Ezekiel 37:24, commentary and pictures

David my servant is Christ, the second David of David's seed and royal line, who as Prince and good Shepherd is yet to sit on David's throne with an everlasting kingdom over the second Israel of the new covenant. The Israel he rules is the true and spiritual Israel in the highest sense, all the saved from every nation who prevail by faith in Christ, both Israel by birth and Gentiles by faith made fellow heirs in Christ where there is no Jew and Greek. They shall become one people and one nation with one king, no longer divided into two kingdoms, gathered from captivity to dwell safely under one shepherd while keeping their distinct personal identities. There they shall walk in his judgments and observe his statutes and do them, obeying his law and will and defiling themselves no more with idols, including the Sabbath in Abraham's everlasting inheritance. What was promised as a conditional restoration from Ezekiel 36 onward, if Israel had yielded, repented and been faithful, was fulfilled only in small part when about forty thousand returned, and will instead be fulfilled on a broader and more glorious scale in the earth made new. That fulfillment belongs to the resurrection of the righteous and the final gathering when Christ returns with trumpet and angels to raise the dead, bring the whole house of Israel into its own land, and dwell with them forever in the renewed earth and New Jerusalem.

Identity of David and Israel

David my servant is Christ, the second David, and his reign as king with all having one shepherd belongs to the new covenant over the second Israel, the faithful children of promise after the law of faith who walk in judgments and do statutes. The first David reigned over the first Israel, the natural descendants of Jacob under the first covenant, while the second David reigns over the second Israel under the new covenant. David and Israel must therefore both be taken in the second sense together, and the reign of David the second cannot be joined to the first Israel without mixing the two covenants and the two systems.

The promised David is David's Seed and royal line, the Son of David and Prince from David's house. He is the good and great Shepherd who feeds the flock and gathers in one the scattered children of God, both Israel and Gentiles, in fulfillment of the purpose to gather all things in Christ. He is yet to sit on David's throne, and his kingdom endures forever. The promises that David's throne would endure are fulfilled in Christ, David's descendant, as king and shepherd in Israel's glorified state and in the everlasting kingdom after the resurrection. Its ultimate fulfillment comes when he reigns over a purified, redeemed earth.

The mortal prince described elsewhere in Ezekiel is not this promised King; Jesus alone is the one King and Shepherd.

The Israel ruled is the true and spiritual Israel, Israel in the highest sense. It ultimately includes all the saved who enter the holy city, both those of Israel by birth and Gentiles who accept Christ by faith, with those redeemed into the everlasting kingdom belonging spiritually to the twelve tribes. Through the clearer New Testament revelation the Gentiles gathered for God's name are fellow heirs and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel, where there is no Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian or Scythian, so the verse cannot support any theory that excludes God's gospel work to the whole world for all alike. All who prevail by faith in Christ from every nation and people become part of Israel, including Gentiles as well as Jews gathered into his fold, and the restored whole nation including Ephraim and Judah reunited under one shepherd becomes a distinct people showing his salvation and glory to the nations.

The promised return to their own land is not a return of the Jews as a separate nation going back to Palestine now in mortal life. It belongs to the true Israel in the resurrection, when the whole house of Israel as dry bones are raised from graves, given sinews and flesh and skin, filled with God's Spirit, made alive, and brought into the land of Israel, their own land. Then Abraham and all his seed in Christ together come into possession of the land for an everlasting possession, which cannot happen while death reigns, meaning Christ and his saints inherit the new earth and the New Jerusalem.

Unity Under One Shepherd

The verse promises that Israel and Judah, including Ephraim, shall become one people and one nation under one king, no longer two nations or two kingdoms divided against each other. The joining of the two sticks is the sign of that divided state becoming one in God's hand. That reunited people is the restored Israel of God in the coming Messianic kingdom, with Christ ruling as God's servant David, and spiritually all who are redeemed into God's everlasting kingdom belong to the twelve tribes of Israel. This final gathering is fulfilled only after Christ's second advent, when Jesus comes and God makes all things new, with the united people dwelling in the land forever and God's sanctuary among them forevermore. It is the promised restoration of scattered Israel as one nation under the rule of David's seed, which would have reunited Israel and Judah if Israel had met God's conditions, but because the people failed it received only a limited fulfillment.

After God brings His people from captivity, restores them to their land, and delivers them so that strangers no longer oppress them, they shall serve the Lord their God with David raised up as king and with one shepherd over them all. Under that rule Israel and Judah shall dwell safely as His people with Jehovah as their God, and these promises shall be fulfilled eternally. He is David the second, the son of David who reigns on David's throne with a kingdom that endures forever, the good and great Shepherd who feeds the flock and gathers in one the scattered children of God, both Israel and Gentiles, in fulfillment of God's purpose to gather all things in Christ. In that gathering the people retain their distinct personal identities rather than being absorbed into an indistinguishable mass.

The one shepherd depicts the unity of the church under Christ, the Prince Immanuel. That unity is the return of true believers to the good old paths, marked by keeping God's commandments and having the spirit of prophecy.

Obedience in Covenant Life

Walking in God's judgments and observing his statutes and doing them means obeying his law and commands and doing his will. The word judgments denotes God's law, and to walk in them is to obey, joined with keeping his statutes. In the final gathering Israel and Judah become one people under one King and Shepherd. Then they no longer defile themselves with idols or detestable things but obey God's judgments and statutes.

They shall dwell in the land forever with God's sanctuary among them forevermore. Those conditions are fulfilled when Jesus comes and God makes all things new. In Abraham's promised inheritance his people live under God's everlasting covenant and keep its laws. Abraham and all his seed walk in God's judgments and observe his statutes and do them.

The Sabbath commandment is not excluded from those statutes and is not excepted from the covenant to be kept. That inheritance promised to Abraham is heirship of the world, the city that has foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new earth. Ezekiel 37:24-26 places David's people in that inheritance under the everlasting covenant.

Conditional Offer to Israel

Ezekiel 37:24 belongs to the conditional prophecy of restoration running from Ezekiel 36 onward, which warned Israel and pleaded with them to turn to God. God promised what He would have done if they had yielded to Him, if they had returned to Him wholeheartedly and been faithful, if they had repented and put away wickedness and been ashamed of their iniquities. This conditional character rests on the principle stated in Jeremiah 18:8-10. The dry-bones vision pictured the captive nation coming to life, the scattered people returning to their land, and God's presence dwelling among them if they obeyed. Because Israel did not yield and did not truly repent, the glorious fulfillment did not take place.

The conditional offer included restoration from Babylonian captivity after seventy years, cleansing from sin and new hearts, and return of the scattered people of Israel and Judah reunited as one nation under David's seed as king and one shepherd. It promised the raising of their righteous dead, so that the resurrection described in Ezekiel 37 would have taken place if God's people had been faithful. It promised subjection of the kings of the North and all enemies far and near, conquest of enemies, and Jerusalem made a praise in the earth. It promised a new temple with a new division of the land, God's sanctuary and presence among them, and God's life and healing power coming upon Palestine and the earth as never before. Because Israel did not yield, did not truly repent, was not ashamed of iniquities and put away wickedness only in part, that restoration was never literally fulfilled, the promised restoration and sanctuary did not take place, and the resurrection and other promised features remained unrealized.

Because Israel failed to meet the conditions, only about forty thousand returned from captivity and the promises were fulfilled only in small part. The promised restoration and glory were only faintly reflected in the prosperity that followed the return. The restoration was fulfilled only in small degree because the people were ashamed of their sins only in part and did not let God carry out all He desired. The promise in its literal sacrificial and temple form never will be built, because Jesus Christ fulfilled all sacrifices by His death on the cross.

God's purpose to redeem true Israel will instead be fulfilled in the future, though not in every original detail as described in Ezekiel and not under Ezekiel's local conditions. The prophecies will have a greater fulfillment in the glory of Christ's second coming and events connected with it. Because ancient Israel did not meet the conditions, the promises will be fulfilled in the last days under different conditions, on a broader, stronger, and more glorious scale. That fulfillment is a more glorious inheritance, the earth made new and the new heavens and new earth, of which the literal promise was faintly typical.

Resurrection and Final Fulfillment

The chapter pictures the resurrection in the valley of dry bones, which are the whole house of Israel joined together and covered with sinews and flesh and skin, with breath entering them so that they live and stand up as a great army and are brought into their own land. The account names breath entering the revived bodies, but no immortal soul or deathless spirit entering the resurrected people. The vision reveals resurrection power in the Word of God to revive those who say their bones are dried and their hope is lost.

It teaches the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the dead as the only blessed hope of God's children. That hope in resurrection and immortality was already present in the Old Testament. It is the same hope of the promise made to the fathers that God should raise the dead, held by the patriarchs and by David and the prophets, taught by Christ and set before the church by the apostles, when at Christ's second coming with the shining angelic host the dead shall hear His voice and those who sleep in Him shall come forth to everlasting life and immortality, and eternal life comes only through the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming and the resurrection through faith in Him.

The reign of David as king and one shepherd belongs to that resurrection, when the whole house of Israel described in verses 11-14 is brought into its own land. The kingdom of God would not appear immediately but would be inherited after the resurrection from the dead and the change to immortality, which baptism prefigures. Christ reigns on earth with His saints in a literal fulfillment looking forward to His return.

The final gathering of the whole house of Israel takes place when Christ returns and the dead in Christ rise, not at the return from Babylon. The graves are opened and God gathers His people from among the nations where they have gone. The great trumpet is blown and angels are sent to gather the elect from the four winds one by one to worship the Lord in Jerusalem and in the holy mount, coincident with Matthew 24:31 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 when the Lord descends with the trump of God, the dead in Christ rise, the living are caught up together with them, and believers are gathered together unto Him, and this is the only gathering of Israel that remains to fulfill prophecy.

That gathering is the gospel gathering of God's children out of Persia and the regions round about, joined with the prophecy in which Persia is joined with the great power ruling over the north parts. The lining up of earth's powers for the fast-approaching Armageddon during the last forty years while the third angel's message has been gathering force and spreading into all the world shows that the time has come for that gospel work in those lands.

Then Abraham and all his seed in Christ together come into possession of the land for an everlasting possession, which cannot happen while death reigns. God's people shall dwell in the land on this earth forever as their eternal home in the renewed creation, not in a distant heaven in a ghostly state, for the word for land is literal with the same meaning as in the original creation. This is this earth made new with evil destroyed and God's good work preserved, including heirship of the world, the city that has foundations, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem. The united people will no longer defile themselves with idols or detestable things but will obey God's judgments and statutes, keeping the everlasting covenant with the Sabbath commandment not excepted, and will dwell in the land forever with God's sanctuary among them forevermore when Jesus comes and God makes all things new.

The prophetic visions of God's sanctuary, including Ezekiel 37, will be fully realized in the earth made new, where Israel will be planted never to be removed and the saints will remain and serve God in His temple forever.

Warnings Against False Use

The passage in verses 21-28 points to the second majestic and glorious appearing of Christ, not to his first advent as Redeemer of the world. In pride and arrogance, seeking only worldly station and gain, the two comings were confused and the prophecy was turned into a claim that at his coming Christ would exalt Israel and bring all other nations into subjection to it. That expectation denied that Messiah comes to redeem the whole world and not the Jews only. It helped turn the Jews against the Samaritans, who believed the Messiah would redeem the whole world. That misuse caused the Samaritans to discard all the sacred writings except those of Moses.

The titles one shepherd and David my king belong to Christ, and the promise of David their king of the latter days is of the one shepherd to rule over Israel forever and hold the kingdom till Christ comes. For F. W. Sandford of Shiloh, Maine to take those titles to himself, or for any man to claim to be this promised David, makes him a false christ and prophet. To set himself forth as a present earthly king essential to salvation and success, gathering disciples around himself, is contrary to God's Word. Such a claim rests on the ancient falsehood, Ye shall not surely die, Ye shall be as gods. It is delusion that deceives thousands to follow into the wilderness of error to perish.

Those who truly bear God's last warning message in the Spirit and power of Elijah never set themselves forth as Elijah or as the fulfillment. In this they are like John the Baptist, who answered, I am not. The boasting of God's true prophets is not in themselves but in Christ.