Ezekiel - Lesson 37

Lesson 37, The Restoration of Yahweh's Land, A Most Unusual Prophecy, Ezekiel 35, 1 to 36, 15. This is quite a text. While some may wonder why I have combined chapters 35 and the first half of 36, at least a baker's dozen factors recommend that we treat 35, 1 to 15, and 36, 1 to 15, as a single oracle. First, a single-word event formula in 35, 1 governs the entire section. The next occurrence of that happens in 36, 16. Two, Edom, the addressee in 35, 1 to 15, is still in view in 36. Five, representing Israel's enemies. Three, the focus throughout is on the land of Israel. It's a common theme. It's referred to as the mountains of Israel. Four, both panels describe the land as desolate and waste. 35, 3, 7, 9, 14, 15, and then 36, 3, and 4, same expressions. On the one hand, but also as a possession, morasha, 35, 10, 36, 2, 3, 5, 12. And as a grant, nakhalah, usually translated inheritance, 35, 15, 36, 12. Five, they open with stylistically parallel formulas. Human prophesy and say, 35, 1, 36, 1. Six, the prophet cleverly employs two almost identical expressions with opposite meanings. Look, I am against you, O Mount Seir, Hinnoni, Eleikah, 35, 3. And look, I am for you, mountains of Israel, Hinnoni, Eleikhem. One letter changes, and that is the beginning of the preposition, Eleikhem, 36, 9. Seven, Yahweh described the terrain of Edom and Israel stereotypically as mountains, hills, valleys, and ravines, the same expressions. Eight, both panels speak of Yahweh's passion, zeal, kinah, as the motivation for his action, 35, 11, 36, 5, and 6. Nine, both mention the nation's verbal abuse against Israel, 35, 10, 36, 2, and 3. Ten, both associate cities with waste places, arim, become chorba, 36, 10, and 35, 4. Eleven, both employ kolah, yes, all of it, to emphasize the comprehensiveness of the effect on Edom, 35, 15, 36, 5. Compare, 36, 10, where we have the house of Israel, all of it. This construction occurs elsewhere in Ezekiel, in 29, 2, with reference to Egypt, all of Egypt. Twelve, stylistically, both panels rely heavily on because, therefore, constructions. You have this in 35, 5 to 6, 10 to 11, and then in 36, 2 to 3, 3b to 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and to 14. Because, therefore. And 13, the baker's dozen. Taken together, the structure parallels 34, 1 to 31. This may be the most significant of all. This entire section is introduced with a single-word event formula in 35, 1, and the structure of these two sections combined parallels that of 34, 1 to 31. In both, we have new, renewed leadership for the people of Israel, 34, 1 to 11, and new, renewed land for the people of Israel. These two topics come in both. In the first one, 34, 1 to 11, it's a judgment oracle, removal of the hindrance of the old order. In 34, 12 to 31, it is establishment of the new order. Interpreted together, 35, 1 to 36, 15 provides one of the most impressive examples of halving, h-a-l-v-i-n-g, cutting in half in the book of Ezekiel. Whether the present diptych, two panels, derives from the original rhetorical situation or was an editorial creation in the text is unclear. Here, Ezekiel's attention has shifted from the first pillar of hope, that is, Yahweh's commitment to his people in chapter 34, to the second, Yahweh's commitment to the land of Canaan as his land-grant to Israel, Nachelah. This oracle answers earlier warnings of the devastation of the land and the nation's imminent removal from the land, which many will have interpreted as a breach of Yahweh's eternal promise made already to the patriarchs, Genesis 17, 8. A comparison of the beginnings of chapters 35 and 36 on the one hand and chapter 6 on the other suggests an intentional reversal of the earlier prophecy against the mountains of Israel in particular, as in 6, 1 to 4, in 35, 1 to 4, and to a lesser extent in 36, 1. Yahweh commanded the prophet to set your face toward the addressee and then gave the double command, prophesy and say. With the addressees strangely being the mountains of Israel in 6, 1 and 36, 1 and Mount Seir, the homeland of Edom, that is, the descendants of Jacob's brother Esau, in 35, 1. Not only did God speak to the mountains, but the mountains were the subject and addressee throughout these prophecies. The repetition of the four geographical terms of 6, 3 in 35, 8 and 36, 4 and 6, mountains, hills, ravines, and valleys, and the references to idolatrous places, Bamoth, the high places, 6, 3 and 6, 6, and then again 36, 2. These reinforce the impression of intentional reversal. Taken together, the structure of this prophecy exhibits a clear logic. As reflected in this outline, the theme is the restoration of Yahweh's land, 35, 1 to 36, 15. Preamble, 35, 1 to 2. A, the prerequisite to restoration, the judgment of Seir, Edom, 35, 3 to 15. And this comes in a couple of volleys. The first volley, Yahweh's disposition towards Seir, 35, 3 to 4. The second volley, Yahweh's first case against Seir, 35, 5 to 9. And then the third volley, Yahweh's second case against Seir. And a fourth volley, Yahweh's disposition towards Seir, 35, 12 to 15. That's the first major part. The second part is the nature of the restoration. Part one was the prerequisite to restoration, the judgment of Edom, Seir. The nature of the restoration, this is 36, 1 to 15, with Yahweh's answer for the nations, 1 to 7, chapter 36, which involves the indictment of the nations, Yahweh's disposition toward the nations, this is 36, 3 to 5, the indictment was 1 to 2. And then his sentencing of the nations, 36, 6 to 7. And the second half, Yahweh's answer for the land of Israel. Now he turns his attention to the land and not the nations. It involves a promise of a new day for the land, 36, 8 to 11, and the promise of a new day for the land's people, 36, 12 to 15. This is quite a geographic prophecy. So let's look at the preamble quickly. The following message of Yahweh came to me. Human, set your face toward Mount Seir and prophesy against it. Say to it, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared. What is remarkable about this entire oracle is that Yahweh treats the land as animate, living, as sentient and moral actor in this drama. It's as if the mountains have ears. Set your face toward the mountains and speak to the mountains. Obviously this is a figure of speech, but it sets the stage for demonstrating how seriously Yahweh took the role of the land in his triangular covenant relationships in chapter 6. In this text, Seir, the name of the mountain range south of the Dead Sea, inhabited by Edomites, spoke for the nation itself. Like when our news reporters make comments like, the White House has not reacted to the story, or the Pentagon is presently considering military options. As if these buildings have a mouth or a brain. Of course they don't. But who was Seir? A map could potentially help us, except that we have no clear indication in Scripture where this mountain was. The word Seir comes from a root meaning hairy, apparently a reference originally to the wooded slopes descending from the Transjordanian plateau between Wadi al-Khasa and Wadi Ras al-Nakht down to the Wadi al-Arabah. This is that territory south of the Dead Sea. According to Genesis 14.6, these mountains were originally inhabited by Horites, Genesis 14.6, but according to Deuteronomy 2.1-7, Yahweh had designated Seir as Esau's land, Esau's grant, Yerusha, just as he granted Moab, Ammon, and the Israelites their respective territories. God is the subject of that verb. He doesn't only give Israel land, he gives these other peoples land as well. Although we do not know when Ezekiel delivered this message, with this prophecy he offered the exiles hope that Yahweh would eventually deal with those who had celebrated at Israel's extinction in 586 BC and tried to annul his promise of land to Israel by taking over the land themselves. That's what these people were doing. They were trying to take over Israel's land and that would have canceled God's promise. The prerequisites to restoration begin with the judgment of Seir 3 to 15. We have here three or four volleys of divine judgment. The first volley, Yahweh's hostile disposition towards Seir, verses 3-4. Thus says the Lord Yahweh declared, Look, I am against you, O Mount Seir. I will raise my hand against you and transform you into utter desolation. Your towns I will ruin and you yourself will become a wasteland. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. The oracle properly opens abruptly with a challenge formula which sets the tone for the whole thing. Look, I am against you, O Mount Seir. Mount Seir is God's enemy. At this point, Yahweh offered no reason for his fundamental opposition or his hostile reaction to Seir. Nor did he explain how he would act except that he would strike the land with his raised hand, an image known from Egyptian artistic renderings of pharaohs who always hit with a club in their hands. However, the effects of Yahweh's action are clear. The mountains will be totally wasted and the cities, the fortified settlements, will be ruined. Then the Edomites would know that Yahweh, not Kaos, that's the name of the Edomite patron deity that we know from extra-biblical inscriptions. Yahweh, not Kaos, would demonstrate to the Edomites that he is God. As is often the case in Ezekiel, with these actions, Yahweh's primary goal was revelatory, that the rhetorical addressee might learn the truth about who controls the destiny of the nations, yes, even foreign nations. That's volley one. Volley number two, Yahweh's case, first case against Seir 35, 5-9. Because you have harbored long-standing enmity and handed the people of Israel over to the sword at the time of their calamity, the time of their final punishment, therefore, by my life, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, surely it was the blood of hatred, so blood will pursue you. I will transform Mount Seir into an utter desolation and terminate all traffic from it. I will fill its mountains with its victims. The victims of the sword will fall on your hills and in your valleys and ravines. I will transform you into a permanent wasteland, leaving your towns uninhabited. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. Well, in these verses, Yahweh justified that decision announced earlier with two announcements of judgment, each consisting of a formal accusation, because, therefore, first, he indicted Mount Seir for eternal enmity presumably against Israel, though he did the same thing against the Philistines in 2515. In Israelite tradition, the history of sour relationship between Israel and Edom dated back for centuries. Before Jacob and Esau, the ancestor of the Edomites, before they were born, they tussled in Rebekah's womb, Genesis 5, 22 to 23. This struggle continued during Jacob's and Esau's adult lives, Genesis 27 and 32, 4 to 22, and then chapter 33. However, when the Israelites were coming from Egypt and needed to cross Edomite territory to get to the east side of the Jordan River from which they would enter the promised land, then Moses had charged his people to show special consideration to the Edomites as you cross their land because of their kinship, Deuteronomy 23, 8. But as we learn from other prophets, Amos 1, 11 to 12, Isaiah 34, Joel 4, Obadiah, Malachi 1, 2 to 3, and Lamentations 4, 1. Over time, no love had been lost between these two nations that were the descendants of two brothers. According to Psalm 137, in Judah's darkest hours when Nebuchadnezzar raised Jerusalem, the Edomites had stood by clapping their hands with glee. Great! Go for it, Nebuchadnezzar. Here, Ezekiel suggested that they were not merely spectators to Judah's fall, but had played an active part in their cousin's calamity, delivering her population over to the sword. These victims were not merely Judeans who may have fallen to Edomite soldiers fighting for Nebuchadnezzar. They actively searched out and slaughtered Judean fugitives. However, Ezekiel declared that whereas the blood of Abel had cried out to Yahweh to avenge Cain's murder, Genesis 4, 10, here the blood of Edom's victims took on a life of its own, like a near kinsman, avenger of blood, relentlessly pursuing the criminal and demanding full retribution. The effects of God's actions would be devastating to Seir's population as the previous volley had been as devastating to Seir's population as the previous volley had been to the landscape. All living things will be cut off. Notice the merism. All who come and all who go. That means everybody. The mountains and the hills and the valleys and the ravines will be filled with their corpses, and the fortified towns will be ghost towns. The concluding recognition formula reemphasized that Yahweh's ultimate goal was not simply the destruction of Seir. The nation was to recognize that the patron defender of Israel was also the lord of their own history. He controls the affairs of the nations. In verses 10 to 12a, we have the third volley, Yahweh's second case against Seir. Because you have said, these two nations and these two lands will belong to me, we will possess them. In the first volley, the case, the problem was the inveterate enmity between the two populations. Well, here, the issue is the land. Because these two nations and these two lands will belong to me, and we will possess them, even though Yahweh was there. Therefore, by my life, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, I will respond with the same anger and passion with which you in your hate had treated them. I will make myself known through them when I punish you. He's talking to Edom. Then you will know, Edom, that is the land, Seir, then you will know that I am Yahweh. In the third volley against Seir, Yahweh vowed, by my life, to stand up for his own people and punish the Edomites for trying to fill the vacuum left by Judah's annihilation and claim that land like Israel's two and a half tribes had done to the land of Sihon and Cheshbon of Cheshbon and Og of Bashan in Deuteronomy 2-3. The population's wiped out. We can just move in. There's a vacuum. Indeed, they wanted more than the territory of Judah. With the quotation, these two nations and these two lands belong to me, this is more than Judah. They were after what used to be the northern kingdom of Israel as well. Well, archaeologists have provided us with ample evidence of Edomites encroaching on Judean territory after 586 B.C. 12 miles south of Beersheba at Aror, they discovered a seal dated shortly after 586 B.C. with the personal name of an official, Kosa. That's his name. That included the name of Eden's patron deity. Anybody who has the name Kosa is an Edomite. Kos is the name of their god. But the most direct evidence of Edomite presence in southern Judah comes from an ostracon, a little piece of pottery, broken pottery, with a message on it. Unearthed at Horvat Uzah, south of Arad, dated near the time of the fall of Jerusalem, shortly after, of special interest, is a six-line inscription. There's a blessing here in the name of Kaos. Thus said Elimelech, say to Bibel, are you well? I bless you by Kaos. And now give the food grain to Ahimao. That is very significant. Whoever wrote this blessing was a devotee of Kaos, which means he was an Edomite. They were living here. They were taking over. For Ezekiel, the Edomite seizure of Israelite territory represented more than opportunistic grabbing of another nation's territory. They had invaded Yahweh's land, and although Judah, David, and the temple were gone, he was still there. I was there, he says. He had brought in Nebuchadnezzar as his agent on his own people, but this did not mean that he had abandoned interest in the place. It was still his land. Nor did it authorize any other nation to seize his land, the Lord's land. This land was his grant to Jacob, to Israel, 2825. Edom must be content with its own allotment, Deuteronomy 2, 1-7. In verse 11, Yahweh vowed with another oath, by my life, he vowed again to give full vent to his fury. The anger, the passion, and hatred that Edom had vented on Israel would be the measure of Yahweh's action against her. His own land may lie in ruins and its population languish in exile, but the Edomites had stirred up the divine hornet by trying to claim this land. This leads to the fourth volley, verses 12b-15. Yahweh's disposition towards Seir. I've heard all the taunts you shouted against the mountains of Israel. It has been laid waste. You were saying, it has been laid waste. Nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya. They've been handed over to us to devour. With your speech, you've challenged me. With your boastful words, you've defied me. I have heard you myself. Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, while the whole world celebrates, I will make you a desolation. Just as you celebrated over the land grant of the house of Israel because it was laid waste, so I will deal with you, Mount Seir. You will become a wasteland along with all of Edom, the whole land. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. Ezekiel brought this phase of the oracle full circle by returning to a declaration of Yahweh's disposition to Edom, that is, Seir. Yahweh began by quoting the taunts he heard from the Edomites' mouths. It, the land of Israel, has been laid waste. Isn't that great? They've been handed over to us to devour. We can grab it and make it ours. That Yahweh heard these taunts is remarkable. In 18, he had declared that no matter how loudly the people of Jerusalem screamed in his ears, he would not hear. But now things have changed. For the exiles to learn that Yahweh hears should have been music to their ears. But it was not the cries of his own people that reached Yahweh. It was the taunts of the enemy. Like vultures, they looked upon the ruins of Judah as prey delivered into their talons. With Ezekiel's, with Edom's boastful words, they had defied him. I have heard you myself, he declared. To deride the land of Israel is to taunt the true owner of the land and dare him. His tenants may have been expelled, but Yahweh remained the divine landlord and he would not tolerate such belittling of the mountains of Israel. In this final volley, Yahweh summarized the basic problem with Edom and declared his determination to respond. Edom had celebrated when the land granted the Israelites had been devastated, but the world would have the last laugh when it happened to her. The first line of verse 15 is the key to this oracle and to the special relationship existing between the house of Israel and the mountains of Israel, here designated as her nachalah.

Although this word is usually translated as inheritance, for us Westerners, this is misleading because inheritance refers usually to property and privileges that deceased parents pass on to their children. But their divine father, Israel's divine father, hadn't died. No, Yahweh repeatedly declared, as I live. Within context like this, involving suzerain-vassal relationships, the Hebrew expression nachalah alluded to the practice of lords giving loyal servants the right to use their land as a reward for past service, usually military, and in expectation of future service. The land of Israel belonged to Yahweh, but he gave it to them as their grant, their fiefdom, to manage on his behalf. Even though the Israelites were gone, any encroachment on that land was a direct challenge to the real owner, Yahweh. Seir, Edom, did not grasp what had happened to the people of Israel and the devastation of the land, that the devastation of the land was the judgment of Yahweh on them. And they certainly didn't grasp what we will learn in 36, 16 to 38. This was Yahweh's means of cleansing the land that had been thoroughly defiled by its inhabitants. Even though they claimed to be Yahweh's people. Well, let's switch then to chapter 36, 1 to 15, as we turn the page with Paul Harvey for the rest of this geographic story. The nature of the restoration begins with the transformation of Israel's land grant. As had been the case in chapter 34, the shepherd text, here Yahweh declared that the prospects for a new day for Israel depended upon the resolution of the problems of the past. This was the aim of the first half of chapter 36, as Yahweh outlined his response to the nations who had insulted the land of Israel. In verses 1 to 7, we have Yahweh's answer for the nation. The emphatic opening, but you, atah, in 36, 1 signals a new command for the prophet and a new movement within the context of 35, 1 to 36, 15. Picking up on the phrase introduced earlier in 35, 12, but ultimately drawn from 6, 2, way back there, Yahweh charged Ezekiel now to shift his attention away from Seir and address the mountains of Israel. Hear the expression, mountains of Israel, harei Yisrael, reflected the hilly nature of the landscape of Ezekiel's homeland. While the Israelites identified the heartland of Edom with a single mountain or mountain range, Seir, the topography of the land of Israel was dominated by a series of ranges, not just one big one, not Mount Hermon in the north. Reversing the events that the prophet had described in chapter 6, the direct address, he's speaking to the mountains of Israel, continued the prophet's current geographic focus. Like chapter 35, this prophecy concerned primarily the land of Israel, not the people. In verses 1 to 3, we have the indictment of the nations for what they have done to the land of Israel. As for you, human, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, oh, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord, the messenger has come. Thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, because the enemy has declared concerning you, aha, the ancient heights have become our possession. Therefore prophesy and say, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, assuredly because they have devastated and crushed you from all sides that you might become the possession of the rest of the nations. You have become the subject of popular gossip and calumny, shameful mocking. This part of the prophecy opens with another quotation from the enemy's mouth. Because the enemy had declared concerning you, aha, the ancient heights have become our possession. They're taking over. We heard similar exclamations from the Ammonites in 25 too and the Tyrians in 26 too. In verse 3, Ezekiel had reiterated the indictment, this time describing what gave rise to the quotation and generalizing it to the mockery in whatever form. Because they, plural, now it's more than just Edom, had devastated you and made you the object of mocking. That's the indictment of the nations. It's a simple indictment. In verses 45, we have Yahweh's disposition, his attitude toward the nations. Therefore all mountains of Israel, notice he's talking to the mountains to comfort the mountains.Therefore all mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh. Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared to the mountains and to the hills, the ravines and the valleys, the desolate waste and the abandoned cities, which have become targets of plunder and the object of scorn to the nations round about. He opened by expanding the addressee from simply mountains in verse 1 to the hills and the valleys and the ravines and the mountains. But he expanded the identity of the enemy from Mount Seir to the rest of the nations round about. The Edomites weren't the only ones mocking. As we've learned in chapter 25 to 26, Edom was not alone in taunting Israel and trying to capitalize on their disaster. And in verse 5, where Yahweh clarified his disposition, we learn that he had loaded his shotgun with buckshot rather than a single slug. Surely I have spoken in the fire of my passion against the rest of the nations and against Edom. All who have claimed my land as their own possession with wholehearted delight and utter contempt as their adjoining territory as booty to be grabbed. In verses 6 to 7, you have Yahweh sentencing the nations. Therefore, prophesy about the land of Israel and say to the mountains and the hills, the ravines and the valleys, thus as Yahweh declared, look, in my impassioned fury, I have spoken because you have borne the taunting of the nations. That provoked the ire, the fire in Yahweh's belly when he heard the taunts toward the land of Israel. In my impassioned fury, I have spoken, you borne the taunts of the nations. Therefore, thus has the Lord, Yahweh declared, I hereby solemnly swear that the nations all around you will themselves bear their own disgrace. This set the stage for the announcement of Yahweh's sentence on the nation. Reiterating that the message concerned the entire landscape and that it expressed Yahweh's impassioned fury precipitated by the taunts of the nations, he turned the tables. With the nations all around you, the nations all around you will themselves bear their own disgrace. With that, he presumably meant, as it has happened to the mountains of Israel, so it will happen to you, and you will be the butt of the people's mockery as they watch this. Psalm 79, 1 to 8. Here the psalmist gave full vent to the emotions of the survivors in the wake of 586. Oh God, the nations have entered your domain, they have defiled your holy temple and laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have left the corpses of your servants as food for the fowl of heaven and the flesh of your faithful for the wild beasts. Their blood has spilled like water around Jerusalem with none to bury them. We have become the butt of our neighbors' jokes, the scorn and derision of those around us. How long, oh Yahweh, will you be angry forever? Will your indignation blaze like fire? Pour out your fury on the nations that do not know you, on the kingdoms that do not invoke your name. For they have devoured Jacob and desolated his homeland. Which leads to the last part, Yahweh's answer for the land of Israel. Verses 8 to 15. Here the oracle reaches a glorious climax with two dimensions. First, there's a promise of a new day for the land, 8 to 11. As for you, oh mountains of Israel, you will grow your branches and bear your fruit for my people, Israel, for their return is imminent. For I see, foresee now, I am for you. I will turn to you and you will be tilled and sown. I will multiply people on you, the entire house of Israel, all of it. The cities will be resettled and the ruined sites rebuilt. I will multiply people and animals on you, the land. They will increase and be fruitful. I will resettle you the way you once were and I will make you more prosperous than ever before. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. This sounds like the paradise we heard of at the end of chapter 34, when Ezekiel talked about the effects of Yahweh's covenant of peace. And we will hear it again at the end of chapter 36 in verses 33 to 38. This promise to the land leads to the promise of a new day for the land's people. So it's a new day for the land, as we just heard, but it's a new day for the land's people, 12 to 15. I will cause humans, my people, Israel, to walk on you. They will take possession of you and you will become their domain. You will never rob them of their children. Thus says the Lord Yahweh declared, because people are saying to you, you are a land that devours humans and robs your nation of children, but you will never again devour humans, nor will you ever rob your nation again of children. The declaration of the Lord Yahweh. I will never allow the insults of the nations against you to be heard again, nor will you ever again bear the taunting of the peoples, and you will never again rob, you will never again rob your nation of children. The declaration of the Lord Yahweh. Well, after the recognition formula in verse 11, verse 12 is striking, because here the Lord shifted the focus from the land to its occupants and introduced a new theme of a land cutting off the children of its population. The note specifies four stages in the reoccupation of the land. First, the emptied cities and ruined heaps will bustle with life as Yahweh causes people to walk on the land once more. Notice who's behind everything. Yahweh causes people to return. Second, this population will possess, occupy the land. Third, the divine suzerain will return the land to Israel as their official grant, nakhalah, ending the insults of the Edomites over its desolation, 3515. And four, the land will never again cut off the progeny of its population. Here Yahweh portrayed the land as a mother who has stifled her natural maternal feelings for the nation that inhabits it, those are her children, and devoured her own. But now Yahweh promised that this would never happen again. He continued the metaphor in 13 to 15 by reporting what the watching nations had felt about how the land had treated its inhabitants and then announced emphatically the end to the land's monstrous behavior. They will no longer eat their children. The land won't. And he sealed this declaration once more with a signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord's Yahweh. This conclusion is remarkable for several reasons. First, whereas Leviticus 18, 25 and 28 had spoken of the land regurgitating, spewing out its population, that's the exile, here Yahweh spoke of the land swallowing its population. They died inside the land. Second, instead of referring to the population as the land's people, am, that's the Hebrew word for people, he spoke of the people as the land's goy, nation. Well, this seems like a small thing. But in contrast to am, a people, this is a warm relational expression. But goy is generally a cold and rigid designation for a group of people as a political entity under a leader called a king, a melek. The preference for your nation over your people, or the national name Israel, highlighted the prophet's conviction that the devastation of the land did not signify merely depopulation. It meant the loss of identity as a people, a nation, a political entity, and that is the legitimate national tenant of territory. And third, here Yahweh inverted the normal roles. Instead of describing the land as belonging to the people, their possession, he personified the land of Israel as the owner of the nation that inhabits it. This is remarkable. Well, in this oracle, Yahweh spoke of and to the land as a living, active participant in the triangular covenant relationship, either as a monster that devoured its population, verses 12 to 15, or as a lush and happy garden that yielded its produce in abundance and delighted in feeding and nourishing the population that occupied it, verses 8 to 11. In fact, this land had the distinct honor of being home to Yahweh's chosen people. The land was his grant to them. With this conclusion, Yahweh announced that he will terminate forever the insults of the nations against the land of Israel by altering fundamentally the relationship between territory and nation and putting an end to the land's appetite for human flesh. They will no longer devour their people. The double signatory formula guaranteed the promise. Many themes in this oracle are familiar from previous prophecies, but Ezekiel gave several new slants and new emphases. First, the promise of Yahweh is sure. His promises, plural, are sure. This oracle addressed the heart of Israel's theology and one of the primary issues behind the spiritual crisis of the exile, that Yahweh had forgotten his ancient promises to Abraham to give to him and his descendants the land of Israel, of Canaan, as an eternal possession, ahuzoth olam, as declared in Genesis 17.8 and elsewhere. This promise had been fulfilled in the past under Joshua when Yahweh dispossessed the Canaanites and delivered the land to his people as their grant, their fiefdom. However, the devastation of the land and the deportation of its population had cast serious doubt on Yahweh's willingness and or ability to keep his word. The total disintegration of the deity-nation-land relationship had created an intense crisis of faith for his people and it appeared to be so permanent, irreversible. At the time Ezekiel delivered this oracle, the land was totally devastated. The nations were claiming it as their own. This oracle addressed that theological and national crisis. But there was a mysterious logic in Ezekiel's message. The same promises he seemed to have repudiated in his earlier pronouncements of woe had now become the basis of his prophecies of hope. In the immediate past, the people's rebellion had disqualified them from benefiting from the ancient promises. But these same pledges provided the basis for his vision for the future. Yahweh had not forgotten his land nor the fundamental relationship existing between it and his people, Israel. He would personally answer the Edomite claim to their territory and bring the taunts of the nations over the desolated landscape to an end. And he would restore the fiefdom and transform the relationship between the land and its people. Second, those who position themselves in opposition to the people of Yahweh render themselves his enemies. Ultimately, taunts against the kingdom of God are insults against God himself, for the citizens of his kingdom bear his name. He must therefore come to their aid for his own namesake. He will build his church. Neither the gates of Edom and the gates of the nations nor hell itself shall prevail against it. The peoples of the earth may imagine themselves to be free moral beings and on those grounds seek to carve out for themselves a place under the sun. However, in the end, God determines the boundaries and the places of the nations in history. This was true of those who professed to be the people of Chaos, the Edomites. It remains true of all who bow down to any other god today. Third, this prophecy has significant implications for the contemporary context where almost 7 million descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob populate the land, that is according to 2020 statistics. While 5.8 million people, Palestinians, also live in the land, presumably descendants of Esau, Ishmael, and Abraham's other children by Keturah. What would Ezekiel have thought about the current picture over there? Well, based on this oracle, One, it matters to God who lives in his land. Two, it mattered to Ezekiel who lives in the land. Three, it matters to Israel who lives in the land. And four, the surprise, it matters to the land of Israel who lives in the land. That's Ezekiel. In response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia in 1903, British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered Theodor Herzl, Zionist group, 5,000 square miles, 13,000 square kilometers, of the Mao Plateau in what is Kenya today. He offered it to them as a homeland for Jews. Notice how the colonialists are handing out other people's territory. This was rejected ostensibly because the territory was populated by lions and a large number of Maasai peoples who obviously did not like the idea. That's where they lived. On March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR decreed the establishment of a Jewish autonomous oblast province within the Russian Republic in the regions of Khabarovsk in the Far East. But the entity disintegrated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Other proposals have involved territory in Japan, the Fugu Plan, or Madagascar proposed by the Third Reich, or East Africa proposed by fascists of Italy, and Tasmania in Australia. Given the long tradition of the ties of Isaac's and Jacob's descendants to the land of Palestine, which gets its name ironically from the Philistines, who are neither Arabic nor Semitic, none of these proposals got much traction. In Ezekiel's view, none could have represented the fulfillment of this and other prophecies of the Hebrew Bible. But this does not mean that 1948, the birth of Israel as an independent nation, represented the beginning of its fulfillment, this prophecy's fulfillment, and the conquest of all of Palestine in the Six-Day War, Monday to Saturday, June 5 to 10, 1967, was a continuation, really. Religious Israelis and many evangelical Christians viewed the outcome as an act of God. But was this the end of the wait for the fulfillment of Ezekiel 36, 1 to 15, and Ezekiel 34, and, as we will see, Ezekiel 37? Scarcely any more than it was when Jesus was born. At that time, many Jews had returned to the Promised Land, and an impressive temple stood on the Temple Mount. But that was not the full fulfillment of what Ezekiel had in mind. At that time, there were only a few thousand, and by definition, a Jew is from the tribe of Judah. There were Levites among them, and Saul, Paul himself, was a Benjaminite, but representatives of the northern tribes were largely missing. So that can't be this picture. Second, they occupied land only in a fraction of the region, mainly around Jerusalem and in the Galilee. Third, the temple, which was supposed to be a symbol of the presence of God, was built by a pagan, Herod the Great, for political reasons, to appease the Jews, his subjects. And four, David had not returned. In fact, they were under the control of the hated Romans. This ancient situation differed little from what obtains in the Levant today. Yes, there are almost 7 million Jews in the land, but they don't occupy the whole territory, and the state and society that exist there today are far from the ideal Ezekiel will describe in the second half of chapter 36. The present state of Israel is anything but the sort of theocracy Ezekiel envisioned. It is a secular political Zionist achievement, though we notice that in the recent election, a far-right religious Zionism party, religious Zionism, won six or seven seats in the Knesset. A poll conducted in 2020 established the following data concerning the religious commitments of Jews living in the state of Israel. Secular Jews, 47% of the population classified themselves as secular Jews. Traditional but not religious Jews, 18%. Traditional religious Jews, 14%. Zionist Orthodox, 11%, and ultra-Orthodox, 10%. Although we acknowledge the difficult international environment in which the state of Israel exists, according to biblical definitions of covenantal righteousness and chesed, the conduct of the people and its government leave a lot to be desired. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been actively seeking peace with some of his Arab neighbors through the Abraham Accord. But so far, it has virtually no support from Arabs living within the boundaries of ancient Israel, and more opponents in the Muslim world than supporters. And the current pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas demonstrations in major cities in the USA and in Europe, and especially on university campuses, shows that with their chants of from the river to the sea, many in democratic countries view Israel's existence as a nation in the former land of Israel to be a bigger problem than the inveterate hatred and violence of Hamas, which means violence. As for Ezekiel's vision for the unity of the population centered in devotion to Yahweh and accepting the reign of David, this seems as hopeless today as it was for the Judeans in Ezekiel's audience 2,500 years ago. And with respect to personal and national well-being, the recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed the distance between the present world and the Edenic new world of which Ezekiel spoke. And most significant of all, the current state and most of its population are officially and publicly hostile to the Messiah whom God has sent in the person of Jesus Christ. If only they would fall on their knees before him. What then was the significance of 1948 and 1967? None of us has any idea where this will end. If the hostile neighbors push the present state and its Jewish population into the sea, no promise of God or word of his prophets is in jeopardy. Indeed, in some ways, more important than the identity of the land in which God's chosen people live or the identity of the people who live in that land is the character of the people who live in God's land. As we've seen over and over again, while Yahweh's promises are eternal, enjoyment of the blessings that promise to the covenant people has always been contingent on their fidelity to him and now, after Ezekiel, to his Messiah. If apostate, idolatrous, and humanist populations occupy that land at the present time, it's an act of sheer grace when speaking of the destiny of his own people, my kinsmen after the flesh, as Peter had done at Pentecost, quoting Joel 2.32. In Romans 10.13, Paul declared, Whoever will call upon the name of Yahweh the Lord, he's quoting Joel, there is Yahweh, will be saved. And the person he had in mind was Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment of Yahweh. With this statement, he assured us that we Gentiles who call upon the name of Jesus, yes, we are saved, but he also pleaded with his own people to submit to him. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Yahweh. Remarkably, here Greek Kyrios does not have the article, the master, the sovereign, suggesting it stands for Yahweh, the personal name of God incarnate in Christ. What a grace that we have been grafted into the olive tree, represented by God's grand plan of redemption carried by the Jews, the Israelites. We pray for the day when all Israel will be saved. Romans 11.26 In fulfillment of Moses, Jeremiah's, and Ezekiel's visions of the renewed, eternal Israelite covenant, the covenant of peace.