For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.
God speaks here to a landscape, not to a nation. He addresses hills and valleys that have been fought over, mocked and left empty. He tells them He has taken their side. The promise raises two questions: why does God address dirt and stones at all, and when do these words come true?
God turns toward the land
The chapter opens with foreign nations gloating over Israel's ruined heights. God answers that taunt by declaring where He stands.
J. N. DarbyEzekiel 36 continues the same subject with reference to the blessing of Israel. The nations insulted Israel. They called it a land whose ancient high places were their prey, and — as the spies had said — a land that devoured its inhabitants. God uses this to show that He favours His people. He declares that He will restore peace and prosperity to the land and take away their reproach.
The message comforts ground that has lain desolate a long time. It holds both sides of God's dealings.
William KellyBut here the subject is the earth, not that eternal judgment. The prophet was to speak comfort to the long desolate mountains of Israel. God did not make the earth, or man on it, to be for ever the victims of sin and sorrow, of emptiness and decay. He will surely show Himself a deliverer from all the harm Satan has done. But there must be judgment as well as mercy, and we see both here.
Held in reserve, not handed over
The land has never yielded its strength to those who seized it. Writers see that barrenness as deliberate.
Numerical Bible NotesThis is all that the enemy could do. He could not make it yield its fruit to him. We already see this in the long Sabbaths in which the land has rested while Israel has been in exile from it. It would give its strength to none of the nations… Crowds still sweep over it. It still lives under a government that makes anything like prosperity impossible. All this is only the sign that the land is still waiting for her true inhabitants.
The ground made ready before the people arrive
The order matters. God gets the ground ready first, and the people come after. Writers see this as His settled way.
C. E. StuartIn the days of Joshua God brought them into the land with everything ready for them to move in at once. So will it 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. God prepares the place, the land, first, and then brings His people into it… The land's returning fertility is the first sign of full national blessing.
Restored past what it once was
Writers point to the people gathering back to the land as proof of the turning this verse promises. And the pledge runs further than a return to old conditions.
Numerical Bible NotesIf we see, as we surely do now, the people gathering back and seeking the land for a new home, we have in all this the proof that God is ready to turn His face towards them and to their land alike… So God has pledged Himself. As in other cases, if He restores, it is not just to the old fruitfulness, to the condition at the beginning. It is to one far better than at the beginning.
Not yet fulfilled
Some say the small group who came back from exile in Babylon fulfilled these promises. Kelly measures that reading against the size of the promise in the verses that follow.
William KellyIt is useless for men to apply such glowing words to the return from Babylon. That return was only a foretaste of what is coming for the whole people. Did the Lord multiply men on the mountains of Israel, "all the house of Israel, even all of it"? No one who respects Scripture and knows the facts can pretend that He did. Such words seem written on purpose to guard souls from these thin and misleading views.
Why God does it
God Himself is the one who acts in every line of this promise. Writers ask what that repeated "I will" tells us.
The Bible TreasuryOne thing about it is very striking. These promises of future blessing often break in suddenly, right after a word about the discipline God had to bring on them for their sins. Often they start with the words "I WILL do so and so." This shows us that the blessing of the people rests on pure grace and sovereign mercy.
Summary
- Sided with. God's first word to the ruined hills is that He is on their side — the answer to the enemy's boast is not argument but favour.
- Reserved. While Israel was away, the land gave its strength to nobody. That barrenness is a sign that it still waits for its true inhabitants.
- Prepared. God makes the ground ready before the people return. As in Eden and under Joshua, He prepares the place first, then brings His own into it.
- Improved. When God restores, He does not stop at the old fruitfulness. He pledges something better than the beginning.
- Unearned and still ahead. The repeated "I will" makes the blessing pure grace. The return from Babylon never reached its full scale — all the house of Israel.