Ezekiel 36

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Hope for the mountains of Israel

¹ And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of Yahweh! ² Thus says Adonai Yahweh: Because the enemy has said of you, "Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession," ³ therefore prophesy and say, Thus says Adonai Yahweh: Precisely because they made you desolate and snapped at you from every side, so that you became a possession of the rest of the nations, and you have been taken up on the lips of talkers and the slander of the people, ⁴ therefore, mountains of Israel, hear the word of Adonai Yahweh! Thus says Adonai Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the forsaken cities, which have become plunder and derision to the rest of the nations that are all around; ⁵ therefore thus says Adonai Yahweh: Surely in the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave My land to themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and with utter contempt, so that its pastureland might become plunder. ⁶ Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, Thus says Adonai Yahweh: See, I have spoken in My jealousy and in My wrath, because you have borne the disgrace of the nations. ⁷ Therefore thus says Adonai Yahweh: I have sworn with uplifted hand that the nations that are around you shall themselves bear their disgrace.

⁸ But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel; for they are soon to come. ⁹ For see, I am for you, and I will turn toward you, and you shall be tilled and sown. ¹⁰ I will multiply people upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. ¹¹ I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful; I will settle you as in your former times and do better for you than at your beginnings; and you will know that I am Yahweh. ¹² Yes, I will cause people to walk upon you, My people Israel; they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no longer bereave them of children.

¹³ Thus says Adonai Yahweh: Because they say to you, "You are a devourer of men, and you have bereaved your nations of children," ¹⁴ therefore you shall no longer devour men, nor bereave your nations of children any more, declares Adonai Yahweh. ¹⁵ Nor will I let you hear the disgrace of the nations any more, and you shall no longer bear the reproach of the peoples, nor cause your nations to stumble any more, declares Adonai Yahweh.

Israel profaned My holy name

¹⁶ The word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ¹⁷ Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds; their way before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. ¹⁸ So I poured out My wrath upon them for the blood which they had shed on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; according to their ways and according to their deeds I judged them. ²⁰ But when they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name, in that people said of them, "These are the people of Yahweh, and yet they have gone out of His land." ²¹ But I had pity on My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went.

A new heart and a new spirit

²² Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says Adonai Yahweh: It is not for your sake that I am acting, O house of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. ²³ And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations will know that I am Yahweh, declares Adonai Yahweh, when I am sanctified in you in their sight. ²⁴ For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. ²⁸ You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be My people, and I will be your Elohim. ²⁹ I will save you from all your uncleannesses; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will lay no famine upon you. ³⁰ I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. ³² It is not for your sake that I am acting, declares Adonai Yahweh; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!

Like the garden of Eden

³³ Thus says Adonai Yahweh: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. ³⁴ The desolate land shall be tilled, instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. ³⁵ And they will say, "This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited." ³⁶ Then the nations that are left all around you will know that I, Yahweh, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I will do it.

³⁷ Thus says Adonai Yahweh: This also I will let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do for them: I will multiply them like a flock of men. ³⁸ Like the flock of holy offerings, like the flock of Jerusalem at her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they will know that I am Yahweh.

Notes

• 36:10 "All the house of Israel, all of it" is emphatic: the promise is not only for the exiles of Judah but for the whole people, the northern tribes taken by Assyria included. Ezekiel makes this explicit in 37:15-22, where the sticks of Judah and of Joseph become one in Yahweh's hand.
• 36:13 "Your nations" follows the reading in the margin of the Masoretic text (qere), as the TRB does elsewhere; the written Hebrew (ketiv) has the singular, "your nation," which many Bibles follow, and the meaning is much the same. The plural may recall the "two nations," Israel and Judah, of 35:10. The taunt echoes the spies' evil report, "a land that devours its inhabitants" (Numbers 13:32); Yahweh now promises that the land will no longer devour its people.
• 36:17 The picture comes from the purity laws (Leviticus 15:19, "her menstrual impurity"): such impurity barred a person from the holy place for a time, though it was not a sin. Ezekiel uses it as an image of how far Israel's conduct had put it from Yahweh's presence. The real defilement is named in verse 18: bloodshed and idols, the two things the Torah says pollute the land itself (Numbers 35:33-34; Leviticus 18:24-28).
• 36:20 To "profane" (chillel) Yahweh's name is to treat it as common and bring it into contempt. Seeing Israel in exile, the nations concluded that Israel's God could not keep His people in His own land. Paul applies the same charge in Romans 2:24, quoting Isaiah 52:5. Later Jewish tradition calls this chillul Hashem, "profaning the Name," and its opposite kiddush Hashem, "sanctifying the Name," the very thing Yahweh promises to do in verse 23.
• 36:25 Sprinkling with water belongs to the purity rites of the Torah, above all "the water for impurity" sprinkled on one defiled by a dead body (Numbers 19:13). Here Yahweh Himself does the sprinkling, and He cleanses from idols, a defilement no rite could remove; compare "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Psalm 51:7). Many see this verse and the next behind Yeshua's words to Nicodemus about being born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5); Hebrews 10:22 also speaks of bodies washed with pure water.
• 36:27 Verses 26-27 repeat the promise of 11:19-20 and go further: the new spirit of verse 26 is now named "My Spirit," Yahweh's own Spirit placed within His people. The purpose is stated plainly: "cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them." The new heart does not set the Torah aside; it makes obedience possible from within, as in the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:33: "I will put My Torah within them, and write it on their hearts." Compare Deuteronomy 30:6, where Yahweh promises to circumcise the heart.
• 36:35 Israel's restored land is pictured as Eden, the garden Yahweh Elohim planted at the beginning (Genesis 2:8). Isaiah 51:3 gives the same hope: Yahweh "will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh." Joel 2:3 (cited) turns the picture the other way, a land like Eden left a desolate wilderness by judgment; here the desolation is reversed.

Ezekiel 35 · Ezekiel 37

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