A Coming Day of Restoration

Ezekiel 34:26 (ESV) … “And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.”

Ezekiel, as prophets often did, having spoken of the coming of an idealized David, the Messiah, now looks even further into the future and sees an idealized existence for God’s people, one characterized by peace. It is an age when wild animals are banished, and the people are enabled to live in safety and productivity. It is spoken of in terms of a ‘covenant of peace’ (34:25; 37:26; cf. Num. 25:12; Isa. 54:10). What is in view here is the eternal kingdom of peace which will characterize the new heavens and the new earth. This is what we have to look forward to!

The effects of God’s promised dealings are staggering: not only the presence of the Shepherd himself (34:24), but security (‘they may live … in safety’, 34:25), ‘showers of blessing’ (34:26), fruitfulness (34:27), deliverance (34:28), peace and prosperity (34:29) and the reassurance of the presence and fellowship of God (34:30–31).

These are features which emerge in the New Testament era but only find their complete fulfilment in heaven itself. As members by faith of the Israel of God (cf. Gal. 6:16), we may look forward to our restoration to the land that God has promised: the new heavens, the new earth and the new Jerusalem are to be our eternal habitation. And, unlike the present condition of Jerusalem as Ezekiel spoke these words, the future of the city includes a promise of blessing.

The desert will bloom, and every man will reside in peace under his own vine and his own fig tree (Isa. 35:1; Zech. 3:10). This is a theme that Ezekiel takes up again in the vision of the valley of dry bones in chapter 37: the blessings of restoration that God is even now planning for his people who love him.[1]

[1] Thomas, D. (1993). God Strengthens: Ezekiel Simply Explained (pp. 223–224). Darlington, England: Evangelical Press.