I have read several different stories about the dry bones of Ezekiel and the vision that he saw and wrote about.
There was a forbidding valley…most likely this was where Ezekiel would have been. In this valley, it was filled with dry bones. I can’t even imagine being in a valley that was filled with a bunch of dry bones of people (even if only in a vision). Yet, God has a conversation with Ezekiel regarding the dry bones.
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. Ezekiel does what God says and imagine that if you were Ezekiel these bones began to move and come alive again. The bones began to come together, skeletons…they were, and now they were being put back together again, and then there appeared flesh and skin on these bones. And they rise up. Amazing sight in his prophecy.
What? What could this all mean? That Israel would again come alive as a nation in the land. It would happen as in the Valley of Dry Bones prophecy…But what does that mean?
Israel had been dispersed all over the known world. Israel was in ruin. To Ezekiel they were like a skeletal entity of a nation which was no longer there. However, even the language of Hebrew would also come back. It was an ancient language not being used and it would come back to life. The people who had been scattered all over the place would come back to the land that God had promised to them. They would become alive. God began to gather those old dry bones and bring them home. They began here like a skeleton. They once were dead, and were like dry bones…but God always keeps His promises and He had told them that they would return. The land had beame alive again, and a government, culture, army, land, and nation grew. Those old dry bones were alive
They were raised from the dead and were no longer going to be dry dead bones, how many people thought this was impossible for the Jewish people to return to the land? For 2000 years nothing happened and then Ezekiel’s prophesy that God had given him began and people began to return to the land. What had been seen as impossible…came into being. The bones came alive…meaning they came back to the land where they were promised to go.
Ezekiel was to tell the bones that God would make breath enter the bones and they would come to life, just as in the creation of man when He breathed life into Adam (Genesis 2:7). Ezekiel obeyed, the bones came together, flesh developed, skin covered the flesh, breath entered the bodies, and they stood up in a vast army. That is amazing. What was going on in this prophesy is that the vision symbolized the whole house of Israel that was then in captivity. Like unburied skeletons, the people were in a state of living death, pining away with no end to their judgment in sight. They thought their hope was gone and they were cut off forever. The surviving Israelites felt their national hopes had been dashed and the nation had died in the flames of Babylon’s attack with no hope of resurrection.
But God!!!!! The reviving of the dry bones signified God’s plan for Israel’s future national restoration. The vision also, and most importantly, showed that Israel’s new life depended on God’s power and not the circumstances of the people. Putting “breath” by God’s Spirit into the bones showed that God would not only restore them physically but also spiritually.
Well, this prophecy has come true (as all of God’s do). They not only came back and reside in the Holy Land…but they also became a nation in one day as was also prophesized. May 14, 1948 was an amazing day for the Jewish people. Not only were they home…but they became a nation. Praise God that He always tells the truth and does what He says He will do.
I don’t know how you see this event or have studied it…but I always find my God to be amazing and that He is always on time. Things fall in place when God is in them. God never lies! I can always go to Him and know I can fully trust Him and that He does what he says He will do.
I also know that when God says it is time that God will return for His bride/the church and take us to be with Him. No doubt in my mind. Again, my God is so amazing there are really no words to say how wonderful He really is.