“And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, and they will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing, and I will cause the shower to come down in its season. There will be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield her increase, and they will be secure in their land.”
‘A covenant of peace.' That is a situation where they are surrounded with all the blessings of God's promises in union with Him, because He and they are at one (Ephesians 2:13-15; Colossians 3:15), and they are walking with Him in obedience. There will be peace between man and God.
The picture is one of peace, contentment and blessing. It is Ezekiel's idea of a perfect life based on an agricultural environment, and presented to people who thought in terms of such an environment. Wild animals will be no more (they were clearly a constant problem in the past), it will be safe to sleep anywhere, whether wilderness or wood, the rains will fall abundantly in due season, and trees and earth will be abundantly fruitful And all this is promised finally to the people of God ‘around My hill'.
‘My hill.' In view of the fact that Ezekiel never mentions Jerusalem after its destruction and thinks rather in terms of Israel and its mountains we should probably see ‘My hill' as referring to the whole mountain range which was the backbone of Israel (regularly elsewhere called ‘the mountain') spoken of in this way to bring out its smallness, almost like a pet name. This is a most unusual use which suggests that the insignificance is intended. The word used here is regularly used in parallel with ‘mountain', signifying smaller heights, and is only once used of Jerusalem, and then in parallel with ‘Mount' as a synonym for it (Isaiah 10:32). Mount Zion was not thought of as ‘a hill', indeed it was exalted above the hills (Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1).
Should we however see it as signifying Jerusalem, it is surely in the context to be seen as the new eschatological, everlasting Jerusalem, which in Revelation is in ‘the new earth'. In Ezekiel 37:26-28 this same covenant is put in the context of eternity. (As we shall see later, Ezekiel pointedly ignores Jerusalem by name. It is peripheral to his main theme).
The same picture is presented differently in Revelation 21-22, also symbolically, because the great reality is beyond men's minds to comprehend. But the basic thought is the same. Redeemed man will have all that he needs, will know a glory beyond telling, and will be at peace and dwell securely in the presence of God. There will be no more tears, no more crying, no more lack, for all these things will be done away (Revelation 21:4). It is a picture of what men think of as ‘Heaven' (signifying by that the final ideal existence with God) depicted in earthly terms.