“But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they will soon come home.
God speaks this promise not to people but to hills. The chapter keeps answering two questions: who owns this land, and when will God turn back to it?
An answer to the enemy's boast
Neighbouring nations had claimed the ruined country as their own. God answers their boast, and what He promises ends better than what Israel had before:
W. T. P. WolstonGod says, I know what you think. You think you are going to own the land. I will tell you what I am going to do... That is like God. It is better at the end, after Israel has sinned, than before they sinned.
Ready before the people arrive
The order matters: fruit first, the returning nation second. Commentators see a settled pattern in how God works:
C. E. StuartEzekiel predicted the desolation of the land in chapter 6 of his book. In chapter 36:1-15 he announces its returning fertility, which comes before the nation's restoration. In the days of Joshua God brought them into the land with everything ready for them to occupy at once. So it will be in the future... This has always been God's way. He planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed (Gen. 2:8). The One who did this has gone to prepare a place for His own in His Father's house. The place, the land, is prepared beforehand, and then God brings His people into it.
The same writer reads the renewed soil as a sign of what comes next:
C. E. StuartThe first visible sign that Christ's second coming to deliver His people is near will be the earth yielding her increase (Ps. 67:6). For God, according to His promise, will then have remembered the land (Lev. 26:42).
A people kept for their land
One writer links the nation's long holding-down with its land's long barrenness. Movement in either one matters:
Numerical Bible NotesThe people, as we know, are kept as distinct as ever they were. Meanwhile they are held down in the same way their land has been. Jerusalem is to "be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." We do see now the people gathering back, and the land sought out by them for a new occupation. In all this we have the proof that God is ready to turn His face towards them and to their land alike.
From a land that swallowed men to a land that feeds them
The charge that this land cannot support life goes back to the spies who went up to the land. The promise of fruit answers it:
W. T. P. WolstonYou remember that when the spies went up to the land (Num. 13:31-33), all but Joshua and Caleb said it was "a land that devours its inhabitants" — so barren that people could not live on it... Many cannot live there, because they do not yet get the early and the later rain. Until that rain comes, the land cannot feed the people. But Scripture says, "I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil" (Deut. 11:14). It will yet bring forth abundantly, for the curse will be removed, and Jesus will be there.
More than crops
Fruit on the hills is only half of the promise. The same chapter promises an inward change in the people too:
W. T. P. WolstonIn Ezekiel 36 the restoration and blessing of Israel is unfolded in a most touching way... God would make the land fruitful beyond all measure, and multiply earthly blessings to His people (Ezek. 36:30). More than this, He would bless them spiritually. Ezekiel 36:24-29 describes their spiritual new birth, which the Lord referred to when speaking to Nicodemus.
Too large for the return from Babylon
Some read this promise as fulfilled when the exiles came back from Babylon. One writer measures that view against the words and the facts:
William KellyIn vain do men apply such glowing words to the return from Babylon, which was only a foretaste of what is coming for the entire people. Can anyone who respects Scripture and knows the facts pretend that the Lord multiplied men on the mountains of Israel, "all the house of Israel, even all of it"? (v. 10) Such words seem written on purpose to guard souls from such thin and misleading views.
Summary
- Boast answered. Enemies claimed the ruined land; God answers with a plan that leaves Israel better off than before they sinned.
- Ready first. As in Eden and under Joshua, God prepares the place before He brings His people in — and the Father's house follows the same pattern.
- Sign given. Soil yielding again is the visible sign that God has remembered the land and deliverance is near.
- Curse lifted. Early and later rain will feed the ground that men once called a devourer of its inhabitants, and it will bear fruit in plenty.
- More than fruit. Beyond harvests comes an inward work — the new birth the Lord spoke of to Nicodemus.