How God Restores Israel (Ezekiel 37:15-28) :: By Dr. Donald Whitchard
Ezekiel 37:1-14 describes the nation of Israel as a desolate valley of dry bones, devoid of life and significance. Ezekiel, like most of his fellow Israelites, had given up on the idea of ever being restored as a country. They were now in the land of Babylon, exiled from everything they had held dear. The temple that had been built by King Solomon hundreds of years before was now a ruinous heap. Jerusalem was in ruins, having been leveled to the ground by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. The last king of Judah, Zedekiah, had seen his two sons killed and had his eyes gouged out, carried off as a prisoner, with most of the royal family killed or put in prison. It looked as if the Davidic dynasty had been, for all practical purposes, wiped out.
It was at its lowest point in Israel’s history that God took Ezekiel to the barren lands, showed him the valley of dry bones, and told him to prophesy to them. Obeying God, he did so and saw in the vision the bones being placed back together, muscles and flesh placed upon the bones, and the breath of life given to them, becoming a mighty army.
God showed Ezekiel that He was not done with Israel and that their restoration to the land would become a reality. God’s covenant with Israel that He had made with Abraham thousands of years earlier would never be broken nor thwarted by the plans and schemes of empires, tyrants, or kingdoms. God promised Abraham that whoever blessed Israel would themselves be blessed, and whoever cursed Israel would be cursed (Genesis 12:1-4). This promise holds true today. Despite what some theologians say, God is not finished with Israel. He has never abandoned nor forsaken them. He has, however, punished those nations and empires that have tried to eliminate or make war with them. This is something that the world has yet to learn.
Many Bible teachers and prophecy experts have taught that the valley of dry bones refers to the desolate and horrific conditions of the Jews after the time of the Holocaust (1935-1945) when the survivors of places such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor, Dachau, and other places were freed by the Allied armies of World War II. We know of the efforts of Corrie Ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, Sir Nicholas Winton, and other brave souls who defied the Nazis in order to rescue the Jews. At the end of the war, however, the Jews had nowhere to go and no one to care for them. Even after their liberation, they found themselves in varied refugee camps and processed but were without a home or homeland.
The British Mandate of 1917 had only allowed a fixed number of Jews to enter the area known as “Palestine” before World War II. This strict quota system infuriated the Zionists, the group of Jews who wanted to re-establish the nation of Israel, such as David Ben-Gurion (who would be the first prime minister of Israel when it declared its independence in 1948). Great Britain had ruled Palestine since 1918 as part of its empire, yet even after World War II, only allowed a small percentage of Jewish refugees to enter the nation due to increasing protest and aggression by the Arab nations.
The United Nations, which had been established in 1945, had promised the Jews a homeland that would encompass not only what would be the state of Israel but also the area known as the Trans-Jordan, which is known today as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Opposition from the Arab nations made the UN reduce the area of land for a Jewish state to what is Israel today, and even that area was reduced, with Jordan out as a possible settlement. It seems as if the world wanted Israel to remain a valley of dry bones, but God is never intimidated by the plans of men (Psalm 2:1-12). Israel has flesh, blood, bone, and breath from the supernatural hand of the Living God, and that will never change.
In November 1947, fifty years after the declaration of the Zionist cause by Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the UN voted to establish a Jewish homeland in what had been the ancient borders of the country. The Arab nations had voted against it, but other nations, including Stalinist Russia, voted in the affirmative. The British government was to leave Palestine and hand it over to Jewish control the next year.
On May 14, 1948, in the city of Tel Aviv, the leaders of the Jewish delegation, headed by David Ben-Gurion, declared the birth of the state of Israel. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation fifteen minutes after its declaration. Since then, the USA has been one of the staunchest allies of Israel, with some rough patches occurring over time. The new nation had to fight for its life in the first two years of its existence due to attacks from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. Each time that Israel was attacked, she gained further territory. This also happened during the Six-Day War of 1967, where the Israel Defense Force captured Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank of what had been part of the Kingdom of Jordan.
In 1982, Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of a peace treaty. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 almost wiped the nation off the map, and if not for the assistance of the USA under the administration of President Richard Nixon, it might have happened.
Israel’s tense relations with the world, as well as with her Arab neighbors, have not decreased in the seventy-plus years of its existence. The ongoing war in Gaza between the IDF, Hamas, and Hezbollah has been in the news since last October when Hamas and Hezbollah forces, financed by Iran, invaded the nation and killed over 1,000 men, women, and children. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out the terrorist groups and strike Iran’s proxy states with everything they have. The current administration has tried to pressure Israel into a cease-fire between them and their foes and has withheld aid at some point for refusing to do so.
The media and propaganda from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israel’s oldest enemy in the region, have used this war to drum up support for Palestine and the destruction of Israel, a movement that nearly 30 % of American youth support on college campuses, along with the growing anti-Semitism worldwide.
The Bible says that Israel, especially Jerusalem, would become a “Cup of trembling” (Zechariah 12:2) and that there would be no nation that would come to her aid in the last days. Unfortunately, this includes the USA as well, and we see this happening with more frequency as this current administration tries to make nice with Iran and the other mortal foes of Israel. We see more so-called “Christian ministries” that oppose the state and policies of Israel, and anti-Semitism is growing in many congregations and denominations. The teaching of “replacement theology,” which states God is through with Israel and the blessings that were promised to it now refer exclusively to the church, is a major concern to those of us who support and pray for the Jewish people.
Those of us who are true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ must not and cannot turn our back on Israel. It is not a perfect nation. No nation has that characteristic. However, when we read the conclusion of Ezekiel 37:15-28, we see that God is going to not just restore Israel to the land but will make it the centerpiece of the new heaven and earth. The future place for Israel will be one of honor, redemption, and peace under the perfect rule of the King of Kings. In the future, there will be tribulation for the nation, but out of it will come the return of Christ to rule and reign as both King and Messiah forever.
Let us rejoice in the fact that all things will be made new, and we shall be united as Jew and Gentile in a coming world that will know no suffering or heartache. The Jewish people will be in their homeland for all eternity and be the first among nations. That promise from the Word of God is seen by many students and teachers of Bible prophecy as an event that will occur sooner than a lot of people expect as the days draw near to His glorious return (Luke 21:28).
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