My Come, Follow Me studies for this week took me to the book of Ezekiel, and I learned lots of interesting stories, allegories, and parables. The title of this lesson is “A New Spirit Will I Put within You.” The lesson was introduced with the following information.
Ezekiel was a prophet in exile. Along with
other Israelites, he had been captured and sent to Babylon several years before
Jerusalem was finally destroyed. In Jerusalem, Ezekiel would have been a priest
serving in the temple. In Babylon, he was among “them of the captivity,” and he
“sat where they sat” (Ezekiel
3:15), hundreds of miles from the temple and with little hope of returning
to the beloved house of God. Then one day Ezekiel had a vision. He saw “the
glory of the Lord” (Ezekiel
1:28)—not back in the temple at Jerusalem but there in Babylon among the
exiles. The wickedness in Jerusalem, he learned, had become so severe that
God’s presence was no longer there (see Ezekiel
8–11; 33:21).
One of Ezekiel’s tasks was to warn the
Israelites about the consequences of their rebellion—a warning that largely went
unheeded. But there was more to Ezekiel’s message: he prophesied that, despite
how bad things became, there was a way back. If God’s people would accept the
invitation to “hear the word of the Lord” (Ezekiel
37:4), what was once dead could be revived. A “stony heart” could be
replaced with “a new heart” (Ezekiel
36:26). “[I] shall put my spirit in you,” the Lord told them, “and ye shall
live” (Ezekiel
37:14). And in the last days, the Lord would establish a new temple and a
new Jerusalem, “and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is
there” (Ezekiel
48:35).
As with most scripture blocks, this
one had numerous principles. The principle that I would like to discuss tonight
is found in Ezekiel 37: “The Lord is gathering His people and giving them new
life." The prophet uses two symbols in this chapter to portray the gathering
of Israel. The first symbol involves bones, and the second symbol entails
sticks. In Ezekiel 37:1-14, the prophet told of dead bones being restored to
life. These are the words of the prophet Ezekiel.
1 The hand of
the Lord was
upon me, and carried me
out in the spirit of
the Lord,
and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full
of bones,
2 And caused me to
pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very
many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very
dry.
3 And he said unto
me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God,
thou knowest.
4 Again he said unto
me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord.
5 Thus saith the
Lord God unto
these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you, and ye shall live:
6 And I will lay
sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and
put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
7 So I prophesied as
I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking,
and the bones came together, bone to
his bone.
8 And when I beheld,
lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them
above: but there
was no breath in them.
9 Then said he unto
me, Prophesy unto the wind,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God;
Come from the four winds, O
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as
he commanded me, and the breath came
into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great
army.
11 ¶ Then he said unto
me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say,
Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are
cut off for our parts.
12 Therefore prophesy
and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God;
Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and
cause you to come up
out of your graves, and bring you
into the land of Israel.
13 And ye shall know
that I am the Lord,
when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your
graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in
you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye
know that I the Lord have
spoken it, and
performed it, saith
the Lord.
The symbolic meaning of this
prophecy is apparent, according to the Institute Manual. “The bones represent
Israel in its lost and scattered state; the graves indicate where Israel is as
well as its condition of spiritual death. The spirit, or ruach in Hebrew
(see Ezekiel 37:9), means the new spirit of righteousness the people will have
when they have been resurrected, that is, restored from their fallen state. The
source of this new life will be the Holy Ghost.”
There
is nothing more real, more literal, more personal than the resurrection, as
Ezekiel then beheld in vision. He saw the dead live again, live literally and
personally, each one becoming in physical makeup as he had been in mortality.
It was with each of them as it would be with their Lord, when he, having also
come forth from his valley of dry bones, stood in the upper room with his
disciples, ate before them, and permitted them to handle his physical body. To
his people the Lord’s voice came: ‘I will open your graves, and cause you to
come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.’ (Ezek. 37:1–14.) He who shall do all this, as we are now
acutely aware, is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the God of Israel. (The Promised Messiah, pp. 270–71.)
Ezekiel’s second symbol was sticks,
and the story of the two sticks is found in Ezekiel 37:15-28. Ezekiel explained
that one stick was for Judah, and one stick was for Ephraim.
15 The word of the Lord came
again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take
thee one stick, and write upon
it, For Judah, and for
the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon
it, For Joseph, the stick of
Ephraim, and for all
the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one
to another into one stick; and they shall become one in
thine hand.
18 ¶ And when the
children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by
these?
19 Say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God;
Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in
the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them
with him, even with
the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine
hand.
20 ¶ And the sticks
whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God;
Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen,
whither they be gone, and will gather them
on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make
them one nation in
the land upon the mountains of Israel; and cone king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no
more two nations,
neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
23 Neither shall they
defile themselves any more with their idols, nor
with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them
out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them:
so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my
servant shall
be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they
shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and
their children’s children for bever: and my servant David shall be their prince for
ever.
26 Moreover I will
make a covenant of
peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with
them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in
the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also
shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they
shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that
I the Lord do sanctify Israel,
when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
According to the Institute Manual, “many
scholars interpret [the two sticks] as wooden writing boards joined by a hinge.”
Ezekiel tells us that one stick is the stick of Judah, and the other stick is
the stick of Ephraim (Joseph). Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints believe that the stick of Judah is the Bible because most of
the Bible was written by the descendants of Judah. We believe that the stick of
Ephraim or Joseph is the Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ
because Lehi’s family were descendants of Joseph who was sold into Egypt.
In verse 17, Ezekiel was instructed
to take the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph and to join them into one
stick that they could “become one in
thine hand.” Members of the Church of Jesus Christ use both the Bible and the
Book of Mormon in the work of gathering Israel on both sides of the veil. Both books
are used for study in Church classes, and missionaries use both books when they
share the gospel with other people. The knowledge of both books is used in the
family history program where families search out their dead ancestors and
vicariously perform temple work for them.
In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ said
that the coming of the Book of Mormon would be a sign that the work of the
gathering had started. (See 3 Nephi 21:7.) According to President Russell M.
Nelson, the gathering of Israel could not take place without the Book of
Mormon. You can hear his words at this site.
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