Ezekiel 37:26-28 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I will make a covenant of peace with them I will grant them the blessing of peace and prosperity. Or rather, the words are to be understood in a spiritual sense, that God will be reconciled to them through Christ, and admit them into that covenant of peace of which Christ is the Mediator, and therefore is called our peace, Ephesians 2:14; and then the following words, It shall be an everlasting covenant with them, may fitly be explained of the gospel, being such a covenant as shall never be abolished, or give way to any new dispensation. It is certain that the expression, a covenant of peace, could not at all agree with the ancient covenant, for when was there an age, half an age, twenty years peace in Israel? The whole history of the Jewish nation is nothing more than a recital of wars and continual divisions. And if we understand it of peace between God and his people, where shall we find this people faithfully attached to the Lord during one century only? We have only to open the books of the prophets, and the other sacred records, to remark their infidelities and perpetual rebellions against God. This expression, therefore, can only respect the new covenant, whereof Jesus Christ, the Prince of peace, is the mediator, and who gives us that true peace which surpasses all conceptions: see Calmet. And I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them I will set up a spiritual, glorious temple and worship among them; for evermore Never to be altered or abolished on earth, but to be consummated in heaven. My tabernacle also shall be with them The tabernacle wherein I will show my presence among them, and my protection over them. God's placing first his tabernacle, and then his temple among the Jews, was a pledge and token both of his presence and protection. And we may understand him as promising here new and more valuable tokens of his presence among them, by the graces of his Holy Spirit, and the efficacy of his word and ordinances, if not also some extraordinary appearances of the divine majesty. I will be their God, and they shall be my people By my grace I will make them holy, as the people of a holy God; and I will make them happy, as the people of the ever-blessed God. And the heathen shall know that I do sanctify Israel The conversion of the Jewish nation, and their being restored to a state of favour and acceptance with God, will be a work of providence, taken notice of by the heathen themselves, who shall join themselves to the Jews, as the church of God and temple of truth: see note on Ezekiel 36:23.