Gathering of the whole house of Jacob and current events
The vision of the dry bones. Ezekiel 37
You and I amaze at the current events unfolding in Middle East and make sense of it all only if we understand the Bible as a whole. It is so interesting to know- mindboggling revelation based on truth and truth only unfolds when current events and Bible prophecies intersect in our hearts and minds, based on Bible promises in its prophecies.
The prophecy of Ezekiel plays a big role in our understanding of current event. The current developments in Israel drives to our knees to acknowledge the greatness of the God of the Bible/the promises He made to Abraham and David and His meticulous involvement in current affairs to administer the events to the fullness of the times, that is the summing up of all God’s plan in Christ Jesus, and how marvelously He made known to us the mystery of His will and plan (Ephesians 1:9 &10).
Ezekiel 37 and the prophecy of the vision of the dry bones there looks forward to a restoration much greater than what happened in the days of Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah.
God would bring the Jewish people as a whole back into the land. The time of Ezra, Zerubbabel and Nehemiah fulfilled only Judah’s (southern kingdom’s) restoration. However, Ezekiel paints a bigger picture of the future events, when he prophesied in about 570 BC (before Christ) the restoration of the whole nation (both south and north- Judah and Ephraim). This process of gathering them from all the ends of the earth which began in 1948 (when God began moving them from all different nations) to the land He promised for them in the Abrahamic covenant.
The re-gathering still continues as we see the tiny spot of a small place in the middle east (about or less than the size of the New Jersey state in USA) becomes strong military and intelligence wise second none at this time of the history. The Bible claims, all nations in the world would know the God of Israel and He is the only true God who revealed Himself to us in and through the pages of the Bible.
Ther regathering of all Jewish people from all over the world (Ezekiel 36:24) is much bigger than restoration in the time of Ezra/Nehemiah. At that time the gathering was only from Babylon where they went as exiles and not from all the nations of the world. The prophecy of Ezekiel has a wider scope of fulfillment as we in right in from of our eyes now. God gathers the whole Jewish people from all over the nations where they were scatters, who are the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and his son Jacob whose name God changed from Jacob to Israel (Genesis 32:18). The twelve sons of Jacob became the children of Israel which constitutes the nation, Israel. It constitutes of both kingdoms after Solomons which were called Northern and southern kingdom. The prophecy of Ezekiel mentions the gathering of the whole of the nation Israel, not just Judah only. Ezekiel 37:21-23 says, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. 22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.”
They shall no longer be two nations as it used to be in the past after Solomons reign. Gathered together under one King-David-and they would be established in the literal land of Israel under a literal king. Vs 25 says, “They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.”
This is a literal promise of the land and the rulership of David (Son of David as Davidic Covenant in 2nd Samuel attests). We wonder why these literal promises God gave to Israel are attempted by some to spiritualize in a non-literal form, and deny Gods beautiful and repetitively nature of these literal promises and says God has not future plan for ethnic Israel in their ancestral land?
Jacob means the 12 children of Jacob whose name was changed by God from Jacob to Israel per Genesis 32:28. The land given to them is clearly sketched in Genesis 15:18-21, which is larger than what Israel possess at the present time in Middle East. The land promised to them, when they return to their land from all nations, was the whole land of Palestine.
The truth is God has twin parallel plans in operation in the current age- Israel and Church, both goes hand in hand. Romans 11:11 &25. The politics we see in the land of Israel and Middle East also testifies to this face. Even though they rejected their promised Messiah, they are still His people and God’s promises to them are unwavering as the Bible repeatedly states in clear fashion. They have hard times ahead in future, as the time of Jacobs trouble (tribulation) Jeremiah 30:7 is coming up on them specifically to force them to look to Him (Christ Jesus) whom they have pierced in repentance (Zechariah 12:10), as well as the whole world for their repentance toward all wickedness and evil. But Israel will be gathered as one nation under one King- the Son of David, Jesus Christ at His second coming to establish the everlasting kingdom, as God promised to David in 2nd Samuel 7.
