Ezekiel
37:1-14[i]
Ezekiel
wrote about a vision he had of a valley full of dry bones. The old song “Dem Bones” tells the story of
the bones coming together and coming to life.
It is a remarkable and captivating picture, and even more importantly,
it carries a message of hope, restoration and life!
This
message came from an extraordinary man.
Ezekiel was
from the family of a priest named Buzi.
(Ezekiel 1:3) He was born in or
around Jerusalem, but the Babylonians took him captive around eight years after
Daniel and his friends were taken captive.
From that time on, he lived in the country of the Babylonians. Ezekiel prophesied to the exiled Jewish
people living in Babylon for more than 22 years. (Compare Ezekiel 1:2 with
Ezekiel 29:17-21) His ministry started
during Zedekiah’s reign, at which time his contemporary, Jeremiah, would have
been ministering in Jerusalem.
Ezekiel
knew from the start that his message would not be received. In Ezekiel 3:7-9, God tells Ezekiel:
7”But the
people of Israel won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and
stubborn. 8But look, I have
made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are. 9I have made your forehead as hard
as the hardest rock! So don’t be afraid
of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels.”
Like
Jeremiah, Ezekiel brought a message of God’s judgment of evil. He said:
This message came to me from the
LORD: 2“Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel: “The end is here! Wherever you look—east, west, north, or
south—your land is finished. 3No
hope remains, for I will unleash my anger against you. I will call you to account for all your
detestable sins.” (Ezekiel 7:1-3)
This
message characterized the first seven years of his ministry. Then Jerusalem fell. After the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel’s
message changed to one of consolation, comfort and hope. He tells of God’s glorious plans for the
nation of Israel, the coming Messiah and the Millennial Kingdom.
The New
Covenant, first announced by Jeremiah, is a strong part of Ezekiel’s
message. He says:
24For I will
gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land.
25“Then I
will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will
no longer worship idols. 26And
I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and
give you a tender, responsive heart. 27And
I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful
to obey my regulations.
28“And you
will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your
God. (Ezekiel 36:26-28)
This
message of hope, restoration and life is what the “Dry Bones” are about.
Ezekiel
37:1-3 says:
1The LORD
took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the LORD to a valley
filled with bones. 2He led me
all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the
ground and were completely dried out. 3Then
he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”
“O Sovereign LORD,” I replied, “you
alone know the answer to that.”
The valley
filled with bones represents the nation of Israel. This is stated clearly in Ezekiel 37:11, “Son
of man, these bones represent the people of Israel.” The bones were dried out, representing the
fact that the nation was completely dead, and had been for some time. They were scattered and disconnected,
representing the fact that the nation was dispersed among the nations. This was the case for Israel for many
centuries until May 14, 1948. For many
centuries the answer the world gave to God’s question to Ezekiel was, “Nothing
can bring these bones to life again.”
However,
God is doing it.
Ezekiel
37:7-8 says:
7So I spoke
this message, just as he told me. Suddenly
as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and
attached themselves as complete skeletons. 8Then as I watched, muscles and
flesh formed over the bones. Then skin
formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.
The
gathering of the bones together is a progressive thing. The bones come together to form a
skeleton. In “Dem Bones:”
Toe bone connected to the foot bone
Foot bone connected to the heel
bone
Heel bone connected to the ankle
bone
Ankle bone connected to the shin
bone
Shin bone connected to the knee
bone
Etc.
This
progressive collecting and connecting represents what is happening today. Even the flesh and skin forming over the
bones is taking place, but notice that according to Ezekiel the bodies still
had no breath in them. This is the
condition of the nation of Israel today.
They exist as a nation, but they do not have the Son of David as their
King. They do not have the Spirit of God
in their hearts as Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied. This will continue to be their condition
until the time of the Gentiles is full.
(Luke 21:24) Romans 11:25
explains it this way:
I want you to understand this
mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about
yourselves. Some of the people of Israel
have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles
comes to Christ.
A time is
coming when God will fulfill what remains of this vision. At that time, this is what Ezekiel says will
happen:
23They will
never again pollute themselves with their idols and vile images and rebellion,
for I will save them from their sinful backsliding. I will cleanse them. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be
their God.
24“My servant
David will be their king, and they will have only one shepherd. They will obey my regulations and be careful
to keep my decrees. 25They
will live in the land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where their ancestors
lived. They and their children and their
grandchildren after them will live there forever, generation after generation. And my servant David will be their prince
forever. (Ezekiel 37:23-25)
This is
God’s plan for the nation of Israel.
However,
this does have application for us as Gentile believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
The
Scriptures tell us, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your
many sins.” (Ephesians 2:1) Like the “dry bones,” we had no hope of being
restored to life. According to the
Scriptures, we were:
In those days you were living apart
from Christ. You were excluded from
citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant
promises God had made to them. You lived
in this world without God and without hope.
(Ephesians 2:12)
Our
condition without Christ is described in Scripture in the darkest, bleakest
terms possible. We were dead. We were in darkness. We lived in this world without God and
without hope. If I may offer a word to
those who do not know Christ, this is how God describes you.
However, it
need not stay this way. Ephesians 2:5
tells us, “Even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when
he raised Christ from the dead.”
God has
brought my broken and messed up “dry bones” back together and given me a new
life. “This means that anyone who
belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
In fact,
although we are not the nation of Israel, during the Church Age that we are
living in, God treats Jew and Gentile the same.
It says in Ephesians 2:19:
So now you Gentiles are no longer
strangers and foreigners. You are
citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family.
Galatians
3:28 echoes this statement when it says:
There is no longer Jew or Gentile,
slave or free, male and female. For you
are all one in Christ Jesus.
If I may
quote one more passage, 1 Peter 2:10 says, “Once you were not a people, but now
you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy.” (ESV)[ii]
This valley
of “dry bones” carries a message of hope for us.
No matter
how hopeless it looks, God can piece your life back together. Will you, like the “dry bones,” hear the word
of the Lord? Will you trust Him with
your brokenness? Will you give Him the
pieces of your life, and trust Him to put the pieces back together?
Listen to
what the Lord says:
5This is
what the Sovereign LORD says: “Look! I
am going to put breath into you and make you live again! 6I will put flesh and muscles on
you and cover you with skin. I will put
breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 37:5-6)
[i]
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New
Living Translation. Copyright © 1996,
2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Steam,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
[ii]
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good
News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.