Ezekiel 37:15-23

In Christ, we are grafted into the root, we who were once without hope have the very Spirit of God dwelling in us. 

Christ within is our hope of eternity with our Triune God!

Ezekiel 37:15–23

15 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’ 17 Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand.

18 “And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’—19 say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand.” ’ 20 And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.

21 “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; 22 and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. 23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel performs a sign-act depicting the reunification of Israel and Judah. As before, his symbolic actions illicit a confused response from the people, resulting in two prophecies that explain his actions.

The first piece of wood symbolizes Judah,  the southern kingdom. The second piece of wood symbolizes the northern kingdom of Israel. Ephraim was Joseph’s son, and the tribe named after him became the most powerful in the northern kingdom. Due to the tribe’s dominance, biblical writers commonly use the name Ephraim to refer to the northern kingdom as a whole.  

Ezekiel’s sign-act predicts a future restoration of Israel and Judah into a unified kingdom. From the perspective of Ezekiel and the community of exiles in Babylon, it would have been nearly 150 years since the northern tribes were deported by the Assyrians (722 bc). The metaphor of the dry bones may serve to reflect that span of time. Perhaps the exiles’ pessimism extended to a concern that they would essentially disappear and be forgotten, as the northern tribes had. With this prophecy, Yahweh promises that neither is true. Faithlife Bible.

The bones symbolize the whole house of Israel. This identification picks up on imagery already used: (1) those identified as dry or spiritually dead; (2) those identified as despondent and dejected, with no apparent hope of being “resurrected” as the people of the living God; and (3) those described as disassembled and dispersed before being rejoined and rebuilt. 

The major thrust of this passage is the coming spiritual rebirth of God’s chosen people through the agency of His Spirit. The spiritual rebirth would miraculously revive and restore human beings to what God had intended them to be in the beginning. The same body-breath sequence occurs in the creation of Adam. NKJ Bible.

2 Chronicles 11:16 And after the Levites left, those from all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the LORD God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers.

2 Chronicles 15:9 Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those who dwelt with them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, for they came over to him in great numbers from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.

Zechariah 10:6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back,Because I have mercy on them.They shall be as though I had not cast them aside; for I am the LORD their God, and I will hear them.”