But after Solomon’s death, the one kingdom was divided into two.

Having taken the two sticks of wood and having written on them, Ezekiel was commanded in verse 17 to join them together to form one stick. And when his countrymen — his fellow exiles — ask him what this sign-act means, he’s to tell them that God is going to make the two kingdoms one again. God is going to re-unite his divided kingdom. And according to verse 20, while Ezekiel says this to them, he’s to hold before their eyes the sticks. So, joining the two sticks together was to be a kind of visual aid to represent what God is going to do.

According to verse 21, the Lord will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. When he refers to the Israelites, he means people from the north and the south. He’ll bring them out of the nations where they were exiled and he’ll bring them back to their own land, which is the Promised Land of Canaan. God will make them one nation again in the land.

And he will place over them one king. So, when the kingdoms were divided, there was a king ruling over the south and there was a different king ruling over the north. Two kings for two kingdoms. But the time is coming, when God will place one king over them and there will never again be two nations or two kingdoms. They will be one.

And according to verse 23, God will save them from all their sinful backsliding and he will cleanse them. So, when the kingdoms were divided, the people kept turning from the Lord into unbelief and sin. They were backsliders, turning away from the Lord, instead of walking in his ways and doing his will. But God will save them from that and he will cleanse them from all that is not right, so that they will no longer defile themselves with idols or with any other offences. They will be wholly committed to the Lord and they will worship him alone and they will serve him. They will be his people and he will be their God. Do you see that at the end of verse 23?

That’s the way it was always meant to be. When a man is married, he promises to forsake all other women and to take this woman for his wife. And his wife does the same: she promises to forsake all other men and to take this man for her husband. And God’s people will, in a sense, renew their commitment to the Lord. Forsaking all others, they will take the Lord to be their God. And he will take them to be his people.

And God said he will appoint one king over them. Who will it be? According to verse 24, the Lord will make his servant David their king. Of course, David died many hundreds of years before this. And so, God doesn’t not mean the original David, but someone like David. Someone from David’s royal line. So, a descendant of David will rule over them. He will be their king and their shepherd. And they’ll follow God’s laws and decrees and they’ll live in the land which God once gave to Jacob, their forefather. They and their children and their grand-children will live there. In other words, no one will take the land from them and they’ll never have to leave.

And God will make a covenant of peace with them and it will be an everlasting covenant. So, they will have peace with God and they will live in peace. All will be well and the other nations will not attack them or hurt them. Think of the time of the judges, when the Philistines and others kept raiding the land and bothering them. It won’t be like that again. Or think of the time when the Assyrians invaded the north and the Babylonians invaded the south. It won’t be like that again.

And God will establish them in the land so that they will live there securely. He’ll increase their numbers. And he’ll put his sanctuary among them for ever. So, God will dwell among them for ever. And when he dwells among them, the other nations will see it and they will know that he has made them holy, because he has set them apart as his people. Of all the nations of the world, God has chosen this nation and only this nation for himself.

Application

And we know that God did what he said he would do and he gathered his people from the other nations and he brought them back to the Promised Land in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. No longer were there two kingdoms, but there was only one kingdom. And they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem so that the people would be safe from their enemies. And they rebuilt the temple, which was God’s sanctuary, his dwelling-place among them.

And then, when the time was right, God sent his Only Begotten Son into the world as one of us and as a descendant of David to be their new King. The angels announced that he was their King at the time of his birth. And throughout his public ministry, he made clear by the things he said and did that he is God’s King who had come to deliver his people from our sin and misery and to give us peace with God through the forgiveness of our sins and peace with one another, by enabling us to love one another with the help of his Spirit. And so, God kept his promise to his people by bringing them back from exile and by sending his Son to be our King.

But bringing them back from exile and sending his Son to be our King was really only the beginning, because God is right now gathering men and women and boys and girls from every nation of the world and he’s adding them to his kingdom on the earth. His one kingdom is advancing throughout the world through the reading and preaching of the good news; and men and women and children enter it by turning from their sins in repentance and by trusting in Jesus Christ the Lord, who is the only Saviour of God’s people. And as our King, he rules over us and he protects us from his throne in heaven.

And one day, when Christ the King comes again, God will gather his people from every nation and he’ll bring us into the Promised Land of Eternal Life in the new heavens and earth, where God will dwell with us for ever. And we will be one: united together under Christ our King. And we’ll see God and his glory and we’ll enjoy perfect peace for ever, because the former things — the troubles and trials of this life which make us sigh and weep — will pass away and be no more; and we’ll never sin against God or disobey him, but we’ll love and serve and obey him perfectly, having been made perfect in his presence. And we’ll never have to leave, because we will live with God for ever and for ever and for ever.

This is the ultimate fulfilment of God’s promise to his exiled people in the days of Ezekiel, when he promised to restore them to the Promised Land and to unite them under one king. This is the ultimate fulfilment, because the day is coming when God’s people from every nation throughout history will be united as one people under Christ. And God will dwell with us and we will have perfect peace and rest for ever.

And we have this great hope, because Christ is not only our King, but he’s also our High Priest. And as our High Priest, he offered himself on the cross as the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for sins. By the sacrifice of himself on the cross, he has paid for our sins with his life; and he has satisfied the justice of God which was against us; and he has made peace for us with God. And now that we have peace with God, we can look forward to coming into God’s presence one day to join with all the redeemed to worship him for ever.

Conclusion

God sent Ezekiel to preach these things to his people in exile to encourage them and to give them hope. Despite what they were now suffering, God had something wonderful in store for them. So, don’t lose hope. Keep believing. Keep trusting God.

And God is coming to us in the preaching of his word with the same message of hope. We are his exiled people today, because we’re living far away from our true home which is the new creation to come. And God wants to encourage us and to give us hope. He wants us to keep going despite everything we have to suffer right now in this life. He wants us to persevere through all the troubles and trials of life and all the disappointments and all the temptations to give up the faith. He wants us to persevere and to keep going and to keep believing and to keep trusting him.

And so, to encourage us and to give us hope, he gives us this message about what he will do for us. He will not leave us in exile, in the land of the dead, but will bring us into the Promised Land of the Eternal Life, where all of God’s people will be united under Christ our King and we’ll worship God for ever. That’s our great hope. And so, we should press on and keeping going while we wait for it.