and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one 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.
Ezekiel holds two sticks, one named for Judah and one for Joseph. God joins them into a single stick in his hand, and this verse explains the sign: one people, one land, one king. Has that already happened in some spiritual form, or is it still ahead?
Two fulfilments are often proposed: the small group of Jews who returned from exile in Babylon, or the church. One writer rules out both.
It is pointless to twist such language to fit the remnant of Jews that returned from Babylon, or the church at Pentecost. There is not even a resemblance. It is a union of the two long-divided houses of Israel, and nothing else. Not even a shadow of its accomplishment has appeared yet. Words could not be more explicit. The language excludes every sense except the future gathering and union of all Israel as a single nation under one king. They will never be divided again, never defiled again.
The two sticks stand for a real historical tear. The kingdom split in two, and the halves stayed rivals.
The ten tribes separated from the house of David under Jeroboam, when Rehoboam came to the throne. Ever since, there had been more or less hostility between the two kingdoms, with some occasional alliances. The prophets had kept speaking of the reunion of the two peoples under the Messiah.
The same writer marks when the healing comes.
When Messiah returns and establishes His kingdom, this promise will be fulfilled. It would have been fulfilled when He first came, if His people had received Him.
Israel's own kings tried to mend the split and failed. The sign shows why it will work now: the two sticks become one in the hand that holds them.
How beautiful it is that in God's day, when the Lord takes up the staff of Israel and of Judah, it will be reunited in His hand. It will be one, as it has never been since the division. All efforts in the past have been futile. King Rehoboam might fight to bring back the tribes that had revolted, but it was utterly impossible. The efforts of other kings ended the same way. Hezekiah might send out a gracious invitation for Israel to come back to the God of their fathers. A few people might be restored, but it is only a temporary, partial thing. But when the mighty Son of God takes hold of His people, that broken staff will be reunited and become one — a rod, a sceptre, by which He will reign over the whole earth.
The verse does not name the king, but the passage goes on to call him "my servant David." Writers take that as pointing past David himself.
The Jew is not "cast off" in the sense in which Scripture uses the word — as final rejection. That is because there is the most abundant testimony that the day is coming when the Lord will re-gather His ancient people, the house of Israel and the house of Judah. He will plant them in the land which He gave to them and to their fathers. For God has plainly said, "One king shall be king over them all," and "My servant David shall be king over them" (Ezek. 37:22, 24) — a beautiful allusion to Christ!
The reign meant is an earthly one. Christ is King here "not as Head of the church in heaven, but as king of Israel when He reigns over the earth." Since the prophecy was spoken there has never been "an approach to its accomplishment" (William Kelly).
Nothing here is offered on terms. Every clause is something God says He will do.
This prophecy will find its accomplishment in their own land, and under the King whom God will raise up for them. God will once more be openly their God, with His sanctuary set among them forever. That the time of all this is future should need no argument. Nor should it need one that the promise can never be set aside by any unfaithfulness of the people He speaks of. God has attached no condition to it here, and He states that He will Himself fulfil it.
The reunion brings joy, not just order. One writer pictures that day. Judah and Israel, "so long divided and scattered, will at last meet in the land." There they will "realise how good and pleasant it is for those who are brothers, not only to meet, but to dwell together in unity" (Hamilton Smith).
- One hand. The two sticks become one in the hand that holds them — the healing is God's act, not a treaty between the tribes.
- One nation. The split under Jeroboam and Rehoboam is undone. The two kingdoms end, and Israel is one people again.
- One land. God names one place: the mountains of Israel. It is the land He gave their fathers — not heaven, and not the church.
- One king. Writers see "my servant David" as Christ reigning over the earth. Under Him the union can never break again.
- One promise. God attaches no conditions, so no failure of the people can cancel it. Commentators agree it still waits ahead.
And they shall not defile themselves any more with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; and I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel has just joined two sticks into one, a sign to a people split in two and stained by idolatry. God now promises to heal both wounds and to own them as His people again — but when, and for whom?
The verse promises that Israel will never again defile itself with idols. Earlier in the same book, God tells how deep that cleansing goes:
He will sprinkle "clean water" upon them and they shall be clean. All their filthiness and their love of idols will be gone, because He will have put "a new heart" and "a new spirit" within them. The water will cleanse them so deeply and so completely that their whole nature will be different. Once He has done this mighty work, they will look back with disgust at what they once were.
This union undoes one very old failure. The kingdom split in two under Rehoboam, Solomon's son, and stayed split:
God had a further, fresh blessing for them: an old reproach would disappear. That reproach had dishonoured Israel from the days of Rehoboam, for as long as it lasted in the land. When God sets His hand to their restoration in the last days, He will re-unite them as they were long ago under David and Solomon. Their unity will never be broken, or even threatened, again. God keeps this for the true Beloved when He reigns as the Prince of peace.
The ESV says God will save them "from all the backslidings in which they have sinned." Older translations read "out of all their dwelling places," and that wording raises a practical problem: the ten tribes vanished from history. One writer answers that we do not have to know where they are:
If God has said it will be so, we have a right to expect it. He will bring the ten tribes out of their hiding places. He will save them out of all their dwelling places where they have sinned, and will cleanse them... God may have the ten tribes in some little-explored region of the earth. Or they may emerge, when no one expects it, out of a nation they have long been confused with. But we are not bound to show where they are.
Some say the promise came true when a remnant came home from exile in Babylon. Others say it describes the church. One writer rejects both, on the ground of what the words say:
It is pointless to twist such language to fit the remnant of Jews that returned from Babylon. It is just as pointless to fit it to the church at Pentecost. There is not even a resemblance. It is a union of the two long-divided houses of Israel, and nothing else. Not even a shadow of its accomplishment has appeared yet. Words cannot be more explicit... Never again shall they be divided, never again defiled.
God sets no terms on this promise:
That the time of all this is future should need no argument. Neither should this: God has attached no condition to the promise here, and He affirms that He will Himself fulfil it. So the unfaithfulness of the people He speaks of can never set it aside.
The cleansing is not an end in itself. It clears the way for God to own them again — and their history shows how astonishing that is:
Then the true David, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be their king. Fully cleansed from their sins (Ezek. 37:23), they will walk in the fear of the Lord. They will be under the blessing of the everlasting covenant of peace (Ezek. 37:26). God sets His sanctuary among them forever. The sin of that nation reached its height in the murder of His Son and their Messiah. After all that, what infinite grace for God to say, "My tabernacle also shall be with them: yes, I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Ezek. 37:27).
- Cleansed — God puts in a new heart and a new spirit. That changes the whole nature, so the idols go and the old ways disgust them.
- United — God heals the split that began under Rehoboam. Under Christ's reign, that unity will never be broken again.
- Gathered — God saves them out of every place where they sinned, including the tribes no one can now find. He knows where they are; we do not have to prove it.
- Unconditional — God attaches no terms to this promise. He will fulfil it Himself, so their unfaithfulness cannot cancel it.
- Owned — cleansing ends in relationship: after all their sin, God still says they are His people and He is their God.
And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd and they shall walk in mine ordinances, and keep my statutes, and do them.
The vision of the two sticks ends with a promise of one ruler. God's servant David will be king — one shepherd over a people split into two kingdoms for centuries. Who is this "David"? When has this ever happened? And how will a nation that never kept God's rules come to walk in them?
Here the name points to someone other than the shepherd boy of Bethlehem. Commentators have taken it in different ways, and one writer weighs them:
Some have applied this to Zerubbabel, the head of Judah when the people came back from captivity in Babylon. Those who deny a future restoration of Israel take that line. Others take these words in a literal sense. They teach that David the king will head the nation once more, and that, raised from the dead, he will be the one shepherd over His people. It is not David, but He who according to the flesh is the Son of David and David's Lord as well. The one Shepherd can only be the Messiah. Many passages show that David's name stands here as a picture of another.
The promise runs through a death. Ezekiel's Shepherd is the One who gave His life for the sheep:
David's shepherd care, faithfulness and service to his father's flock will be seen in perfection when Jesus, the Son of David, looks after His Father's sheep. Compare Micah 5:1-5 with Matthew 2:5-6. The One who will shepherd Israel is the Mighty God become Man. Such a Shepherd cannot fail. But He must be struck down and die, to secure blessing for the sheep of Israel and also for the sheep who will form the church (Zech. 13:7; John 10:11, 15-16). Such a Shepherd could not be held by death. God raised Him from among the dead — Jesus, the Son of God, the Great Shepherd of the sheep (Heb. 13:20).
The word "one" is the point of the whole passage. Two sticks became one in the prophet's hand, and the sign has a single meaning:
It is a union of the two long-divided houses of Israel, and nothing else. Not a shadow of its fulfilment has appeared yet. No words could be plainer. This rules out every meaning except the future gathering and union of all Israel as one nation under one king. Never again will they be divided; never again defiled.
Some read the verse as already fulfilled — by the small group that came back from Babylon, or by Christians today. The plain wording rules both out:
Here again is confirmation, if any were needed! No sober believer can doubt that only Christ can be meant — Christ not as Head of the church in heaven, but as king of Israel when He reigns over the earth. Since the prophecy was spoken, nothing has ever come close to fulfilling it. They have never all had one shepherd. Israel has never walked in His judgments, or kept His statutes and done them.
The second half of the verse promises obedience from a people whose history was disobedience. Earlier chapters of Ezekiel show how (the writer quotes an older Bible version):
God gathers them out of the countries where they had been scattered and brings them into their land. The inward change He works in them is described further in Ezekiel 11:19-20: "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in my statutes." And Ezekiel 36:25-27 adds the Spirit put within them as the power to enable them to do so.
The same person is both king and shepherd. That shapes the kind of rule He brings:
This is God's thought of rule, and Christ, the true Shepherd, shows it in full. Even when He takes the rod of iron, as He will do in the time soon to come, it will be to "tend" or shepherd the nations with it. Here is One with whom rule is ministry, and subjection to Him is subjection to eternal love itself... The One who claims obedience shall be the One who has walked in obedience, and that at all cost to Himself.
- One person. "David" here is not the son of Jesse raised again but the Messiah, David's Son and David's Lord. The name works as a picture.
- One death. This Shepherd is first struck down to win blessing for the sheep. Raised again, He keeps the shepherd office that death could not take from Him.
- One flock. Two sticks become one. God gathers the long-divided houses of Israel into one nation under one king, never split again.
- One future. Commentators insist that nothing in history has matched these words yet — not the return from Babylon, not the church. The promise still stands ahead.
- One heart. They will walk in His statutes because God gives a new heart and His Spirit — and because the King who commands obedience first lived it Himself.
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, they, and their children, and their children's children for ever and David my servant shall be their prince for ever.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.