‘Now the hand of Yahweh had been on me in the evening before he who had escaped came, and he had opened my mouth by the time he came to me in the morning, and my mouth was opened and I was no more dumb.'
The arrival of the man had, for Ezekiel, been preceded by something equally remarkable. In an ecstatic state before Yahweh in the evening, his mouth had been opened, and his enforced dumbness, which had lasted for some years, had ceased (see Ezekiel 3:26). This in itself must have told him that something awesome was about to happen. And then the man came, and he was able to speak with him ordinarily. He was no longer restricted only to speaking when he had an oracle from Yahweh. It was the news that he had been expecting. Only the timing had been unknown to him. All he had said had been confirmed.
“Therefore will I save my flock, and they will no more be a prey. I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. He will feed them and he will be their shepherd. And I Yahweh will be their God, and my servant David prince among them. I Yahweh have spoken it.”
No solution will be found to the problem of false shepherds and bad leaders until there arises one appointed by God, one out of the house of David, one who is like David, to be prince over them. He will feed them rightly and be a good shepherd to them. And that is what Yahweh intends to bring about. Note that he is a ‘prince'. Yahweh is God (and king).
God intends to save His flock, and deliver them from being continual victims (‘a prey'). He will separate the good from the bad, judging between cattle and cattle (see on Ezekiel 33:17). And He will establish over them the shepherd of His own choosing. It is clear that this shepherd was going to be a powerful and striking figure, and we can see why people began to look forward to the coming of a son of David, of a Messiah. And this promise was certain. It was the word of Yahweh.
This idea of the raising up of a son of David (and thus of Judah) is found throughout the Old Testament. The very suggestion indicated that there could be no solution until He came, that nothing would finally be settled until His arrival, otherwise why was He needed? It began in Genesis 49:10, continued in Numbers 24:17, and grew as an idea throughout the prophets (e.g. Isaiah 9:6-7; Isaiah 11:1-10; Isaiah 55:3-4; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Jeremiah 31:21-22; Hosea 3:5; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 9:9; Daniel 7:13-14). There is no wonder that many Psalms came to be interpreted in the light of the Messianic hope (see Psalms 2; Psalms 72; Psalms 110). It was clear that Israel's destiny could not be settled until He came on the scene. But note that He would introduce an everlasting kingdom with everlasting promises. This is no ordinary prince, no mortal man. His success and authority go on beyond the end of time. The thought of everlastingness clings to Him (Isaiah 9:6-7; Isaiah 55:3; Daniel 7:13-14; Micah 5:2). It is the vision of an eternal future which cannot be put into words.
So none of them, Ezekiel included, could have literally put into words what He would achieve. It was outside their experience and their knowledge. It was beyond their comprehension. And thus they all without exception necessarily had to express their prophecies in terms of what they could understand, of their own ideas of perfection. They knew that He would bring in the perfect everlasting state, but they inevitably had to express it in terms of their own present understanding, and in terms that their hearers and readers could understand. So the remainder of this chapter deals with that conception in terms that Ezekiel's hearers would appreciate. New Testament ideas would have been totally incomprehensible to them.
How far then should it be taken absolutely literally? Are these promises necessarily to be completely fulfilled in the literal mountains of Israel, in a literal Jerusalem, restricted basically to Jews? Or is their fulfilment put here in these terms simply so that people who had no conception of a living world beyond the grave could grasp and appreciate them. In other words, is it in the final analysis wider reaching than having just a literal meaning, to convey lessons about the heavenly to those who had no conception of eternity?
The choice is not necessarily an either/or. The people of Israel would (to a certain extent) certainly be gathered back to the land. There would certainly be enjoyment of these promises to some extent by the literal mountains and rivers of Israel. The Shepherd would come to Israel. But the perfection implied in them was never attained, and could never be attained, and the New Testament applies that partly to the invisible Kingly Rule of God on earth, and finally to the everlasting state in ‘a new Heaven and a new earth'. This is clearly brought out in Ezekiel 37:24-28 which speak of an everlasting state, but in terms of the land of Israel.
Our view is thus that it must not, indeed cannot, all be taken literally. There can be no everlasting state on earth. Thus it is a vision of a perfect world to come depicted in terms of the day. The New Testament takes this up and reveals that it was the church which was the new Israel, continuing as the people of God, with the old Israel cast off, and that the promises to Israel were to be fulfilled in the church, the new Israel (something Paul emphasised), first in the suffering church, gathered from among all nations, and then in the glorified church, thus themselves following in the footsteps of the suffering and glorified Messiah. This is what the message of Revelation especially makes clear.
Those who would apply the ideas to the old Israel, simply restored, are taking a backward step. They are partly missing the glory of what happened through the death and resurrection of Christ, when He, as the One Who was the chosen of God and incorporated Israel within Himself, and as the representative of the true Israel, established the new Israel, based on His Apostles, after which the old order was finished and destroyed in 70 AD. Such interpreters are trying to revive what in Christian terms has been put aside for ever. (See Romans 9-11; Galatians 3:7; Galatians 3:28-29; Galatians 6:15-16; Ephesians 2:12-13; Ephesians 2:19-22; James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1).
We have only to see what the result would be if we took all the Old Testament promises literally. We have an earthly temple and an earthly Jerusalem erected after they have been replaced by the heavenly temple and Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22; Galatians 3:26; Revelation 21:2; Revelation 21:10; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21; Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 9:11-13; Hebrews 10:19-21; Hebrews 13:10; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 8:3-5; Revelation 11:1; Revelation 11:19; Revelation 14:15; Revelation 14:17; Revelation 15:5; Revelation 15:8; Revelation 16:1). We have the restoration of literal blood sacrifices when Hebrews has made clear that they have been replaced by something far better (see Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 13:10). Indeed to commence earthly sacrifices is to do exactly what Hebrews forbade us to do. We have a so-called ‘gospel of the kingdom' which is a sideline, and debased, compared with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and offers lesser benefits, a poor shadow of the great reality.
And we could go on to demonstrate how impossible it is that all the descriptions of the so-called ‘coming kingdom age' can be woven together, for if taken literally they conflict with each other. Does anyone really believe that we will have spears and bows and arrows in use in the last days, and that all the people of the whole earth will be required, or able, to gather at Jerusalem and Judah for the feast of Tabernacles, using seething pots (Zechariah 14)? Indeed that all nations will gather at Jerusalem for worship week by week on the Sabbath and will go out and look at the dead carcasses in the valley of Hinnom (Isaiah 66:23). What a contrast, if taken literally, with the glorious picture in Revelation 21-22. But how meaningful if seen as indicating the glorious fulfilment of all the promises of God and restoration of full harmony with Him in His covenant.
And can we believe that anyone in an age of glory, would gather at the slaughter of thousands of beasts and have their blood sprinkled on them in the presence of Christ, at a time when the animal creation was at total peace and killing was no more (Isaiah 11:6-9), and the sacrifices were not really necessary? Why should they have their eyes turned to the slaying of brute beasts when the Lamb is present? Men who take all the Old Testament literally (or largely literally) have to believe it, but few surely do so without some doubts or questionings in their hearts.
Furthermore in Ezekiel 37:26-28 it is made clear that what Ezekiel is describing has eternal dimensions. It is not for a thousand years but for ever. Can we believe that this world will go on for ever? For that is what is involved.
However, we must recognise that there are many godly men who do hold these views in various measure, as I once did when as a young man I used the Scofield reference Bible, before I gained the knowledge to see the greater application, and I would point out that I honour these men for their true faith in Christ, and look on many of them as faithful and beloved fellow-servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, and have been blessed through their ministry. I recognise that they do so because they take literally words which in my view were intended to convey ideas which if expressed otherwise would not have been comprehended. They are therefore seeking to be faithful to the word of God.
But I cannot accept their ideas on this matter, which appear to me to be retrograde, and not in accordance with New Testament revelation. It is my view that they have missed the point, something that all readers must judge for themselves. (But for His sake let us do it in Christian love. Our views will not change what will really happen).
In order to be literally fulfilled they require not only the present return of Israel to their own land, but also that, in some way, literal Israel are to be differentiated from the true Israel as described by Paul (the true ‘foreknown' Israel which grew out of the old Israel - Romans 9-11) in the purposes of God. For the latter is not just to be seen as a ‘spiritual Israel', the stress in the New Testament is that it is the real Israel, being incorporated into the covenant as renewed in the new covenant.
Now if the argument is that God is gathering unbelieving members of that Israel, who have been cut off, back to their land in order that they might be converted in the final days and become incorporated back into the true Israel, the genuine church of Christ, we can only say ‘amen' to that. But to go back to restoration of the old Israel, a mixture of belief and unbelief, building failure upon failure, re-erecting the temple, establishing a sacerdotal order, and dealing with separate issues than those of the Gospel, is such a backward step that it is incomprehensible why it should be so. Indeed it seems to suggest that the Gospel has not been successful, and that the shadow is more important than the reality. But the Scriptural truth is that the church is the Israel of God. There is surely now therefore no place for another Israel in the divine reckoning, except as being re-grafted into the new Israel (Romans 11:23). For Paul the only future for the old Israel was to become part of the new Israel.
So we see these verses (and similar verses throughout the prophets), as pointing forward to the days when His Kingly Rule began first to be established, and concluding in the perfection which will be finally achieved in the new Heaven and the new earth.