JEHOVAH’S FINAL VICTORY Eze. Chapter 38 VS. 1 to Chapter 39 Vs. 29

 

Ezekiel 38:1-39:29

JEHOVAH’S FINAL VICTORY

These chapters give the impression of having been intended to stand at the close of the book of Ezekiel. Their present position is best explained on the supposition that the original collection of Ezekiel’s prophecies actually ended here, and that the remaining chapters (40-48) form an appendix, added at a later period without disturbing the plan on which the book had been arranged. In chronological order, at all events, the oracle on Gog comes after the vision of the last nine chapters. It marks the utmost limit of Ezekiel’s vision of the future of the kingdom of God. It represents the denouement of the great drama of Jehovah’s self-manifestation to the nations of the world. It describes an event which is to take place in the far distant future, long after the Messianic age has begun and after Israel has long been settled peacefully in its own land. Certain considerations, which we shall notice at the end of this lecture, brought home to the prophet’s mind the conviction that the lessons of Israel’s restoration did not afford a sufficient illustration of Jehovah’s glory or of the meaning of His past dealings with His people. The conclusive demonstration of this is therefore to be furnished by the destruction of Gog and his myrmidons when in the latter days they make an onslaught on the Holy Land.

The idea of a great world-catastrophe, following after a long interval the establishment of the kingdom of God, is peculiar to Ezekiel amongst the prophets of the Old Testament. According to other prophets the judgment of the nation's takes place in a day of Jehovah which is the crisis of history; and the Messianic era which follows is a period of undisturbed tranquility in which the knowledge of the true God penetrates to the remotest regions of the earth. In Ezekiel, on the other hand, the judgment of the world is divided into two acts. The nearer nations which have played a part in the history of Israel in the past form a group by themselves; their punishment is a preliminary to the restoration of Israel, and the impression produced by that restoration is for them a signal, though not perhaps a complete, Cf. Eze. 39:23 vindication of the Godhead of Jehovah. But the outlying barbarians, who hover on the outskirts of civilization, are not touched by this revelation of the divine power and goodness; they seem to be represented as utterly ignorant of the marvellous course of events by which Israel has been brought to dwell securely in the midst of the nations. Eze. 38:1-12. These, accordingly, are reserved for a final reckoning, in which the power of Jehovah will be displayed with the terrible physical convulsions which mark the great day of the Lord. Eze. 38:19-23. Only then will the full meaning of Israel’s history be disclosed to the world; in particular it will be seen that it was for their sin that they had fallen under the power of the heathen, and not because of Jehovah’s inability to protect them. Eze. 39:23

These are some general features of the prophecy which at once attract attention. We shall now examine the details of the picture, and then proceed to consider its significance in relation to other elements of Ezekiel’s teaching.

I.

The thirty-eighth chapter may be divided into three sections of seven verses each.

1. Eze. 38:3-9.-The prophet having been commanded to direct his face towards Gog in the land of Magog, is commissioned to announce the fate that is in store for him and his hosts in the latter days. The name of this mysterious and formidable personage was evidently familiar to the Jewish world of Ezekiel’s time, although to us its origin is altogether obscure. The most plausible suggestion, on the whole, is perhaps that which identifies it with the name of the Lydian monarch Gyges, which appears on the Assyrian monuments in the form of Gugu, corresponding as closely as is possible to the Hebrew Gog. But in the mind of Ezekiel Gog is hardly a historical figure. He is but the impersonation of the dreaded power of the northern barbarians, already recognized as a serious danger to the peace of the world. His designation as prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal points to the region east of the Black Sea as the seat of his power. He is the captain of a vast multitude of horsemen, gorgeously arrayed, and armed with shield, helmet, and sword. But although Gog himself belongs to the uttermost north, he gathers under his banner all the most distant nations both of the north and the south. Not only northern peoples like the Cimmerians and Armenians, but Persians and Africans, all of them with shield and helmet, swell the ranks of his motley army. The name of Gog is thus on the way to become a symbol of the implacable enmity of this world to the kingdom of God as in the book of the Revelation it appears as the designation of the ungodly world-power which perishes in conflict with the saints of God. Rev. 20:7 ff.

Gog therefore is summoned to hold himself in readiness, as Jehovah’s reserve, against the last days, when the purpose for which he has been raised up will be made manifest. After many days he shall receive his marching orders; Jehovah Himself will lead forth his squadrons and the innumerable hosts of nations that follow in his train, and bring them up against the mountains of Israel, now reclaimed from desolation, and against a nation gathered from among many peoples, dwelling in peace and security. The advance of these destructive hordes is likened to a tempest, and their innumerable multitude is pictured as a cloud covering all the land Eze. 38:9.

2. Eze. 38:10-16.-But like the Assyrian in the time of Isaiah, Gog meaneth not so; he is not aware that he is Jehovah’s instrument, his purpose being to destroy and cut off nations not a few. Isa. 10:7. Hence the prophet proceeds to a new description of the enterprise of Gog, laying stress on the evil thought that will arise in his heart and lure him to his doom. What urges him on is the lust of plunder. The report of the people of Israel as a people that has amassed wealth and substance, and is at the same time de-fenceless, dwelling in a land without walls or bolts or gates, will have reached him. These two verses Eze. 38:11-12 are interesting as giving a picture of Ezekiel’s conception of the final state of the people of God. They dwell in the navel of the world; they are rich and prosperous, so that the fame of them has gone forth through all lands; they are destitute of military resources, yet are unmolested in the enjoyment of their favoured lot because of the moral effect of Jehovah’s name on all nations that know their history: To Gog, however, who knows nothing of Jehovah, they will seem an easy conquest, and he will come up confident of victory to seize spoil and take booty and lay his hand on waste places re-inhabited and a people gathered out of the heathen. The news of the great expedition and the certainty of its success will rouse the cupidity of the trading communities from all the ends of the earth, and they will attach themselves as camp followers to the army of Gog. In historic times this role would naturally have fallen to the Phoenicians, who had a keen eye for business of this description. But Ezekiel is thinking of a time when Tyre shall be no more; and its place is taken by the mercantile tribes of Arabia and the ancient Phoenician colony of Tarshish. The whole world will then resound with the fame of Gog’s expedition, and the most distant nations will await its issue with eager expectation. This then is the meaning of Gog’s destiny. In the time when Israel dwells peacefully, he will be restless and eager for spoil; his multitudes will be set in motion, and throw themselves on the land, covering it like a cloud. But this is Jehovah’s doing, and the purpose of it is that the nations may know Him and that He may be sanctified in Gog before their eyes.

3. Eze. 38:17-23.-These verses are in the main a description of the annihilation of Gog’s host by the fierce wrath of Jehovah; but this is introduced by a reference to unfulfilled prophecies which are to receive their accomplishment in this great catastrophe. It is difficult to say what particular prophecies are meant. Those which most readily suggest themselves are perhaps the fourth chapter of Joel and the twelfth and fourteenth of Zechariah; but these probably belong to a later date than Ezekiel. The prophecies of Zephaniah and Jeremiah, called forth by the Scythian invasion, (Zeph. 1- 3:8; Jer. 4:1-31; 5:1-31; 6:1-30) have also been thought of, although the point of view there is different from that of Ezekiel. In Jeremiah and Zephaniah, the Scythians are the scourge of God, appointed for the chastisement of the sinful nation; whereas Gog is brought up against a holy people, and for the express purpose of having judgment executed on himself. On the supposition that Ezekiel’s vision was coloured by his recollection of the Scythians, this view has no doubt the greatest likelihood. It is possible, however, that the allusion is not to any particular group of prophecies, but to a general idea which pervades prophecy the expectation of a great conflict in which the power of the world shall be arrayed against Jehovah and Israel, and the issue of which shall exhibit the sole sovereignty of the true God to all mankind. It is of course unnecessary to suppose that any prophet had mentioned Gog by name in a prediction of the future. All that is meant is that Gog is the person in whom the substance of previous oracles is to be accomplished.

The question of Eze. 38:17 leads thus to the announcement of the outpouring of Jehovah’s indignation on the violators of His territory. As soon as Gog sets foot on the soil of Israel, Jehovah’s wrath is kindled against him. A mighty earthquake shall shatter the mountains and level every wall to the ground and strike terror into the hearts of all creatures. The host of Gog shall be panic-stricken, each man turning his sword against his fellow; while Jehovah completes the slaughter by pestilence and blood, rain and hailstones, fire and brimstone. The deliverance of Israel is effected without the help of any human arm; it is the doing of Jehovah, who thus magnifies and sanctifies Himself and makes Himself known before the eyes of many peoples, so that they may know Him to be Jehovah.

4. Eze. 39:1-8. Commencing afresh with a new apostrophe to Gog, Ezekiel here recapitulates the substance of the previous chapter the bringing up of Gog from the farthest north, his destruction on the mountains of Israel, and the effect of this on the surrounding nations. Mention is expressly made of the bow and arrows which were the distinctive weapons of the Scythian horsemen. These are struck from the grasp of Gog, and the mighty host falls on the open field to be devoured by wild beasts and by ravenous birds of every feather. But the judgment is universal in its extent; it reaches to Magog, the distant abode of Gog, and all the remote lands whence his auxiliaries were drawn. This is the day whereof Jehovah has spoken by His servants the prophets of Israel, the day which finally manifests His glory to all the ends of the earth.

5. Eze. 39:9-16. Here the prophet falls into a more prosaic strain, as he proceeds to describe with characteristic fulness of detail the sequel of the great invasion. As the English story of the Invincible Armada would be incomplete without a reference to the treasures cast ashore from the wrecked galleons on the Orkneys and the Hebrides, so the fate of Gog’s ill-starred enterprise is vividly set forth by the minute description of the traces it left behind in the peaceful life of Israel. The irony of the situation is unmistakable, and perhaps a touch of conscious exaggeration is permissible in such a picture. In the first place the weapons of the slain warriors furnish wood enough to serve for fuel to the Israelites for the space of seven years. Then follows a picture of the process of cleansing the land from the corpses of the fallen enemy. A burying-place is assigned to them in the valley of Abarim on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, outside of the sacred territory. The whole people of Israel will be engaged for seven months in the operation of burying them; after this the mouth of the valley will be sealed, and it will be known ever afterwards as the Valley of the Host of Gog. But even after the seven months have expired the scrupulous care of the people for the purity of their land will be shown by the precautions, they take against its continued defilement by any fragment of a skeleton that may have been overlooked. They will appoint permanent officials, whose business will be to search for and remove relics of the dead bodies, that the land may be restored to its purity. Whenever any passer by lights on a bone he will set up a mark beside it to attract the attention of the buriers. Thus in course of time they shall cleanse the land.

6. Eze. 39:17-24. The overwhelming magnitude of the catastrophe is once more set forth under the image of a sacrificial feast, to which Jehovah summons all the birds of the air and every beast of the field Eze. 39:17-20. The feast is represented as a sacrifice not in any religious sense, but simply in accordance with ancient usage, in which the slaughtering of animals was invariably a sacrificial act. The only idea expressed by the figure is that Jehovah has decreed this slaughter of Gog and his host, and that it will be so great that all ravenous beasts and birds will eat flesh to the full and drink the blood of princes of the earth to intoxication. But we turn with relief from these images of carnage and death to the moral purpose which they conceal Eze. 9:21-24. This is stated more distinctly here than in earlier passages of this prophecy. It will teach Israel that Jehovah is indeed their God; the lingering sense of insecurity caused by the remembrance of their former rejection will be finally taken away by this signal deliverance. And through Israel it will teach a lesson to the heathen. They will learn something of the principles on which Jehovah has dealt with His people when they contrast this great salvation with His former desertion of them. It will then fully appear that it was for their sins that they went into captivity; and so the knowledge of God’s holiness and His displeasure against sin will be extended to the nations of the world.

7. Eze. 39:25-29. The closing verses do not strictly belong to the oracle on Gog. The prophet returns to the standpoint of the present, and predicts once more the restoration of Israel, which has heretofore been assumed as an accomplished fact. The connection with what precedes is, however, very close. The divine attributes, whose final manifestation to the world is reserved for the far-off day of Gog’s defeat, are already about to be revealed to Israel. Jehovah’s compassion for His people and His jealousy for His own name will speedily be shown in turning the fortunes of Israel, bringing them back from the peoples, and gathering them from the land of their enemies. The consequences of this upon the nation itself are described in more gracious terms than in any other passage. They shall forget their shame and all their trespasses when they dwell securely in their own land, none making them afraid. The saving knowledge of Jehovah as their God, who led them into captivity and brought them back again, will as far as Israel is concerned be complete; and the gracious relation thus established shall no more be interrupted, because of the divine Spirit which has been poured out on the house of Israel.

II.

It will be seen from this summary of the contents of the prophecy that, while it presents many features peculiar to itself, it also contains much in common with the general drift of the prophet’s thinking. We must now try to form an estimate of its significance as an episode in the great drama of Providence which unfolded itself before his inspired imagination.

The ideas peculiar to the passage are for the most part such as might have been suggested to the mind of Ezekiel by the remembrance of the great Scythian invasion in the reign of Josiah. Although it is not likely that he had himself lived through that time of terror, he must have grown up whilst it was still fresh in the public recollection, and the rumour of it had apparently left upon him impressions never afterwards effaced. Several circumstances, none of them perhaps decisive by itself, conspire to show that at least in its imagery the oracle on Gog is based on the conception of an eruption of Scythian barbarians. The name of Gog may be too obscure to serve as an indication; but his location in the extreme north, the description of his army as composed mainly of cavalry armed with bows and arrows, their innumerable multitude, and the love of pillage and destruction by which they are animated, all point to the Scythians as the originals from whom the picture of Gog’s host is drawn. Besides the light which it casts on the genesis of the prophecy, this fact has a certain biographical interest for the reader of Ezekiel. That the prophet’s furthest vista into the future should be a reflection of his earliest memory reminds us of a common human experience. The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, reaching far into manhood and old age; and the mind as it turns back upon them may often discover in them that which carries it furthest in reading the divine mysteries of life and destiny.

"Thus while the Sun sinks down to rest

Far in the regions of the west,

Though to the vale no parting beam

Be given, not one memorial gleam,

A lingering light he fondly throws

On the dear halls where first he rose."

For it is not merely the imagery of the prophecy that reveals the influence of these early associations; the thoughts which it embodies are themselves partly the result of the prophet’s meditation on questions suggested by the invasion. His youthful impressions of the descent of the northern hordes were afterwards illuminated, as we see from his own words, by the study of contemporary prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah called forth by the event. From these and other predictions he learned that Jehovah had a purpose with regard to the remotest nations of the earth which yet awaited its accomplishment. That purpose, in accordance with his general conception of the ends of the divine government, could be nothing else than the manifestation of Jehovah’s glory before the eyes of the world. That this involved an act of judgment was only too certain from the universal hostility of the heathen to the kingdom of God. Hence the prophet’s reflections would lead directly to the expectation of a final onslaught of the powers of this world on the people of Israel, which would give occasion for a display of Jehovah’s might on a grander scale than had yet been seen. And this presentiment of an impending conflict between Jehovah and the pagan world headed by the Scythian barbarians forms the kernel of the oracle against Gog. But we must further observe that this idea, from Ezekiel’s point of view, necessarily presupposes the restoration of Israel to its own land. The peoples assembled under the standard of Gog are those which have never as yet come in contact with the true God, and consequently have had no opportunity of manifesting their disposition towards Him. They have not sinned as Edom and Tyre, as Egypt and Assyria have sinned, by injuries done to Jehovah through His people. Even the Scythians themselves, although they had approached the confines of the sacred territory, do not seem to have invaded it. Nor could the opportunity present itself so long as Israel was in Exile. While Jehovah was without an earthly sanctuary or a visible emblem of His government, there was no possibility of such an infringement of His holiness on the part of the heathen as would arrest the attention of the world. The judgment of Gog, therefore, could not be conceived as a preliminary to the restoration of Israel, like that on Egypt and the nations immediately surrounding Israel. It could only take place under a state of things in which Israel was once more holiness to the Lord, and the firstfruits of His increase, so that all that devoured him were counted guilty. Jer. 2:3 This enables us partly to understand what appears to us the most singular feature of the prophecy, the projection of the final manifestation of Jehovah into the remote future, when Israel is already in possession of all the blessings of the Messianic dispensation. It is a consequence of the extension of the prophetic horizon, so as to embrace the distant peoples that had hitherto been beyond the pale of civilization.

There are other aspects of Ezekiel’s teaching on which light is thrown by this anticipation of a world judgment as the final scene of history. The prophet was evidently conscious of a certain inconclusiveness and want of finality in the prospect of the restoration as a justification of the ways of God to men. Although all the forces of the world’s salvation were wrapped up in it, its effects were still limited and measurable, both as to their range of influence and their inherent significance. Not only did it fail to impress the more distant nations, but its own lessons were incompletely taught. He felt that it had not been made clear to the dull perceptions of the heathen why the God of Israel had ever suffered His land to be desecrated and His people to be led into captivity. Even Israel itself will not fully know all that is meant by having Jehovah for its God until the history of revelation is finished. Only in the summing up of the ages, and in the light of the last judgment, will men truly realize all that is implied in the terms God and sin and redemption. The end is needed to interpret the process; and all religious conceptions await their fulfilment in the light of eternity which is yet to break on the issues of human history.

Book of Joel Chapter 3 Vs. 6

 The Lord Judges the Nations

The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Joel 3:6

The children...

בֵּן

bên

bane

From H1129; a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etc., (like H1, H251, etc.): - + afflicted, age, [Ahoh-] [Ammon-] [Hachmon-] [Lev-]ite, [anoint-]ed one, appointed to, (+) arrow, [Assyr-] [Babylon-] [Egypt-] [Grec-]ian, one born, bough, branch, breed, + (young) bullock, + (young) calf, X came up in, child, colt, X common, X corn, daughter, X of first, + firstborn, foal, + very fruitful, + postage, X in, + kid, + lamb, (+) man, meet, + mighty, + nephew, old, (+) people, + rebel, + robber, X servant born, X soldier, son, + spark, + steward, + stranger, X surely, them of, + tumultuous one, + valiant[-est], whelp, worthy, young (one), youth.

also of Judah...

יְהוּדָה

y^ehûdâh

yeh-hoo-daw'

From H3034, celebrated; Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five Israelites; also of the tribe descended from the first, and of its territory: - Judah.

of Jerusalem...

יְרוּשָׁלַיִם יְרוּשָׁלַםִ

y^erûshâlaim y^erûshâlayim

yer-oo-shaw-lah'-im, yer-oo-shaw-lah'-yim

A dual (in allusion to its two main hills (the true pointing, at least of the former reading, seems to be that of H3390)); probably from (the passive participle of) H3384 and H7999; founded peaceful; Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of Israel: - Jerusalem.

have ye sold... They had sold them to the Greeks to get them further away from their homeland, so there would be less chance of them returning. This speaks in the past tense, and is not connected to the end time prophecy, except that God had not forgotten even in the end times what they had done.

מָכַר

mâkar

maw-kar'

A primitive root; to sell, literally (as merchandise, a daughter in marriage, into slavery), or figuratively (to surrender): - X at all, sell (away, -er, self).

unto the Grecians... The sons of Greece. Although not prominent militarily, the Greeks were active in commerce on the Mediterranean in the 9^th century B.C.

בֵּן

bên

bane

From H1129; a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etc., (like H1, H251, etc.): - + afflicted, age, [Ahoh-] [Ammon-] [Hachmon-] [Lev-]ite, [anoint-]ed one, appointed to, (+) arrow, [Assyr-] [Babylon-] [Egypt-] [Grec-]ian, one born, bough, branch, breed, + (young) bullock, + (young) calf, X came up in, child, colt, X common, X corn, daughter, X of first, + firstborn, foal, + very fruitful, + postage, X in, + kid, + lamb, (+) man, meet, + mighty, + nephew, old, (+) people, + rebel, + robber, X servant born, X soldier, son, + spark, + steward, + stranger, X surely, them of, + tumultuous one, + valiant[-est], whelp, worthy, young (one), youth.

that...

מַעַן

ma‛an

mah'-an

From H6030, properly heed, that is, purpose; used only adverbially, on account of (as a motive or an aim), teleologically in order that: - because of, to the end (intent) that, for (to, . . . ‘s sake), + lest, that, too.

ye might remove them far...

רָחַק

râchaq

raw-khak'

A primitive root; to widen (in any direction), that is, (intransitively) recede or (transitively) remove (literally or figuratively, of place or relation): - (a, be, cast, drive, get, go, keep [self], put, remove, be too, [wander], withdraw) far (away, off), loose, X refrain, very, (be) a good way (off).

their border...

גְּבֻל גְּבוּל

g^ebûl gebûl

gheb-ool', gheb-ool'

From H1379, properly a cord (as twisted), that is, (by implication) a boundary; by extension the territory in-closed: - border, bound, coast, X great, landmark, limit, quarter, space.

Another feature worthy of notice is that the Phoenicians are accused of selling Jews to the sons of the Jevanim, Ionians or Greeks. The latter lie on the far horizon of the prophet, and we know from classical writers that from the fifth century onward numbers of Syrian slaves were brought to Greece. The other features of the chapter are borrowed from earlier prophets.

Phoenician and Philistine involvement in slave trade (Joel 3:6) is mentioned elsewhere (cf. Amos 1:6, 1:9). According to Kapelrud, the Greeks mentioned here are actually Ionians y^ewānı̂m, who populated the coasts of Asia Minor (Joel Studies, p. 154). Ionian commerce was at its peak in the seventh and sixth centuries b.c. Eze. 27:13, 27:19 mentions Tyrian trading arrangements (including slaves) with the Ionians (or Greece). The trading recalled in Joel may have occurred in conjunction with Judah’s fall to the Babylonians.

Book of 1 John Chapter 3 Vs. 19

 

Love One Another

1 John 3:19 "And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him."

hereby we know... A lifestyle of love in action is the demonstrable proof of salvation, see verse 16. John gives three benefits of love for the true Christian. The first benefit is assurance of salvation since love in action is the test of Christian profession (4:7; John 13:34-35).

Five Blessings of Genuine Love

1. Confirmation that we are of the truth

2. Assurance of a clean heart before God

3. Freedom from condemnation (1Jhn. 3:20-21)

4. Faith and confidence in God (1Jhn. 3:21)

5. Answers to prayers (1Jhn. 3:22)

Cain in verse 12 was of that wicked one; believers are of the truth. And hereby: John seems to be saying that assurance of salvation comes in part as one reaches out actively in caring for others proceeding verses.

Truth and God are interchangeable here. We know we will have no regrets, if when we stand before God, we have acted out the faith that we say we have. Our heart will not condemn us, if we know we have done the best we can by everyone.

shall assure (πείσομεν)

Two renderings are possible; the primitive meaning persuade (Acts 19:26; 17:4; 2Cor. 5:11); or the secondary and consequent sense, assure, quiet, conciliate (Mat. 28:14). Render as A.V., and Rev. as sure. See critical note at the end of the commentary on this Epistle.

before Him (ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ)

Emphatic, the order being, before Him we shall assure our heart. These words are to be kept in mind as the keynote of what follows.

What Love Does for Believers

The statement, this then is how we know that we belong to the truth, probably refers back to 1Jhn. 3:17-18. By practical acts of love in which the needs of others are met, Christians can have a basic assurance that they are participating experientially in the truth. (The NIV’s we belong to the truth paraphrases the Gr. we are of the truth; cf. of God 1Jhn. 3:10 and belonged to the evil one [1Jhn. 3:12].)

LIFE FROM THE DEAD Eze. Chapter 37 Vs. 1-28

 

Ezekiel 37:1-28

LIFE FROM THE DEAD

The most formidable obstacle to faith on the part of the exiles in the possibility of a national redemption was the complete disintegration of the ancient people of Israel. Hard as it was to realize that Jehovah still lived and reigned in spite of the cessation of His worship, and hard to hope for a recovery of the land of Canaan from the dominion of the heathen, these things were still conceivable. What almost surpassed conception was the restoration of national life to the feeble and demoralized remnant who had survived the fall of the state. It was no mere figure of speech that these exiles employed when they thought of their nation as dead. Cast off by its God, driven from its land, dismembered and deprived of its political organization, Israel as a people had ceased to exist. Not only were the outward symbols of national unity destroyed, but the national spirit was extinct. Just as the destruction of the bodily organism implies the death of each separate member and organ and cell, so the individual Israelites felt themselves to be as dead men, dragging out an aimless existence without hope in the world. While Israel was alive, they had lived in her and for her; all the best part of their life, religion, duty, liberty, and loyalty had been bound up with the consciousness of belonging to a nation with a proud history behind them and a brilliant future for their posterity. Now that Israel had perished all spiritual and ideal significance had gone out of their lives; there remained but a selfish and sordid struggle for existence, and this they felt was not life, but death in life. And thus a promise of deliverance which appealed to them as members of a nation seemed to them a mockery, because they felt in themselves that the bond of national life was irrevocably broken.

The hardest part of Ezekiel’s task at this time was therefore to revive the national sentiment, so as to meet the obvious objection that even if Jehovah were able to drive the heathen from His land there was still no people of Israel to whom He could give it. If only the exiles could be brought to believe that Israel had a future, that although now dead it could be raised from the dead, the spiritual meaning of their life would be given back to them in the form of hope, and faith in God would be possible. Accordingly, the prophet’s thoughts are now directed to the idea of the nation as the third factor of the Messianic hope. He has spoken of the kingdom and the land, and each of these ideas has led him on to the contemplation of the final condition of the world, in which Jehovah’s purpose is fully manifested. So, in this chapter he finds in the idea of the nation a new point of departure, from which he proceeds to delineate once more the Messianic salvation in its completeness.

The vision of the valley of dry bones described in the first part of the chapter contains the answer to the desponding thoughts of the exiles and seems indeed to be directly suggested by the figure in which the popular feeling was currently expressed: "Our bones are dried; our hope is lost: we feel ourselves cut off" Eze. 37:11. The fact that the answer came to the prophet in a state of trance may perhaps indicate that his mind had brooded over these words of the people for some time before the moment of inspiration. Recognizing how faithfully they represented the actual situation; he was yet unable to suggest an adequate solution of the difficulty by means of the prophetic conceptions hitherto revealed to him. Such a vision as this seems to presuppose a period of intense mental activity on the part of Ezekiel, during which the despairing utterance of his compatriots sounded in his ears; and the image of the dried bones of the house of Israel so fixed itself in his mind that he could not escape its gloomy associations except by a direct communication from above. When at last the hand of the Lord came upon him, the revelation clothed itself in a form corresponding to his previous meditations; the emblem of death and despair is transformed into a symbol of assured hope through the astounding vision which unfolds itself before his inner eye.

In the ecstasy he feels himself led out in spirit to the plain which had been the scene of former appearances of God to His prophet. But on this occasion, he sees it covered with bones very many on the surface of the valley, and very dry. He is made to pass round about them, in order that the full impression of this spectacle of desolation might sink into his mind. His attention is engrossed by two facts their exceeding great number, and their parched appearance, as if they had lain there long. In other circumstances the question might have suggested itself, how came these bones there? What countless host has perished here, leaving its unburied bones to bleach and wither on the open plain? But the prophet has no need to think of this. They are the bones which had been familiar to his waking thoughts, the dry bones of the house of Israel. The question he hears addressed to him is not, whence are these bones? but, Can these bones live? It is the problem which had exercised his faith in thinking of a national restoration which thus comes back to him in vision, to receive its final solution from Him who alone can give it.

The prophet’s hesitating answer probably reveals the struggle between faith and sight, between hope and fear, which was latent in his mind. He dares not say no, for that would be to limit the power of Him whom he knows to be omnipotent, and also to shut out the last gleam of hope from his own mind. Yet in presence of that appalling scene of hopeless decay and death he cannot of his own initiative assert the possibility of resurrection. In the abstract all things are possible with God; but whether this particular thing, so inconceivable to men, is within the active purpose of God, is a question which none can answer save God Himself. Ezekiel does what man must always do in such a case he throws himself back on God, and reverently awaits the disclosure of His will, saying, O Jehovah God, Thou Knowest.

It is instructive to notice that the divine answer comes through the consciousness of a duty. Ezekiel is commanded first of all to prophesy over these dry bones; and in the words given him to utter the solution of his own inward perplexity is wrapped up. Say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live Eze. 37:4-5. In this way he is not only taught that the agency by which Jehovah will affect His purpose is the prophetic word, but he is also reminded that the truth now revealed to him is to be the guide of his practical ministry, and that only in the steadfast discharge of his prophetic duty can he hold fast the hope of Israel’s resurrection. The problem that has exercised him is not one that can be settled in retirement and inaction. What he receives is not a mere answer, but a message, and the delivery of the message is the only way in which he can realize the truth of it: his activity as a prophet being indeed a necessary element in the fulfilment of his words. Let him preach the word of God to these dry bones, and he will know that they can live; but if he fails to do this, he will sink back into the unbelief to which all things are impossible. Faith comes in the act of prophesying.

Ezekiel did as he was commanded; he prophesied over the dry bones, and immediately he was sensible of the effect of his words. He heard a rustling, and looking he saw that the bones were coming together, bone to his bone. He does not need to tell us how his heart rejoiced at this first sign of life returning to these dead bones, and as he watched the whole process by which they were built up into the semblance of men. It is described in minute detail, so that no feature of the impression produced by the stupendous miracle may be lost. It is divided into two stages, the restoration of the bodily frame and the imparting of the principle of life.

This division cannot have any special significance when applied to the actual nation, such as that the outward order of the state must be first established, and then the national consciousness renewed. It belongs to the imagery of the vision and follows the order observed in the original creation of man as described in the second chapter of Genesis. God first formed man of the dust of the ground, and afterwards breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living soul. So here we have first a description of the process by which the bodies were built up, the skeletons being formed from the scattered bones, and then clothed successively with sinews and flesh and skin. The reanimation of these still lifeless bodies is a separate act of creative energy, in which, however, the agency is still the word of God in the mouth of the prophet. He is bidden call for the breath to come from the four winds of heaven, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. In Hebrew the words for wind, breath, and spirit are identical; and thus the wind becomes a symbol of the universal divine Spirit, which is the source of all life, while the breath is a symbol of that Spirit as, so to speak, specialized in the individual man, or in other words of his personal life. In the case of the first man Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the idea here is precisely the same. The wind from the four quarters of heaven which becomes the breath of this vast assemblage of men is conceived as the breath of God, and symbolizes the life-giving Spirit which makes each of them a living person. The resurrection is complete. The men live, and stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

This is the simplest, as well as the most suggestive, of Ezekiel’s visions, and carries its interpretation on the face of it. The single idea which it expresses is the restoration of the Hebrew nationality through the quickening influence of the Spirit of Jehovah on the surviving members of the old house of Israel. It is not a prophecy of the resurrection of individual Israelites who have perished. The bones are the whole house of Israel now in exile; they are alive as individuals, but as members of a nation they are dead and hopeless of revival. This is made clear by the explanation of the vision given in Eze. 37:11-14. It is addressed to those who think of themselves as cut off from the higher interests and activities of the national life. By a slight change of figure, they are conceived as dead and buried; and the resurrection is represented as an opening of their graves. But the grave is no more to be understood literally than the dry bones of the vision itself; both are symbols of the gloomy and despairing view which the exiles take of their own condition. The substance of the prophet’s message is that the God who raises the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were able to bring together the scattered members of the house of Israel and form them into a new people through the operation of His life-giving Spirit.

It has often been supposed that, although the passage may not directly teach the resurrection of the body, it nevertheless implies a certain familiarity with that doctrine on the part of Ezekiel, if not of his hearers likewise. If the raising of dead men to life could be used as an analogy of a national restoration, the former conception must have been at least more obvious than the latter, otherwise the prophet would be explaining obscurum per obscurius. This argument, however, has only a superficial plausibility. It confounds two things which are distinct the mere conception of resurrection, which is all that was necessary to make the vision intelligible and settled faith in it as an element of the Messianic expectation. That God by a miracle could restore the dead to life no devout Israelite ever doubted. Cf. 1Kgs. 17:1-24; 2Kgs. 4:13 ff; 13:21. But it is to be noted that the recorded instances of such miracles are all of those recently dead; and there is no evidence of a general belief in the possibility of resurrection for those whose bones were scattered and dry. It is this very impossibility, indeed, that gives point to the metaphor under which the people here express their sense of hopelessness. Moreover, if the prophet had presupposed the doctrine of individual resurrection, he could hardly have used it as an illustration in the way he does. The mere prospect of a resuscitation of the multitudes of Israelites who had perished would of itself have been a sufficient answer to the despondency of the exiles; and it would have been an anti-climax to use it as an argument for something much less wonderful. We must also bear in mind that while the resurrection of a nation may be to us little more than a figure of speech, to the Hebrew mind it was an object of thought more real and tangible than the idea of personal immortality.

It would appear therefore that in the order of revelation the hope of the resurrection is first presented in the promise of a resurrection of the dead nation of Israel, and only in the second instance as the resurrection of individual Israelites who should have passed away without sharing in the glory of the latter days. Like the early converts to Christianity, the Old Testament believers sorrowed for those who fell asleep when the Messiah’s kingdom was supposed to be just at hand, until they found consolation in the blessed hope of a resurrection with which Paul comforted the Church at Thessalonica. 1Thes. 4:13 ff In Ezekiel we find that doctrine as yet only in its more general form of a national resurrection; but it can hardly be doubted that the form in which he expressed it prepared the way for the fuller revelation of a resurrection of the individual. In two later passages of the prophetic Scriptures, we seem to find clear indications of progress in this direction. One is a difficult verse in the twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah part of a prophecy usually assigned to a period later than Ezekiel where the writer, after a lamentation over the disappointments and wasted efforts of the present, suddenly breaks into a rapture of hope as he thinks of a time when departed Israelites shall be restored to life to join the ranks of the ransomed people of God: "Let thy dead live again! Let my dead bodies arise! Awake and rejoice, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is a dew of light, and the earth shall yield up [her] shades." Isa. 26:19. There does not seem to be any doubt that what is here predicted is the actual resurrection of individual members of the people of Israel to share in the blessings of the kingdom of God. The other passage referred to is in the book of Daniel, where we have the first explicit prediction of a resurrection both of the just and the unjust. In the time of trouble, when the people is delivered "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Dan. 12:2.

These remarks are made merely to show in what sense Ezekiel’s vision may be regarded as a contribution to the Old Testament doctrine of personal immortality. It is so not by its direct teaching, nor yet by its presuppositions, but by the suggestiveness of its imagery; opening out a line of thought which under the guidance of the Spirit of truth led to a fuller disclosure of the care of God for the individual life, and His purpose to redeem from the power of the grave those who had departed this life in His faith and fear.

But this line of inquiry lies somewhat apart from the main teaching of the passage before us as a message for the Church in all ages. The passage teaches with striking clearness the continuity of God’s redeeming work in the world, in spite of hindrances which to human eyes seem insurmountable. The gravest hindrance, both in appearance and in reality, is the decay of faith and vital religion in the Church itself. There are times when earnest men are tempted to say that the Church’s hope is lost and her bones are dried when laxity of life and lukewarmness in devotion pervade all her members, and she ceases to influence the world for good. And yet when we consider that the whole history of God’s cause is one long process of raising dead souls to spiritual life and building up a kingdom of God out of fallen humanity, we see that the true hope of the Church can never be lost. It lies in the life-giving, regenerating power of the divine Spirit, and the promise that the word of God does not return to Him void but prospers in the thing whereto He sends it. That is the great lesson of Ezekiel’s vision, and although its immediate application may be limited to the occasion that called it forth, yet the analogy on which it is founded is taken up by our Lord Himself and extended to the proclamation of His truth to the world at large: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." John 25; Cf. John 20:28-29. We perhaps too readily empty these strong terms of their meaning. The Spirit of God is apt to become a mere expression for the religious and moral influences lodged in a Christian society, and we come to rely on these agencies for the dissemination of Christian principles and the formation of Christian character. We forget that behind all this there is something which is compared to the imparting of life where there was none, something which is the work of the Spirit of which we cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. But in times of low spirituality, when the love of many waxes cold, and there are few signs of zeal and activity in the service of Christ, men learn to fall back in faith on the invisible power of God to make His word effectual for the revival of His cause among men. And this happens constantly in narrow spheres which may never attract the notice of the world. There are positions in the Church still where Christ’s servants are called to labour in the faith of Ezekiel, with appearances all against them, and nothing to inspire them but the conviction that the word they preach is the power of God and able even to bring life to the dead.

II.

The second half of the chapter speaks of a special feature of the national restoration, the reunion of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel under one sceptre. This is represented first of all by a symbolic action. The prophet is directed to take two pieces of wood, apparently in the form of scepters, and to write upon them inscriptions dedicating them respectively to Judah and Joseph, the heads of the two confederacies out of which the rival monarchies were formed. The companions Eze. 37:16 i.e., allies of Judah are the two tribes of Benjamin and Simeon; those of Joseph are all the other tribes, who stood under the hegemony of Ephraim. If the second inscription is rather more complicated than the first, it is because of the fact that there was no actual tribe of Joseph. It therefore runs thus: For Joseph, the staff of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his confederates. These two staves then he is to put together so that they become one sceptre in his hand. It is a little difficult to decide whether this was a sign that was actually performed before the people, or one that is only imagined. It depends partly on what we take to be meant by the joining of the two pieces. If Ezekiel merely took two sticks, put them end to end, and made them look like one, then no doubt he did this in public, for otherwise there would be no use in mentioning the circumstance at all. But if the meaning is, as seems more probable, that when the rods are put together, they miraculously grow into one, then we see that such a sign has a value for the prophet’s own mind as a symbol of the truth revealed to him, and it is no longer necessary to assume that the action was really performed. The purpose of the sign is not merely to suggest the idea of political unity, which is too simple to require any such illustration, but rather to indicate the completeness of the union and the divine force needed to bring it about. The difficulty of conceiving a perfect fusion of the two parts of the nation was really very great, the cleavage between Judah and the North being much older than the monarchy and having been accentuated by centuries of political separation and rivalry.

To us the most noteworthy fact is the steadfastness with which the prophets of this period cling to the hope of a restoration of the northern tribes, although nearly a century and a half had now elapsed since "Ephraim was broken from being a people." Isa. 7:8. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is unable to think of an Israel which does not include the representatives of the ten northern tribes. Whether any communication was kept up with the colonies of Israelites that had been transported from Samaria to Assyria we do not know, but they are regarded as still existing, and still remembered by Jehovah. The resurrection of the nation which Ezekiel has just predicted is expressly said to apply to the whole house of Israel, and now he goes on to announce that this exceeding great army shall march to its land not under two banners, but under one.

We have touched already, in speaking of the Messianic idea, on the reasons which led the prophets to put so much emphasis on this union. They felt as strongly on the point as a High Churchman does about the sin of schism, and it would not be difficult for the latter to show that his point of view and his ideals closely resemble those of the prophets. The rending of the body of Christ which is supposed to be involved in a breach of external unity is paralleled by the disruption of the Hebrew state, which violates the unity of the one people of Jehovah. The idea of the Church as the bride of Christ is the same idea under which Hosea expresses the relations between Jehovah and Israel, and it necessarily carries with it the unity of the people of Israel in the one case and of the Church in the other. It must be admitted also that the evils resulting from the division between Judah and Israel have been reproduced, with consequences a thousand times more disastrous to religion, in the strife and uncharitableness, the party spirit and jealousies and animosities, which different denominations of Christians have invariably exhibited towards each other when they were close enough for mutual interest. But granting all this and granting that what is called schism is essentially the same thing that the prophets desired to see removed, it does not at once follow that dissent is in itself sinful, and still less that the sin is necessarily on the side of the Dissenter. The question is whether the national standpoint of the prophets is altogether applicable to the communion of saints in Christ, whether the body of Christ is really torn asunder by differences in organization and opinion, whether, in short, anything is necessary to avoid the guilt of schism beyond keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The Old Testament dealt with men in the mass, as members of a nation, and its standards can hardly be adequate to the polity of a religion which has to provide for the freedom of the individual conscience before God. At the worst the Dissenter may point out that the Old Testament schism was necessary as a protest against tyranny and despotism, that in this aspect it was sanctioned by the inspired prophets of the age, that its undoubted evils were partly compensated by a freer expansion of religious life, and finally that even the prophets did not expect it to be healed before the millennium.

From the idea of the reunited nation Ezekiel returns easily to the promise of the Davidic king and the blessings of the Messianic dispensation. The one people implies one shepherd, and also one land, and one spirit to walk in Jehovah’s judgments and to observe His statutes to do them. The various elements which enter into the conception of national salvation are thus gathered up and combined in one picture of the people’s everlasting felicity. And the whole is crowned by the promise of Jehovah’s presence with the people, sanctifying and protecting them from His sanctuary. This final condition of things is permanent and eternal. The sources of internal dis peace are removed by the washing away of Israel’s iniquities, and the impossibility of any disturbance from without is illustrated by the onslaught of the heathen nations described in the following chapters.