Ezekiel 36:31-38

31 And ye have remembered your ways that [are] evil, And your doings that [are] not good, And have been loathsome in your own faces, For your iniquities, and for your abominations.

32 Not for your sake am I working, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, Be it known to you, Be ashamed and confounded, because of your ways, O house of Israel.

33 Thus said the Lord Jehovah: In the day of My cleansing you from all your iniquities, I have caused the cities to be inhabited, And the wastes have been built,

34 And the desolate land is tilled, Instead of which it was a desolation before the eyes of every passer by,

35 And they have said: This land, that was desolated, Hath been as the garden of Eden, And the cities -- the wasted, And the desolated, and the broken down, Fenced places have remained.

36 And known have the nations who are left round about you, That I Jehovah have built the thrown down, I have planted the desolated: I Jehovah have spoken, and I have done [it].

37 Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Yet this I am required, By the house of Israel to do to them, I multiply them as a flock of men,

38 As a flock of holy ones, as a flock of Jerusalem, In her appointed seasons, So are the waste cities full of flocks of men, And they have known that I [am] Jehovah!'

Ezekiel 36:31-38 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 36

This chapter is a prophecy concerning the desolations of the land of Israel, and the causes of them; of the return of the people to it, and the fruitfulness of it; and of spiritual blessings bestowed upon them in the latter day. And first, for the comfort of the people of Israel, it is observed that their enemies that insulted them will suffer the vengeance of God's wrath, particularly the Edomites, Eze 36:1-7, that the land of Israel should again become fruitful, its cities rebuilt, men and beasts be multiplied upon it, and be no more liable to destruction, nor bear any more the reproach of the Heathen, Eze 36:8-15, the causes of its desolation and destruction, the sins of its inhabitants, especially bloodshed, idolatry, and profanation of the name of God, Eze 36:16-20, nevertheless the Lord promises to have mercy on them, and return them to their own land, not for their sakes, but for his own name's sake, Eze 36:21-24, then follow promises of spiritual blessings to them: as purification from all sin by the blood of Christ; regeneration by his Spirit and grace; and evangelical obedience as the fruit of that, Eze 36:25-27, and others of a mixed kind, respecting partly temporal and partly spiritual blessings, Eze 36:28-36, for all which it is expected of the Lord that he should be prayed unto for them; particularly their inhabitation in their own land, and the multiplication of them in it, with which the chapter concludes, Eze 36:37,38.