S45 || A Divided People Become One Nation Again || Ezekiel 37:15-28 || Session 45

A broken stick can’t be truly fixed by a parent’s sleight of hand—but God can bind what’s split, and Ezekiel 37 shows us how. We walk through the prophet’s acted sign of two sticks labeled Judah and Joseph/Ephraim, joined into one in God’s hand, and trace the sweeping promise that follows: “I will gather, I will cleanse, I will make them one nation.” This is not a story about human resolve; it’s a story about divine initiative, where scattered people are regathered, idolatry is ended, and unity is secured by God’s own action.

From there, we step into the bold details many skip. Ezekiel names the land—“the land I gave to Jacob”—and names the prince—“My servant David”—promising rule, shepherding, and peace “forever.” We unpack why “forever” matters, why “David” likely means David resurrected, and how the covenant of peace and God’s sanctuary in their midst point beyond ancient partial returns toward a future fulfillment. Along the way, we test competing interpretations: intertestamental fulfillment that history does not sustain, and allegorical readings that keep Israel literal in judgment but spiritualize Israel in blessing. Our aim is consistency, clarity, and hope.

This conversation is more than eschatology trivia. It’s about God’s character—faithful to His word, jealous for His name, and determined to be known among the nations. If God can restore a people who broke covenant, He can restore what’s fractured in us. Join us as we read the text plainly, honor its promises to ethnic Israel, and consider what it means for the millennial kingdom, the church’s witness, and the mission of God’s glory in the world. If this stirred your thinking, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review telling us where you land on Ezekiel 37’s “two sticks” promise.

Chapters

• 0:20 A Broken Stick And A Promise
• 1:59 Two Sticks, Two Kingdoms
• 5:05 “I Will”: God’s Action Alone
• 9:49 Cleansed From Idols And Sin
• 16:23 Why God Repeats The Promise
• 19:26 David As King, Forever
• 23:08 The Land Given To Jacob
• 27:08 Competing Views And Plain Reading
• 31:16 For My Name’s Sake Among Nations

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

You know, Steve, when my kids were little, one time they would be playing with a stick. I remember there was times where they would break the stick. This is when they were two or three years old, come to me with a broken stick and ask me to fix it because dad can fix everything, right? I'm given this broken stick and I'm supposed to fix it. Well, what I did was I took the two halves of the stick and put it behind my back and then pulled one half of the stick out and said, see, it's fixed. Of course, the three-year-old didn't know the difference. They thought dad fixed the stick. Well, I really couldn't fix two halves of a broken stick. But today in Ezekiel, we're going to learn that God can fix two halves of a broken stick. We're going to find that out in Ezekiel chapter 37. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn there. We're going to study Ezekiel as he gives the message of God. If you remember, way back after King Solomon, there had been a division amongst the tribes of Israel into two nations. There was the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom that was called Israel. The Assyrians came in at one point in God's judgment and took away most of the kingdom of Israel. It wasn't until Ezekiel's time that Babylon came in and took the nation of Judah and finally destroyed Jerusalem. We're in the section of the book of Ezekiel where God is restoring his nation again. Today we're going to see a very clear message where God uses two sticks to try to communicate the restoration of all of the tribes of Israel. Steve, can you start at Ezekiel 37 and read from verse 15 down to verse 23?

SPEAKER_00: 2:11

The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, And you, Son of Man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, for Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it, for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel, his companions. Then join them for yourself, one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. When the sons of your people speak to you, saying, Will you not declare to us what you mean by these? Say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions, and I will put with it with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand. The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. Say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will be their king for all of them, and they will no longer be two nations, and no longer be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions, but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned and will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I will be their God.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

In this passage, God tells Ezekiel to get two sticks and write on them. Steve, what do the two sticks represent?

SPEAKER_00: 4:05

The two sticks represent the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. That's what he's depicting here to Ezekiel when he says Ephraim and his companions will represent Israel, and Judah and his companions, which happens to be the tribe of Benjamin, will represent these two different nations. He's very clear that he's depicting a reunified nation of Israel again.

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

Exactly. Ezekiel was to take these two sticks, write on them the names of the two kingdoms, the northern and southern tribes that represented those kingdoms, and then bind them together to fasten the two sticks together into one stick. Ezekiel represented throughout the book, he is acting out many things throughout the book, acting as if he were God. Here, Ezekiel is the God figure, takes the two halves of the stick, the two halves of the broken nation, binds them together. Now, still today, there are some people who falsely claim that the Jews of today are only from the southern kingdom, Judah, where the Jews came from, and that the nation will remain divided forever, that the northern kingdom was either lost or irrelevant or non-existent for our purposes. God here very clearly says that he is joining them together. Notice as this passage progressed, who is doing the action? Verse 21, I will take the sons of Israel. I will gather them. Verse 22, I will make them one nation. The middle of verse 23, I will deliver them and cleanse them. Steve, what does God say he's going to do here?

SPEAKER_00: 5:52

He's saying, I will. He's very clear that he's the one that's going to bring this reunification of the nation back together. This is on the heels of the prior verses in chapter 37 here, where God talks about the dry bones that have been brought back to life. We talked about in our last session that they're back in unbelief right now. There's going to be a second part of that whenever God breathes the spirit into the nation. In this part of Ezekiel chapter 37, it's just another depiction to reaffirm what God told Ezekiel to tell the people in the first part of chapter 37. He's just doing it in another form of illustration, but it's still the same reunification of the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Notice in verse 21 how clear God is here. He says, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from amongst the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land. It's very clear, God's saying, I will twice in one verse, I'm going to take them out of the nations from which they were scattered, bring them back into their own land. At the end of verse 22, he says it just as plain as day. What does he say at the end of verse 22 is going to happen once he gathers all of these tribes back to the land?

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

He says that the two nations will no longer be a divided kingdom. I don't know how much more plain God can get than to specifically say there will no longer be two nations, they'll be back to be in one nation again.

SPEAKER_01: 7:38

It's very clear. He says, I will do it, I will bring them back, I will join them together, and the two will no longer be separate. They will be one nation. Now, Steve, the next question: anything in this passage have any indication of Israel's obedience, that they had to prove themselves worthy or any sort of obeying of the law or anything like that that they had to do to justify bringing them back to the land?

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

No, there's none of that that's depicted here. God is saying that I'm going to cause this to happen to bring them back into one nation.

SPEAKER_01: 8:18

I know we keep repeating this, but it's because it's so critical. How many times in this book did God judge them for disobedience? Now, once we get into the restoration section of the book, it's entirely of God. God's saying, I am going to do this. He's not saying I'm going to train you on how to obey, and then you're going to be worthy enough to come back to the land, or you have to meet some hurdle you have to jump over. No, he's saying, I will do it. I'm going to bring you back. I scattered you. I'm going to bring you back. As we saw in chapter 36, I will cause you to obey my statutes, and I will take out your heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh, and I will breathe my spirit into you. This whole section of chapters 36 and 37 of Israel's restoration, it's entirely, thoroughly, completely God's action. He will bring them back together. All Israel did in the entire book and really the entire Old Testament is disbelieve and disobey. Here, the God of life, the God of restoration, He will bring them back together. Look at verse 23. What will stop when God says he's going to move Israel back to the land?

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

He says that they'll no longer defile themselves with the idol worship, their detestable things, or any of their transgressions. He says he was going to deliver them from all the dwelling places in which they were and which they've sinned, and then he's going to cleanse them. I think much like the earlier verses of the bones, we have a two-stage process of Israel coming back with the bones having skin, sinew, and muscle on them, but yet they don't have the life breathed into them. We talked about that being one regathering and unbelief and then a regathering of belief whenever God puts the spirit in them. I think we see a little bit of that here, in that he says they will no longer defile themselves with their idols and detestable things or with any of their transgressions, that he will deliver them. I think that it is a depiction of bringing them back, but yet there's still going to be a little bit of unbelief when they first come back. And then at some point they're going to become a believer in Jesus Christ and they're going to see him at the latter part of 23, he says, and they will be my people, and I will be their God. We'll see that complete fulfillment of them coming back to God in a total belief. Because whenever we get to the New Testament, they're still doing some transgressions and some detestable things. That's part of the conflict that we see Jesus have with the leadership that's there. This is depicting sometime that's in the future and past even that point in time that it's going to be whenever he brings them back.

SPEAKER_01: 11:19

Notice in verse 23 the categorical language. It's completely categorical and completely of God. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, with any of their transgressions, he says. This tells us that the only time this could happen is yet to be fulfilled. At some point, God, like he said in chapter 36, he will take out Israel's heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, and he will ultimately bring his people back to faith in Jesus Christ, the true Messiah of Israel. There will come a day where the entire nation of Israel has complete belief in Jesus Christ, and through that they will be saved. There's only one way of salvation, Old Testament new, it's through the finished work of Jesus Christ in our soul faith in him. It appears from these passages that that's what's going to happen with the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_00: 12:53

But Glenn, I got a question for you. Why do you think that God is telling the nation, the exiles that are here, why do you think that he is telling them in multiple ways what he's going to do in the future of bringing them back? Why can't he just say it one time? And at some point, I'm going to bring you back and make you one nation again. Look at the different ways that he's saying this, starting in the, you know, chapters 35. And after he's done all this condemnation, as you brought out many times in the first 24 chapters, then he moves into this part of Ezekiel where he reaffirms to them in multiple ways that he's going to bring them back and that they're going to be his people. Why do you think that he's doing this in multiple ways of illustrations? Why can't he just say it one time and then move on?

SPEAKER_01: 14:25

Well, he should be able to say it one time and move on, but the human mind and the human disbelief is too thick. I would just throw it back to you this way. Why is it that he said it all these times and wrote it down for us? There's people still running around the countryside that don't believe it. He said it over and over and over and over again, and even wrote it down where we don't have to remember it. They still don't believe that he's going to bring his people back and cause them to believe in Jesus Christ as his chosen people. All the way back to Genesis, it was always categorical and univocal on God's side. God said, I will give you this land and it will be everlasting. He never gave a condition on it. The Mosaic covenant was conditioned on living long in the land, not possessing it and owning it. The land was always God's eternal gift. I think he said it here to them simply because they needed some degree of hope. He had torn down their belief, or at least torn down their attitudes, rather, because of their disbelief, they needed punishment. Now he's giving a word of hope. I'm reminded of, I believe it was Jeremiah, who was a contemporary of Ezekiel, that when the people were being drugged off to Babylon in captivity, he bought land in Israel so that he could, at least they could inherit it when they returned. Yes, God is a God of judgment. He's a God of wrath, he's a God of perfect justice, but he's also a God of restoration and fulfillment and life again. Let's go ahead and read the next passages. Starting in verse 24, we're going to see the next verses that seem to flow naturally with the last passage. They talk about David returning as king. I'm reading in Ezekiel 37, 24 says this: My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd, and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them. They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers lived, and they will live on it, they and their sons, and their sons' sons forever. And David, my servant, will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever. My dwelling place also will be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people, and the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever. Steve, it mentioned David in there at least twice. What's the significance of David mentioned here?

SPEAKER_00: 17:19

David was their most famous king and their beloved king. We see through other prophets that there's a promised restored kingdom of Israel called the Davidic kingdom, that David is going to rule that restored kingdom. We see that here depicted in the prophecies of Ezekiel. It doesn't say the house of David, it doesn't say the son of David. Whenever we see Jesus depicted as part of the restored kingdom that's going to be in the future, he's referred to as the son of David or the house of David or the root of Jesse, not directly as David himself. So to me, I don't know about you, Glenn. To me, this is pretty clear that he's talking about David himself. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 18:36

Well, what we find here is he mentions, as you rightly said, he mentions David twice. If we remember, back in chapter 34 of Ezekiel, he mentioned David twice there. Well, that's four times that he uses David. And as you rightly pointed out, he didn't say house of David, son of David, none of that. In chapter 34, David is called the shepherd and the prince. Here in 37, he calls him king, shepherd, and prince. Some Bible teachers want to shoehorn Christ into here, and that's somewhat understandable simply because Christ is the fulfillment of David. He's the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant that comes out of 2 Samuel 7, where God promised a descendant of David will be king over Israel forever. The interesting part here in Ezekiel is that David had been dead for over 400 years by the time this was made. He says David four times in these chapters. I would agree with you, Steve. Resurrection is taught in the Old Testament as well as the New. Job said, Though my flesh be destroyed, though I will stand on the earth in the latter day. Resurrection is taught in the Old Testament, physical, bodily resurrection. The Old Testament teaches resurrection. When it says David, it means David, or it would have said something else. Look at the end of verse 25. How long does it say David is going to be ruling over Israel?

SPEAKER_00: 20:11

He says they're forever, Glenn. And the way he depicts it is sons, sons and their sons, multiple generations. Wherever we come across this word and this concept that scripture talks about, Glenn, I have to ask the question, how long is forever? Forever is forever.

SPEAKER_01: 20:32

The other thing he he mentions there is that he mentions the specific place that they're going to live. It's not a general place, it's a specific one. In verse 25, what does he say? Which land are they going to live on?

SPEAKER_00: 20:45

He says the land that he gave to Jacob. Of course, Jacob's name was changed to Israel. He had the 12 sons. That's where we get the 12 tribes of Israel and the nation of Israel itself. So it's very clear here that this is the people group that God is speaking to and going to give this land to forever.

SPEAKER_01: 21:07

By using the name Jacob, the land of Jacob, he goes all the way back to Genesis to the name that the man had, Jacob, before Jacob's name was changed to Israel. If you remember, Abraham had a son, Isaac, Isaac had a son, Jacob, Jacob's name was changed to Israel, and he had 12 sons that became the 12 tribes of Israel. Saying Jacob, it's going all the way back to the original, the first boundaries, the borders that he gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Quite clear. It's a physical land. There's nothing in this passage that will lead us to believe it's some sort of spiritual inheritance. There's nothing in the New Testament that would tell us that he cut off the land promise. It's never taken away. Notice here what's going on also. The passages in Ezekiel, the nation would have been entirely thoroughly humiliated by having many of them killed and then taken away, captivity into Babylon, not having a land, they would be naked and alone and afraid. This would have given them some degree of hope. There will come a day when we are restored to the land. And the land promise is still in effect. He's very specific about which land he's talking about, the land I gave to Jacob. In the middle of verse 25, he says, who's going to live there, where they're going to live, and how long they're going to live there. They and their sons and their sons' sons forever. Steve, he mentions it once again, forever. And it's twice in this passage, how long is forever?

SPEAKER_00: 23:05

Forever means forever. There's multiple other things that he talks about in these verses that I think are very clear. At 26, he's going to make a covenant of peace. He says in 27, my dwelling place is going to be among them. 28, the nations will know that I'm the Lord. So we see here that God, through these verses, and we'll break them down into more detail, is giving them a complete picture of what he is going to do during this restoration with the nation of Israel. So it makes sense to me that whenever they get to this state that's being described in these verses, that it's going to be a state forever. In other words, they're not going to be dispersed or scattered anymore. They're going to be able to occupy that land forevermore.

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

Now, and just in summary, I think we probably would help our listeners if we kind of gave a quick overview of what's going on and why we're emphasizing this. There's really three main views of how we could interpret these passages. One is what we just said, and we made it clear what we believe, is that we believe it means what it says, which is ethnic Israel will be brought back to a physical piece of dirt called the land of Israel that God promised to Jacob way back in Genesis. And he's going to restore that. A second view would be that this was somehow fulfilled in the intertestamental period in between the Babylonian captivity and the first century when Christ came, the time of the Maccabees. That could not be the case simply because they were forced off the land by the Greeks and the Romans. As it says here in verse 25, they and their sons and their sons' sons forever. Well, it just wasn't the case. The third way is to allegorize and spiritualize the entire passage and turn the land promise into some sort of spiritual inheritance to where the land doesn't mean land, Jacob doesn't mean Jacob, it just means some sort of application to personal salvation. And the reason why we would reject that is simply because you'd have to be consistent through the entire book. And you can't be consistent with two dozen chapters of judgment and tearing down of Jerusalem and then suddenly switch meanings for what Jacob means in the blessing passages. That's what you have to do if you take that approach. The only way to really be consistent in your interpretation, then you're going to be premillennial and you're going to believe that ethnic Israel, as it says in Ezekiel 37, 25, the land I gave to Jacob where your fathers lived, and they and their sons and their sons' sons are going to live on it forever. That's really what it means. Verse 26 also says that this is an everlasting covenant of peace, a covenant of peace. Again, this covenant could not have been in the intertestamental period simply because they didn't have peace. Yes, God makes peace with the Christian in the church, but there's just too many references in Ezekiel to ethnic Israel for these sections to be talking about the church. We can't just skip over things and miss details. And we can't say that the judgment passages when it talks about Israel, those are really ethnic Israel. But the blessing passages when it talks about Israel, that's a spiritual application of the church. Therefore, if we were to summarize Ezekiel 37, he says God's going to take away all of Israel's sin. David is going to return and rule over Israel forever. It says that. Israel's going to be in the original land that was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Lord will make an everlasting covenant with them for peace. He repeats this land promise in many places in Ezekiel. It's not just here. Chapter 5, if you remember, God had Ezekiel keep back part of the hair. Remember the hair thing? He kept back part as a remnant that he was going to restore it. Then chapter 20, verse 42, quote, I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers, close quote. 2044, quote, I have dealt with you for my namesake, not according to your evil ways. 36, 24, quote, bring you into your own land where God will cause them to keep his statutes because of his name. Therefore, Steve, it just seems pretty clear to me.

SPEAKER_00: 27:40

Yeah, as we've pointed out through all of our studies, is that if you just read the plain meaning of the text, that it's very clear what's going to happen. Now, another thing, Glenn, here in verse 28, he says there, and the nations will know that I am the Lord. I think this is another reason why God is bringing them back together. A theme throughout Ezekiel is that God deals with nations. Earlier in chapter 36, for instance, and it's even in 37, God says, I will, I'm going to bring them back for my name's sake. But here he's depicting that it's also for the nation's sake, so that the nations will know that he is the Lord. We see this connection between the nation of Israel and God, the one and only true God, the creator of the universe, creator of everything, the Almighty God, not one of many gods, but the only God that is creator over everything. So I think this is something that is kind of just glossed over by many people. But no, God is doing this also in order to show to the nations who he is.

SPEAKER_01: 28:56

As you rightly pointed out, Steve, verse 28, quote, the nations will know that I am the Lord. If we were to allegorize this section and try to apply it to salvation in the church age, well, it just doesn't fit. The nations don't know that he is the Lord. It is not the case that Christians being scattered out amongst the nations, that somehow all these non-Christian people suddenly realize, oh, the Lord is God. No, they're still denying Christ to this day. They're still denying that Yahweh is the real God to this day. Again, we just can't change the meaning of Israel and Jacob halfway, two-thirds of the way through the book. We can't have it one way in the first part of the book for chapter after chapter after chapter. And suddenly, when we get to the blessing part, then suddenly Israel doesn't mean Israel. Jacob doesn't mean Jacob. Land doesn't mean land. It's just a poor way to do biblical interpretation. The only way we can take Ezekiel 36 and 37 is to be talking about a future time when God brings ethnic Israel back to the physical land, washes them of their sins, and cause them to believe in Jesus Christ. And that's going to be the future millennial kingdom. Verse 28 speaks of, quote, my sanctuary is in their midst forever. This is a hint that what we're going to see a little bit later in the book, starting in chapter 40, goes into quite a bit of detail about the temple. And we're going to see that as we get into the latter parts of the book.

SPEAKER_00: 30:30

And through the history of Israel, where was God's sanctuary? It was the tabernacle. When they came out of Egypt and then the temple was built itself in Jerusalem later on. We had the reconstructed temple that Zerubbabel built whenever they came back out of their exile from Babylon, but then that temple was destroyed. As we speak here, Glenn, there is no sanctuary. There is no temple in Israel. But here in 28, it says that that sanctuary is going to be in their midst forever. From that and other things that we've talked about, I think we have to deduce that this is still sometime in the future when this latter part here is talking about the sanctuary is going to be in their midst forever.

SPEAKER_01: 31:19

The great thing we can take away from this is that even with all of the wrath and judgment in the first part of the book, the second part of Ezekiel brings restoration and renewal and peace. And we can take comfort in that because we have a God that is both just and the person that is going to bring life and renewal to our lives as well. Isn't God good? Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 31:46

We thank you for watching and listening, and we hope that you'll continue with us as we go into the latter chapters of Ezekiel. As always, may the Lord bless you and keep you.