Ezekiel 37:15 - Meaning and Application

Here are more very great and precious promises about the happy state of the Jews after they return to their own land. Yet these promises also point beyond that to the kingdom of the Messiah and the glory of gospel times.

First, it is promised that Ephraim and Judah will be joined together in brotherly love and helpful service to one another. Since the days when the ten tribes broke away from the house of David under Jeroboam, there had been constant quarrels and bitterness between the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It may even be that some of that hostility continued in captivity, with Ephraim envying Judah and Judah upsetting Ephraim. That would end. They would become one, and old divisions would give way to love and kindness.

This is shown by a sign. The prophet was to take two sticks and write on one, “For Judah,” including Benjamin and the other Israelites who stayed with Judah, and on the other, “For Joseph,” meaning the rest of the tribes (Ezekiel 37:16). These two sticks were then to be joined so that they became one in his hand (Ezekiel 37:17). The people noticed this and asked him what it meant, because they knew he was not merely playing with sticks like children.

Those who want to understand should ask about the meaning of God’s word when they read or hear it, and also the meaning of the signs and actions God uses to show spiritual truths. The lips of the minister should preserve knowledge, and the people should seek instruction from him (Malachi 2:7). This is a needed question for grown people as well as children: What do you mean by this service, by this sign? (Exodus 12:26). The meaning here was that Judah and Israel would become one in the hand of God (Ezekiel 37:19).

They would be one nation (Ezekiel 37:22). They would no longer have separate interests, and so they would no longer have divided hearts. There would be no more jealousy, no more anger, and no lasting memory of their old quarrels. Instead, there would be full harmony, a good understanding, goodwill, and readiness to help one another for each other’s honor and comfort. They had once been like two sticks crossing, blocking, even hurting one another. Now they would be one, supporting and strengthening each other. How good it is when people who were long at odds now live together in unity.

They would also be one in God’s hand. By his power he would bring them together, and by the same hand he would keep them together so they would not break apart again. His glory would be the center of their unity, and his grace would be the bond that held them. In him, and in devotion to him, they would unite and so become one. Both sides would agree to place themselves in his hand, and that would make them one. Those who agree in a third thing agree with each other. The best unity is the unity of those who are one in God’s hand, because their union with one another comes from their union with Christ and their fellowship with God through him (Ephesians 1:10). They are one in us (John 17:21).

They would also be one in their return from captivity (Ezekiel 37:21). God says, “I will take them from among the nations, gather them from every side, and bring them together into their own land.” They would be one in leaving the nations among whom they had mixed themselves. They would all agree to turn away from them, take their affections off them, and stop following their customs. Then they would soon be ready to walk together by the rule of God’s word. Shared suffering would help bring this unity. When people begin to come to their senses and think clearly, trouble can soften them toward one another. If many pieces of metal are put into the furnace and melted, they all run together.

It was time for them to strengthen one another, since their oppressors were working so hard to weaken and destroy them all. Their shared blessings would also help unite them. They would all share in God’s favor and in the great deliverance he would work for them. God’s love for them all was a good reason for them to love one another. Times of common joy, as well as times of common suffering, should be times that heal and bind people together.

They would also all be under one king, and so they would become one. After the return from exile, the Jews were under one government, not divided as before. But this points farther ahead, to the kingdom of Christ. He is that one King in whom all God’s spiritual Israel gladly unite, and under whose protection they are gathered. All believers are joined in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. The joining of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel church, becoming one flock under Christ the one great Shepherd, is surely the main thing this prophecy looks toward. By Christ, the dividing wall between them was removed, the hostility was put to death, and the two were made one new man (Ephesians 2:14-15).

Second, it is promised that the Jews will be cured of their love for idols through their captivity. This affliction will bring a good result, the taking away of their sin (Ezekiel 37:23). “They will no longer make themselves unclean with their idols,” those hateful and polluting things, “or with any of their other sins.” When a person truly turns from one sin, he turns from all sin, because anyone who hates sin as sin will hate every sin. Those who are healed of spiritual idolatry, of placing too much love on the world or the flesh, and who no longer make a god of money or of their appetites, have the root of all their other sins struck at.

God will use two means to cure them of idolatry. First, he will bring them out of the places where temptation has trapped them: “I will save them from all the places where they lived and sinned.” There they met the occasions of sin and the pull toward it. It is wise to avoid the places where we have often been overcome by temptation, and not to stay there or go back to them. We should get out of them as we would flee an infected place (Zechariah 2:7; Revelation 18:4). It is a great mercy when God, in his providence, saves us from the places where we have sinned and keeps us from harm by keeping us away from harm’s way, in answer to our prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

By changing their inner attitude, God says, “I will cleanse them” (Ezekiel 37:28). That means he will sanctify them, or set them apart for himself. He will work in them a hatred for sin’s filth and a real delight in holiness. Then they will surely stop defiling themselves with their idols. Those whom God has cleansed, he will also keep clean.

Third, it is promised that they will be God’s people, and he will be their God, with David, God’s servant, as their king and shepherd. These promises were already given before, and they are repeated here for the encouragement of Israel’s faith (Ezekiel 37:23, Ezekiel 37:24). They will be his people, serving him, and he will be their God, saving them and making them happy. David, God’s servant, will be king over them, fighting their battles, protecting them from harm, and ruling all things for their good. He will be their shepherd, guiding them and providing for them. Christ is this David, Israel’s ancient King, and those he brings under his rule, and makes willing on the day of his power, he also teaches to live by his judgments and keep his commands.

Fourth, it is promised that they will dwell in peace and comfort (Ezekiel 37:25, Ezekiel 37:26). They will live in the land of Israel, for where else should Israelites live? Many things will make their home there pleasant. They will possess it by covenant, coming back under their old title, through the grant given to Jacob, God’s servant. As Christ is David, God’s servant, so the church is also Jacob, his servant, and the members of the church receive their share as those born in God’s house. He will make a covenant of peace with them (Ezekiel 37:26), and in keeping with that covenant he will establish them and increase their numbers. Temporal blessings are doubly sweet when they come from the promise of the covenant, not just from common providence.

They will also come to the land by inheritance. It is the land where their fathers lived, so they naturally have a special love for it, and God will kindly grant that desire. It was their ancestors’ inheritance, and so it will be theirs. They are loved for their fathers’ sake. They will also have it passed down to their children and grandchildren, with their families built up so that the land will not be lost for lack of heirs. They will live there all their days and never be driven out. They will leave it as an inheritance to their children and grandchildren forever, who will enjoy it after they are gone, and that hope will be a comfort to them.

They will also live under good rule, and that will greatly add to their peace. “My servant David will be their prince forever.” This can be no one other than Christ, of whom it was said at his birth, “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luke 1:33). It is a great comfort to all Christ’s faithful people that his kingdom lasts forever, and so he is an everlasting King. He lives to reign forever, and as surely and as long as he lives and reigns, they will live and reign also. The charter by which they hold all these blessings is secure and cannot be broken. God’s covenant with them will be an everlasting covenant, as the covenant of grace is, because it secures everlasting happiness for us.

Fifth, it is promised that God will dwell among them, and that will make their life truly comfortable. “I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forever, and my tabernacle also will be with them” (Ezekiel 37:26, Ezekiel 37:27). They will have the signs of God’s special presence and his gracious stay among them. God will truly dwell with them on earth, for where his sanctuary is, there he is. When they profaned his sanctuary, he removed it from them (Isaiah 64:11), but now that they are purified, he will dwell with them again.

They will also have the opportunity to speak with God, hear from him, and keep up fellowship with him, which will be the comfort of their lives. They will have the means of grace. Through God’s messages in his tabernacle, they will grow wiser and better, and all their children will be taught by the Lord. In this way, their covenant relationship with God will grow stronger: “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” They will know this by having his sanctuary among them, and they will enjoy the comfort of it.

Sixth, both God and Israel will be honored among the nations by this (Ezekiel 37:26). At that time the nations saw how Israel had dishonored its own glory by sin, and how God had also dishonored it by his judgments. But then, when Israel is reformed and God returns to them in mercy, even the nations will come to know that the Lord makes Israel holy and has a claim on them and an interest in them greater than in other people, because his sanctuary is, and will remain, in their midst. God intends to sanctify those among whom he sets up his sanctuary. Blessed and holy are those who enjoy the privileges of the sanctuary and show clear signs that they have been made holy, so that the nations can see that nothing less than God’s almighty grace has sanctified them. Such people have God’s sanctuary in their midst, the kingdom of God within them, in the principles of spiritual life, and they will have it that way forever in the joys of eternal life.