The Restoration of Israel

After the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel’s word turns toward hope. God begins by judging the bad shepherds of Israel, its kings and its leaders, who fed on the flock instead of pasturing it, letting the sheep scatter and become the prey of beasts: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves.” Ezekiel 34:2 Then God announces that he will himself take the place they betrayed: “Here I am: I myself will take care of my sheep and pass them in review.” Ezekiel 34:11 He will seek the one that is lost, bring back the one that strayed, bind up the wounded, strengthen the sick. And he gives this promise a face, that of a king of David’s line: “I will raise up over them one shepherd, my servant David; it is he who will pasture them.” Ezekiel 34:23 David has been dead for centuries: it is therefore not he, but a descendant who will bear his name and his reign. This one shepherd, God who pastures his people and king son of David, is Christ, who will name himself the good shepherd: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep.” John 10:11

The new heart and the Spirit

The restoration promised is not only a return to the land: it is a change from within. The people disobeyed because their heart was of stone, closed to God; God announces that he will replace it: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take from your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26 And he specifies whence this power to obey at last will come: from his own Spirit, placed within man: “I will put my Spirit within you, and I will make you walk according to my laws.” Ezekiel 36:27 This promise is fulfilled in baptism, where water washes away sin and the Holy Spirit is given, making of the believer a new man, able to love and follow God no longer by an outward law, but by a heart transformed from within.

The dry bones

Then comes the most famous of the visions. God carries Ezekiel into the midst of a vast plain covered with dry bones, and asks him: “Son of man, will these bones live?” Ezekiel 37:3 At God’s command, the prophet prophesies over them: the bones draw near, cover themselves with sinews, flesh and skin, then the breath enters into them and they stand up, an immense and living army. The first meaning is given at once: these bones are the house of Israel, whom the exile has as it were killed, and whom God will make live again by bringing them back to their land: “I will open your tombs and bring you back to the land of Israel.” Ezekiel 37:12 But the image reaches further: what God shows here, his power to reopen the tombs and make the dead live again, announces the resurrection of the body. Christ accomplishes it first by rising, and he promises to all his own the resurrection of the flesh on the last day.

One people, one covenant

Ezekiel then joins in his hand two pieces of wood: one bears the name of Judah, the other that of Joseph. They symbolise the two kingdoms separated since the schism, that of the South and that of the North, and God declares that he will make them one: “I will make of them a single nation, and one king will reign over them all.” Ezekiel 37:22 The divided people will be gathered under the one shepherd, and God will conclude with them a covenant of peace that will not end: “My dwelling will be above them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Ezekiel 37:27 This unity of the people of God under one king is fulfilled in the Church, where all peoples are gathered into one body under Christ.

Gog and the final victory

A last scene closes this section. God announces the assault of Gog, a chief come from the land of Magog, from the far north, who will go up against Israel at last restored and at peace, at the end of time: “At the end of the years, you will come against the people gathered from among the nations.” Ezekiel 38:8 God himself crushes Gog and destroys him by fire. This prophecy looks to the end of history: Revelation takes up the names of Gog and Magog to designate the nations that Satan will gather in a last assault against the people of God, before they are conquered for ever. Gog thus figures the final unleashing of evil, and its defeat announces the definitive victory of God.