S44 || The Definitive Promise of Israel’s Restoration || Ezekiel 37:1-15 || Session 44

A valley of bones, a prophet’s question, and a God who answers with His breath—Ezekiel chapter 37 is one of Scripture’s most gripping scenes, and we dive straight into its meaning and momentum. We read the passage aloud and track its movements: bones scattered and very dry, bodies reassembled without life, and finally the Spirit’s breath flooding in. Along the way, we explore why Ezekiel names the bones “the whole house of Israel,” how judgment makes room for mercy, and what it means that God—not human effort—brings dead things back to life.

We also wrestle with the modern implications. When Israel became a nation again in 1948, many saw echoes of Ezekiel: a people regathered from the four winds, a land revived, a language restored. But the text itself pauses at a sobering midpoint—“there was no breath in them.” We discuss the difference between national reconstitution and spiritual regeneration, and why this two-stage pattern helps make sense of both biblical prophecy and current events without forcing the timeline. That same pattern reaches into our lives: preaching to “dry bones” is futile unless God acts, yet He loves to act—regenerating hearts, restoring families, and rewriting stories marked by loss.

The conversation moves from the valley to the bigger story of restoration across Scripture: Moses redeemed from exile, Ruth and Naomi carried from emptiness to inheritance, Job comforted with a double portion after devastation. We consider the debate over whether God is “done” with Israel, and point back to Ezekiel’s repeated “I will” promises—placing the focus on God’s faithfulness rather than human merit. At the center stands a hope bigger than any nation’s resurgence: resurrection itself, the promise of a glorified body and everlasting life through Jesus Christ. If you’re waiting in the “no breath yet” phase, take heart—the wind still blows when God speaks.

If this conversation sparked thought or hope, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find it. Tell us: where are you praying for God's Spiritual breath to return?

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene: Dry Bones
• 2:34 Reading Ezekiel 37:1–14
• 7:45 Can These Bones Live? God Knows
• 13:23 From Judgment To Restoration
• 18:03 Unbelief First, Then Spirit And Life
• 22:58 Is Modern Israel A Fulfillment?
• 29:03 Breath, Spirit, And Process Of Renewal

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

There's an old song that talks about bones coming together. It goes, there's a toe bone connected to a foot bone that's connected to an ankle bone. Hear the words of the Lord. Well, that old spiritual song came from what we're going to study today, which is Ezekiel chapter 37, which is probably the most well-known chapter in the entire book. Most people, if they think of Ezekiel, if they know anything about it, they know the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones. We're there today, and it's very descriptive, it's very memorable because of the literary value of this, but it also teaches a strong spiritual truth that God can resurrect things that are dead, specifically the Jewish nation, the nation Israel, can be resurrected from the dead. And that's what we're going to study today. If you have your Bible, turn to Ezekiel chapter 37. Again, this is arguably the most well-known chapter in the book of Ezekiel. He's talking about the regathering of Israel into a nation again. Now keep in mind that in Ezekiel, it speaks of more than one purpose for regathering Israel, and very possibly at different points in time. Chapter 20, verse 35, we already saw God says he's going to gather Israel to a wilderness place, and he does it there for judgment, for judging the sins and the disobedience of the nation Israel. Here in chapters 36 and 37, it also talks about God regathering Israel, but here it's very different. He's regathering Israel back to the land, the same land he gave to Jacob, and he's going to do it for a blessing and a rebuilding. There's more than one purpose mentioned in the book of Ezekiel for the regathering of Israel. As is common in the book of Ezekiel, the language is very high literature. It's very descriptive, very graphic, and it's such a great passage that we want to just read the whole thing. So, Steve, can you start chapter 37, verse 1, and read down to verse 14, the story of the dry bones.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and lo, they were very dry. He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, you know. Again, he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, that you may come alive, and you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone, and I looked, and behold, sinews on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life, and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished, we are completely cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves and cause you come up out of your graves, my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 5:11

This is a very descriptive passage. It's it's very high literature. It's also very easy to understand simply because it is so descriptive. He says in verse 11 that these bones are the house of Israel. He also says at the beginning of what we just read that there were very many bones in this valley, and they were not just dead, they were very dry. Israel is scattered, it's dead, it's not just merely dead, but really most sincerely dead, dry bones scattered in a valley. What's interesting here is not just that God has the ability to regather them and create a nation again, but what's interesting is if you've been with us, he spent more than two dozen chapters condemning Israel for their sin, scattering them, basically killing them as a nation because of their sin and disobedience. Here, once they're dead, now he's going to recreate them again. That's the amazing part. Israel as a nation was as dead as dead can be, and the bones were very dry. In verse three, God asked whether these dead bones can live. Steve, what was Ezekiel's response?

SPEAKER_00: 6:33

His response was directly going to God, just saying, Lord, you know whether or not they can live again, because he is acknowledging that God is the only one that has the power to be able to do something like that.

SPEAKER_01: 6:48

If someone were to ask us, if you're standing in front of a pile of dry bones, if can these bones live, well, you'd get more than one response. The scientist would come along and say it's a fact that a biological fact that dead bones cannot live. The philosopher would come behind him and say that we've never seen dead bones come back to life. Therefore, no reasonable person would ever believe that dead bones could live. However, Ezekiel was wise enough not to answer, no, that dead bones can't live. He was wise enough to say, Lord, you know. Ezekiel doesn't see how dead bones can live, but he knows that God knows the answer to impossible riddles. Therefore, he very wisely says, God, you know. That's what we should do when we are faced with an impossible situation. Can we see a way out of it? We should say, Lord, you know the way. Does God know the answer to our impossible situations?

SPEAKER_00: 7:53

The obvious answer to that is yes, he does, because he knows all of our future that we're going to have personally. He knows the future of what's going to happen in the world. While we see that here through Ezekiel and other prophets, God continually tells the people, here's what's going to happen in the future. Now we know that God's word is true, and that the prophet speaking God's word is true because we have so many of the events of Ezekiel that actually happened. We can go back and through historical accounts, through archaeological finds and diggings, corroborate that Jerusalem was most certainly sacked, that the temple was torn down, and that there's nothing that was left there whenever the Babylon came through. Those particular areas of prophecy foretelling of what's going to happen in the future actually did happen. The outstanding items that haven't happened yet, we can take assurance that those are also going to happen because we had the historical corroboration that the other prophecies happen. So it would be illogical for us to say, yes, we believe God in that he prophetically gave the people a vision of what was going to happen in the future, but yet some of these other things that haven't happened yet, we're not really sure whether or not they're going to come true. Well, that's an illogical statement. God knows not only what's going to happen in the future in general to the world and to the nations, most certainly He knows what's going to happen to us individually. So we can take peace in knowing the knowledge of that God knows where our future is and where it's going to be and how it's going to unfold. We can also take the calmness from it, as it says in Romans 8.28, that he will work to good everything for those who love the Lord. No matter what type of disaster or problem or situations that we find ourselves in, we know that God can take it and make something good out of it, just like what he's doing here with these dry bones. He's going to make something good out of it. He's going to reconstitute the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

God takes Ezekiel and he takes them to a valley and it's full of bones. They're not just dead, says, Behold, they're very dry. In verse 4, God gives Ezekiel a command. What's he supposed to do in verse 4?

SPEAKER_00: 10:41

He's supposed to prophesy over the bones and tell them, oh, bones, hear the word of the Lord. It's a picture that it's God is going to be taking action in order to bring these bones back to life.

SPEAKER_01: 11:30

What's really almost comical, Ezekiel's given the job of standing before this pile of dry bones and preaching a sermon. Now, Ezekiel was the first preacher to ever give a message to a dead congregation, but he was not the last. I've seen more than a few dead congregations. Sometimes I was one of the ones that was in it that was dead, because we have today congregations of dry bones, at least on occasion. God says that he is going to put sinews on you, and I will cause breath to enter you. Israel coming back together is like a resurrection. The resurrection of Israel is a miracle. It's like the miracle of a resurrection. Israel was dead, long dead, like dry bones. Is there any life in dry bones? Well, no, there's not. Can dry bones of their own effort put themselves back together and recreate themselves into life again? Well, no, they can't. On a human level, dry bones cannot live. Dry bones cannot put themselves back together again. Note Ezekiel's answer in verse 3, oh Lord God, you know. God knows because he is the one that gave life in the first place. He can take it back again and he can resurrect it from the dead if he wishes. Dry bones cannot live by themselves, but God can restore them to life. Now we can take this passage of the resurrection of the dry bones. It's about Israel. It says it's about Israel in verse 11. That we can take it and apply it to salvation in our life, but it's really about Israel. But we can draw some lessons from this about personal salvation. The Bible teaches that we are dead in trespasses and sins. When anyone gives out the word of God, they're really giving it to a pile of dry bones, a sinner that's dead in trespasses and sins. On our own, we're no better than this valley of dry bones. We can be no more effective preaching to a lost person than Ezekiel could be by himself preaching to a pile of dry bones. We can't do anything, but the word of God is quick and powerful and sharp. And God's spirit can come and resurrect the dead. When we give out the word of God, how are people saved? Well, God has to regenerate them. God has to reach down to the pile of dry bones and give it life again. The other thing we see here, God is restoring that which is lost. He is restoring that which is lost. The nation of Israel is dead and gone at this point. It's a pile of dry bones as a nation. This passage reminds us that God can restore that which is lost. He can take a nation that's dead and he can recreate it, resurrect it again. I think of several times in the Bible where God replaced that which is lost. First place, I think it was Moses. Moses, uh, remember he murdered someone, lost his position of prominence with the government, and was banished to the far side of the desert. God restored Moses to a position of prominence. He resurrected, if you will, Moses' career and purpose in life. God tells Israel, quote, I will make up for you the years that the swarming locusts have eaten in Joel 225. The locust would go through and destroy everything and take the entire crop for a whole year. God says, I can restore what the locusts have eaten. I can restore the years that the locusts have eaten. Ruth and Naomi had lost everything. And God restored them a family and a heritage when Boaz came along in the book of Ruth. Job lost his family. He lost his family, his money, his wealth, and his health. God restored to Job twice as much as he had before at the end of the book. You'll find that in Job 42, 10. God restores every sinner that has wasted his life and wasted it away from God. The Lord takes that person, pile of dry bones, resurrects it again, and can restore the years that have been lost and give it a life that's purpose. And Steve, to me, that's one of the lessons we can draw from this. Not only did he resurrect Israel from a pile of dry bones, he can take our lives that are really just as dead and give us meaning and purpose.

SPEAKER_00: 16:14

And we'll see cases of people, their lives are restored to them here on earth, ones that have lived a life away from God. They have a change of mind, they come back to God, or they come to God and believe in Him, believe in Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We will see families restored. We will see businesses restored. We will see people's lives restored here on earth. But the ultimate restoration is a glorified body. While we might see restoration of our families or our lives here, we still have a case of our bodies that break down, and we might get some sort of a disease that breaks our body down to an extent that it takes us over to the other side. But the ultimate restoration is our glorified body, and we look forward to having that glorified body. And then, of course, in that glorified body, we will be living in an everlasting life together with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01: 17:23

In this passage, again, it's really speaking about recreating or rebuilding the nation Israel. In verse 7 and 8, the bones start to come together, and it mentions a rattling. You can almost hear the rattle as he describes this. The bones come together with a rattling, the bones go where the skeleton's supposed to be, the sinews and the muscle and the skin starts growing on them. What is the state of Israel at the end of verse 8? Is the corpse alive or dead at that point?

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Well, there is no breath in them, is the way that the text puts it. You have the body that has the bones, the sinew, and the skin and muscle on it, but there's no breath in them. I think this gives a picture of a restoration of the nation itself, but it's in unbelief. It's not one that has the spirit of God that's in him yet. I think there's a two-part restoration that's being depicted here in Ezekiel. One of a nation coming back together in unbelief in the state here in the first part of chapter eight. But then the second restoration, the full restoration, is going to be the one whenever God puts a spirit of breath into them. And that's depicted in verses nine and further.

SPEAKER_01: 18:45

That brings us to a question about Israel today. 1948, the nation of Israel came together again that had been not there for many, many centuries. A lot of Christians looked at that and said, wow, this is something on biblical proportions that there's never been a case where a people group that's been scattered for well over a millennium and a half that suddenly came back together again and is now a nation. So there were many Bible teachers, still are, that would point to the modern nation of Israel and say, wow, fulfillment of prophecy. Can we say that the modern nation of Israel is a fulfillment of this dry bones prophecy of the dry bones coming back together and coming back to life?

SPEAKER_00: 19:31

I think we can because the nation, as you said, wasn't there. The people were still there. They were scattered among all the other nations, and they came back from the four winds of the earth, the different areas and countries that they came back to. Their language was all but dead as well. And that has been restored. The land was dry and dusty, and hardly anybody lived in the area. I think at the time of the early 1900s, there was something like 50,000 people that lived around the area of Jerusalem and such. Now it's a robust nation of over 7.5 million people. That the time that we're speaking here, it's been restored from the standpoint of fruit and flowers, and it services a lot of industries into the European area. But the land has been brought back to life through irrigation and through desalination. There's a lot of restoration that has taken place in Israel today, but yet they're there in unbelief. Their nation in general, and their most certainly their government, is one that doesn't recognize Jesus Christ as being Lord and Savior or as being God. There are Jewish people in the nation that do believe in Jesus Christ. They're called messianic Jews, but most of the nation does not. I think it's a picture where we can say, yes, they have been brought back. They had the muscle, bone, sinew, and skin that's on them, but they're there in unbelief. They're not there in a belief that Jesus Christ is their Messiah, is God, and is their savior and salvation.

SPEAKER_01: 21:27

I would agree. It has to be some sort of a sign with Israel coming back together all these years. But at the end of verse 8, Ezekiel 37, 8, the sinews were on them, the flesh grew and the skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. I think that's the most we could say if we're trying to be careful and not go too far in pointing to a fulfilled prophecy, is there is no spiritual life in Israel today. There's individual people that, again, the church in the church age today is full of both Jews and Gentiles. That's the church age today. The nation Israel has largely, at least as a nation, has not accepted Christ as Savior. They are lifeless. They do not have God's breath in them, according to verse 8. And I think that's the farthest we can go is at the end of 37, 8. There was no breath in them. Then it starts talking about in the next verses, God says to the four winds and the breath to go into you, and it says the spirit came. And if you remember, in the original language, the words for breath and spirit and wind are the same root word. There's a descriptive thing going on here in the language where it says the four winds came and the breath came into them. Well, this was the wind of the spirit of God came and gave life to people, and at least life to this nation. Just like this nation needs the Spirit of God to come and give it life, so do we. We are lifeless without the Spirit of God. Also recall that in Genesis 2, verse 7, where God breathes life into mankind, we need the breath of God to give us life, or else we are just a dead corpse. How can lifeless chemicals become a living human? Well, they can't. It has to be God that breathes life into us because dead chemicals and dead bones and dead flesh cannot come to life without the Spirit. Then we find in verses 11 through 13, God speaks of bringing Israel out of their graves. Now notice the process that goes on through this chapter. The bones at the beginning of the chapter start out scattered, dead, and very dry. The bones start to come together, flesh is put on them, but then they have no breath. Then the wind comes and puts breath within them. This is a process. It's not instantaneous, it's a process. And I think we can see some of that in the modern world at least, is the process starting to come to place. The bones have begun to rattle, and maybe there's some sinew on it, but there's no life and breath. Just hold on because God's spirit will come and he will work when it's his timing. Steve, as a general concept, can God resurrect dead things?

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

He most certainly can. And Jesus even depicted that when he was here ministering on earth, he raised Lazarus from the dead. And also in the Old Testament, we have Elijah raising a widow's child from the dead, of course, through the power of the Spirit of God. But yes, God can raise things from the dead. That's our promise. Our promise is, again, as I mentioned earlier, that we're going to be raised from the dead and have a glorified body. Paul even goes to the extent that says, if Jesus Christ hasn't been resurrected, then our hope and belief in him is in vain. Most certainly God can raise from the dead.

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

The next question I have is what is the prerequisite for something coming back to life? Well, the prerequisite is that God has to breathe life into it. Anything that's dead has to have God's Spirit come back into it to resurrect it from the dead. What has to happen for the dead sinner to come back to life again?

SPEAKER_00: 25:42

He has to be born again. That is what Jesus told Nicodemus when he came to visit him in the middle of the night, that you must be born again. That takes place as to whenever you said a while ago that God regenerates the spirit. Whenever someone expresses their faith and belief in Jesus Christ, they are then regenerated in spirit and born again. And this is done through God and his power.

SPEAKER_01: 26:12

Notice here again the last verse of what we read, Ezekiel 37, 14. This is God speaking, I will put my spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, declares the Lord. He's saying here very clearly that he is the one that is going to act. There's nothing in here that Israel could have done to rebuild their nation. They were scattered and very dry. God says, I will do it, and I will put my spirit within you, and I will recreate you. This is just amazing, Steve, simply because, again, all of the passages of judgment were so severe, yet now we can have some faith in God because he will resurrect dead things. He is a God of restoration and life. But before we can have the restoration, we have to have the judgment. It has to be a just God that will meet out the punishment for sin, but he also, once he does so, he will also breathe life back into it and restore things. That's one of the great messages of the book of Ezekiel.

SPEAKER_00: 27:22

One of the things to bring out, Glenn, as we wrap up this session on this chapter 37, back in verse 11, it says, Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. This means that this is a reconstitution of the divided kingdom as well. No longer is it the northern kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah, that it's the whole nation of Israel together. What do we do with that, Glenn? What do we do with these people that have this doctrine and theology that says God is done with the nation of Israel to put them aside and that the church today is the new Israel? We've established that the first part of Ezekiel here, the body itself, that they have been brought back as a nation, but yet they're in unbelief. But there is a future part whenever God is going to breathe spirit into them and they're going to become a believing spiritual nation through individuals coming to belief in Jesus Christ. That's how it's going to happen. But God is very clear here here, He's saying the whole house of Israel, what do we do with these people that say God is done with Israel? Whenever God, in not just this verse here, but other verses, we've always brought it out every time we come to it. It's clear here that God still has something in the future planned for the nation of Israel itself. As you just pointed out in verse 14, he says, I'm going to put you in your own land, the land of Israel.

SPEAKER_01: 29:01

Your question is, what do we do with these people? Well, I'm tempted to tell them to read Ezekiel chapter 36 and 37 because it's quite clear that he is bringing together the whole nation. As we're going to see in the next section, he even reinforces that concept again with the two sticks at the end of the chapter. But on a little more practical and serious level, people do believe that because of things in the New Testament and the Jewish people's rejection of Jesus Christ, that He God is done with them as a nation. I would agree that the rejection of Jesus Christ is the summation of the entire rejection of God. But it's not as if Israel was in fellowship with God because of their obedience and then they rejected Christ and now they're out. We're hard-pressed, as we've said every single time, we're hard-pressed to find a time where Israel ever really did obey or ever really did believe. If you look at the flow of the thought in the book of Ezekiel, one of the reasons why we were so careful and going through in so much detail in the first part of the book was because God over and over and over again condemned them for unbelief and disobedience to the point where he scattered them. Once they were scattered, they blasphemed his name after he had judged them. And so they were, again, very dead. But God, through this section, says, I will do this. The Rebuilding of Israel has nothing to do with their belief because they didn't believe. He is the one that is going to resurrect them. He says, I will do these things. And it's the same thing with us. We would not believe unless He acted in our life. I just feel that it's very aligned with salvation. No believer would ever believe without God's Spirit acting on us to help us regenerate and believe. I think it's the same with Israel. And it's just so many passages here that are very clear that it is God that is going to reconstitute the nation of Israel. He says it over and over again, and it's merely a misapplication of New Testament theology because nowhere does he ever come out in so many words and say that he has rejected the entire nation of Israel. He talks about pruning off unbelieving branches and grafting in Gentiles, but he didn't cut down the tree, as we've said before. And in places like this, as we're going to see, he is the one that is going to bring the nation back together and cause them to believe, which is what we saw in the chapter 36. We're seeing it here in chapter 37. He is the one that will cause them to believe in Jesus Christ. He's not recreating a nation apart from Jesus. The only way anybody can ever have fellowship with God is through Christ. But he will end up bringing the nation to Christ in belief in the last days.

SPEAKER_00: 32:06

One of the answers as to what do we do with them, the people that believe that God is through with Israel, we let them know to be cautious because it's God's work and God's ability to be able to bring them back, and He's the one that is doing it. We shouldn't sell God short on the things that He puts His mind to do.

SPEAKER_01: 32:29

What we're going to see next time with the story of the two sticks is that the nation will no longer be divided. And God makes that very clear. We're going to see that next time as we continue to reason through the book of Ezekiel.

SPEAKER_00: 32:42

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.