Journal Through the Bible: Week 85 Monday

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Ezekiel chapter 37

Does God issue any commands?

• The Spirit of God made Ezekiel pass through a valley of dry bones. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and to tell them to hear the Word of the LORD. 
• After the bones, sinews, and flesh came together God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the wind so that the 4 winds would give the breath of life to the slain. (Compare this to Genesis 2:7)
• God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the Children of Israel and tell them that their graves would be open and they would return to the land of Israel.
• God told Ezekiel to take 2 sticks. On the first he was to write For Judah. On the second he was to write For Joseph. Ezekiel was to place them end-to-end and God would make them become 1 stick in Ezekiel's hand. Ezekiel was to show this to the people.

Does God make any promises?

• God promised to make the bones in the valley live. This is interpreted in the passage to be the dead nation of Israel that will once again live.
• God promised through the vision of the miraculously joined sticks that the nations of Israel and Judah would no longer be separate but would be 1 united kingdom again.
• God promised that when Israel is ruled by the Messiah forever then they will live in the land promised to Jacob.
• God promised that the Messiah will bring an everlasting covenant of peace
• God promised to dwell with His people forever. His sanctuary would be set in the midst of them.

Does this chapter teach anything about Jesus?

• It is the Word of God as spoken by Ezekiel that brought the bones of the slain to life again. It is the Word of God manifest in the flesh, Jesus Christ, that assures that those who die in Him shall rise again!
• Jesus is the "one king" or "David" and the "shepherd" that shall rule the two nations as one.
• Jesus is the one through whom God offers an everlasting Covenant of Peace. This is because there is only one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. (See I Timothy 2:5)
• Jesus is the sanctuary of God that will be placed in the midst of God's people. That is what "Emmanuel" means: God with us!

Does this chapter teach anything about yet-future events?

• As Jesus told the Sadducees, God is not the God of the dead but of the living! God promises resurrection to all that are His people. That means nationally or personally. In this passage God promised a resurrected nation and elsewhere in scripture God promises that those individuals who are His people whose bodies sleep in the graves will be resurrected also. When God raises the 2 witnesses in Revelation 11:11 the whole world will be witness to the event!
• The opening of graves and returning to the land was an allegorical and prophetic reference to the people who no longer had a country being returned to their own land after the years of Babylonian captivity but it also alludes to the literal resurrection of those who belong to God being resurrected and being placed in the land that God has prepared for them. Matthew 27:52-53 tells of a time when many of the saints buried in Jerusalem were resurrected at the time of the crucifixion. These were Jews who literally fulfilled this prophecy.
• Once Israel is ruled by her King they will no longer worship idols or other ungodly things but they will be cleansed. (See also Titus 2:14)
• The time is coming when God will dwell among men forever! His tabernacle will be in the midst of them and all will know, including the heathen, that He is God!