What does Ezekiel 36 and 37 teach about Israel’s national restoration?

Question 10183.

Ezekiel 36 and 37 are the two clearest chapters in the Old Testament on the national restoration of Israel, and they are also two of the most argued over. Ezekiel promises land, cleansing, a new heart, a new spirit, reunion of a divided people, one king over them and an everlasting covenant of peace, and he promises it to a nation lying in exile with its capital in ruins.

The question is whether that national restoration means what it says. I hold that it does, and that the chapters themselves close off the alternatives more firmly than most readers notice.

The setting: a nation in pieces

Ezekiel prophesied among the exiles by the river Chebar after Jerusalem fell. The temple was destroyed, the land was occupied, the king was blinded and in chains, and the northern tribes had already been scattered for well over a century. Any promise of national restoration in that setting sounded like cruelty or madness.

Chapters 1 to 32 are largely judgement, including the terrible vision in chapter 10 of the glory of God leaving the temple by degrees. Chapters 33 onwards turn towards hope, and 36 and 37 are the heart of that turn.

So the first thing to notice is the audience. God is speaking to a devastated nation about its own future, and He addresses the mountains of Israel, the house of Israel, the land, and the bones of a scattered people. National restoration is the subject on the surface of the text before anyone starts interpreting.

Ezekiel 36 and the national restoration of land and heart

The chapter opens with God addressing the mountains of Israel and promising in Ezekiel 36:8 to 11 that they will yield fruit for His people, that men and beasts will multiply on them, and that the ruins will be rebuilt. That is geography, not metaphor, and you cannot rebuild the ruins of an allegory.

Then comes the reason, and it is the most important sentence in the chapter. God says in Ezekiel 36:22 that He is not doing this for Israel’s sake but for the sake of His holy name, which they profaned among the nations. National restoration rests on the reputation of God rather than on the merit of the people, which is why their failure cannot cancel it.

Verses 25 to 28 give the inward side: clean water sprinkled, a new heart given, the heart of stone removed, a heart of flesh put in its place, and My Spirit within you. The Hebrew ruach runs through both chapters, and I have written on the new heart promise in the article on Ezekiel 36.

Ezekiel 37: the valley of dry bones

The vision needs no decoration. A valley full of very dry bones, a prophet asked whether they can live, a word preached to them, a rattling, bones joining, sinews and flesh appearing, and then breath entering so that they stand as a great army.

God then interprets His own vision, which saves us the trouble. Ezekiel 37:11 says these bones are the whole house of Israel, and verses 12 to 14 promise to open the graves, bring them into the land of Israel, put His Spirit within them and settle them in their own land. When the interpreter is God, the interpretation is not open for negotiation.

The order in the vision is worth noticing. Bodies first, breath afterwards. A physical regathering precedes spiritual life, which is exactly the sequence Ezekiel 36 gave and which explains why national restoration can begin with something less than revival. My fuller treatment is in the article on the dry bones.

There is a common alternative reading which takes the vision as a picture of individual conversion, and I would not want to lose that application altogether, since dead sinners do come to life by the word and the Spirit. What I cannot accept is that the application replaces the interpretation God gave. He said the bones are the whole house of Israel, and He said He would bring them into their own land.

Two sticks and one king

The second half of chapter 37 is often skipped and it is the clinching argument. Ezekiel is told to take two sticks, one for Judah and one for Joseph, and to join them into one in his hand, and God says He will make them one nation with one king over them all, never again two kingdoms.

That promise cannot be transferred to the church without absurdity, because the church was never divided into Judah and Ephraim and has no need of reunion between them. The national restoration in view is the healing of a specific historical division within one ethnic people.

God then promises a covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant, His sanctuary among them for ever, and David His servant as their prince. The nations will know that the Lord sanctifies Israel. That is national, territorial, dynastic and permanent language.

Why I do not read this as the church

The replacement reading takes the new heart and the Spirit as fulfilled in the church, and points out that Paul applies covenant language to believing Gentiles. I agree that the church shares the spiritual blessings of the new covenant, and I have said so in the article on the new covenant.

What I cannot do is transfer the land, the mountains, the ruins, the two sticks, the prince and the everlasting sanctuary. If those elements are figures for the church, then the plainest words in the chapters have no reference at all, and the exiles who first heard them were misled about the one thing they most needed.

The controlling clause forbids it as well. God says He acts for the sake of His name because these people profaned it among the nations. His name is only vindicated if the same people are restored, since restoring somebody else would prove nothing. National restoration of Israel is required by the logic of the passage. I take up the wider question in the article on replacement theology.

When does it happen?

Partly it has begun and mostly it has not. There is a Jewish nation in the land, the ruins have been rebuilt, the ground yields fruit, and the two houses are no longer separate kingdoms. Those are the bones and sinews of the vision, and I am not going to pretend they are invisible.

What has not happened is the breath. There is no national turning to the Messiah, no everlasting covenant of peace in force, no prince of David’s line reigning and no sanctuary of God among them. The inward half of Ezekiel 36 awaits the second coming, when Zechariah says the nation will look on the one they pierced and mourn.

So the national restoration is under way in its physical aspect and outstanding in its spiritual aspect, which is exactly what you would expect if Ezekiel’s order of bodies before breath is being followed. I discuss the modern question in the article on 1948.

We should be careful about triumphalism here as well. Ezekiel promises a national restoration that includes shame and self loathing over past sin, which is hardly the language of a victory parade. Whatever God does with that nation, He does it in a way that leaves her humbled rather than proud.

What these chapters prove about God

Take them as a whole and they tell you what sort of God you are dealing with. He keeps promises to people who have broken theirs. He acts for the honour of His own name, which is the most stable foundation available. He gives a new heart rather than demanding that we manufacture one.

And He speaks to graveyards. Ezekiel was asked whether very dry bones could live, and the only honest answer was that God alone knew. The whole chapter is built on the fact that hopelessness is not an obstacle to Him.

That is worth holding on to when you look at your own family, your own church or your own nation and see nothing but bones.

These chapters also anchor the doctrine of regeneration in something other than human willingness. God says I will sprinkle, I will give, I will remove, I will put My Spirit within you. The initiative and the power are His, and the national restoration is described in exactly the same terms as personal new birth, which is no accident.

So, now what?

If God will not go back on His word to a nation that profaned His name among the heathen, He will not go back on His word to you. That is the pastoral force of the national restoration promised here, and it is why these chapters have comforted believers who never expected to see the land.

So preach to the bones. Ezekiel was told to speak to a valley of the dead, which looked ridiculous until the rattling started. Where are you being asked to speak a word you cannot see any reason to expect God to honour?

And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.

Ezekiel 37:14 (ESV)