6 Fulfilling the promise? Exile and the prophets of an eschatological hope
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Fulfilling the promise? Exile and the prophets of an eschatological hope
The Pentateuch makes clear that the land is the place of covenantal blessing but also provides the potential place of judgment. The latter prophets proclaim the word of Yahweh in the context of the covenant, clearly defined by Deuteronomy, and Israel’s disobedience brings to a conclusion the covenantal curses (e.g. Lev. 26; Deut. 28:15–68). Dempster writes, ‘The Latter Prophets provide commentary on the grand narrative from creation to exile, showing the just judgment and gracious mercy of God.’ Israel – like Adam – lived in Yahweh’s place as priest-kings to serve and worship him, yet failed to obey his commands and forfeited their covenantal blessings. Thus the exile marks Yahweh’s judgment upon the great sinfulness of both Israel and Judah, against which he had repeatedly warned through his servants the prophets.
Furthermore, the writing prophets mark an epochal onward movement in Old Testament revelation, offering both sobering commentary on Israel’s present status and promise of their glorious future. The era of David and Solomon provided a conceptual model for the prophets who predicted the messianic kingdom, but this eschatological kingdom is cast in even more glorious terms. VanGemeren notes:
On the one hand, the era of the divided kingdom brings to a climax the history of Israel’s rebelliousness in the final judgment of God: the exile. On the other hand, this period raises a new hope, focused on God’s promises to the prophets. In an era of restoration he will establish his kingdom with a new people, ruled permanently by a Davidic King and richly blessed and restored by the Spirit of God.
The prophets, then, offer hope for the future (re)establishment of God’s kingdom.
But the promise of restoration goes far beyond what was previously experienced and is described in astonishing realities, for it includes not only the nation of Israel but also the nations, and not only the boundaries of the Promised Land but also the entire earth. The universality stressed in the latter prophets revives the consciousness of the worldwide significance of the Abrahamic promises. As a result, Beale views the prophetic expansion of both Israel’s land and God’s people as indicators that the words of the prophets have been refracted through the Abrahamic promises. Moreover, ‘the prophetic vision of restoration merges king and shepherd images in the Davidic covenant with the promise of international blessing in the Abrahamic covenant’. The robust hope of the prophets, then, advances the covenant promises that extend to something far greater and more extensive than the land of Israel, geographically speaking.
This chapter will present the unified witness and variegated purpose of the prophets. This witness and this purpose are seen through a recurring pattern in the prophetic corpus as a whole – specifically, the latter prophets – as well as within each prophetic book. More specifically, the writing prophets proclaim how Israel had broken the covenant, call her to repentance and pronounce judgment on her as a result of her covenant-breaking and failure to repent, the outcome of which is exile. But in God’s word is hope. Rather than a dismal ending, God promises through the prophets restoration to the land that includes both national and international results. This eschatological resolution will be accomplished by the work of the future Messiah, the Davidic king who comes as the Servant of the Lord, whose death will inaugurate a new covenant and usher in the age of the Spirit, extend his kingdom to the ends of the earth and finally bring about a new creation.
Disobedience and the judgment of exile
Although the exile occurs relatively late in Israel’s history, the theological concept is experientially present from the beginning. For example, Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the land is the archetype of all subsequent exile (Gen. 3:17–19, 24), and Abraham (Gen. 23:4; cf. Heb. 11:8–10), Jacob (Gen. 31), Joseph and his family (Gen. 39 to Exod. 1) and the wilderness generation (Num. 14) all knew the pain of living away from their homeland. However, none of these examples compared in magnitude to the devastation and loss that occurred when the northern and southern kingdoms went into exile. For this reason, the prophets shared a common prophetic message, though the message is far from uniform.
Throughout Isaiah, and the prophets as a whole, judgment for Israel’s sin is a prevalent theme. Judgment takes many forms: natural disaster (24:4–5), military defeat (5:26–30) or disease (1:5–6). But all of these are from the hand of God (43:27–28). Isaiah opens by criticizing and rebuking the nation for their rebellion so that they might return to live under his word. Yahweh, the Creator, calls heaven and earth as witnesses of Israel’s covenant-breaking (1:2). There is a scandal to be proclaimed to the entire world, and this scandal is Israel’s flagrant sin against the Holy One. But instead of mirroring to the community and world the character of Yahweh in social justice, Israel is characterized by social injustice. One thing is certain: obedience is necessary in order to enjoy God’s blessing in the land (Isa. 1:19). The problem, however, is that they have forsaken the Lord and have become foolish (1:3–4; 5:1–30). Dempster writes:
The echoes of Deuteronomy are loud and clear. Heaven and earth were called as witnesses to the covenant that was made with Israel (Deut 30:19; 31:28). Moreover, disobedient children were to be disciplined, punished and, if need be, executed if they persisted in rebellion against parental authority (Deut 21:18–21). The pain of Yahweh is profound. He has raised children who do not even acknowledge him anymore, having sunk beneath the level of a beast. The text proceeds to describe their immorality – ‘a sinful nation, loaded down with guilt, corrupt children with corrupt parents’ (Isa 1:4). Their father has tried everything, disciplining them until they have become black and blue, and asking them in frustration, ‘Why will you be punished again? Why do you keep on rebelling?’ (Isa 1:5). Then the national disaster of an Assyrian invasion is described, in which a remnant living in Jerusalem was spared ‘like a hut in a cucumber field’ (Isa 1:8). God in mercy did not exercise the death sentence. If he had not spared a remnant, ‘we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah’ (Isa 1:9).
Clearly, they have become God’s disobedient son. Furthermore, chapters 13–27 demonstrate God’s rule over all the nations – when his ‘day’ comes and he will exert his rule over both heaven and earth – but at the centre of all his operations lies his compassion for his own people. Later texts speak already from the situation of the ruined and forsaken land that is anticipated at the beginning (e.g. 49:17). Therefore, because of their disobedience, sin must be judged. And indeed it will be, for the land will be filled with woe, and the chosen people will be exiled at the hands of a fierce, unsparing foe (5:8–30). Whereas in Isaiah 1:8 the vineyard was associated with the Lord’s preservation of a remnant of Zion, now the vineyard is the place where the Lord asks if there is anything more he could have done. Consequently, Isaiah cries out, ‘How long, O Lord?’ (6:11). John Oswalt comments, ‘The answer to his cry is not comforting. There will be no reprieve for Judah. God’s justice will be carried out to its full extent until the land is empty. So the prophecies of Deuteronomy would come to fulfilment (Deut. 28:21, 63; 29:28).’ The coming desolation appeared certain.
Moving forward, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel are full of condemnation for the virtual apostasy of Israel that has led to their desolation. Rendtorff notes, ‘Especially in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, contemporaries of the fall of the kingdom of Judah, the end of the undisturbed life in the land is one of the dominant themes.’ Jeremiah offers a glimpse into the most volatile time for Jerusalem, Judah and the surrounding nations. He proclaims the word of the Lord to the people concerning their past failures, which result in utter disaster. They have abandoned the bountiful life-giving blessings of their covenant Lord and instead have gone after things that do not satisfy (2:13). Just as Israel had sinned against Yahweh and was punished, so also Jeremiah named Judah’s sin for what it was – covenant treason and failure to know God (11:1–8; 4:22). Citing Deuteronomy, the Lord proclaimed a curse on those who did not ‘hear the words of this covenant’ (Jer. 11:3; cf. Deut. 27:26; 28:15). Therefore Judah was in danger of following in the footsteps of her sister and suffering her same fate.
Ezekiel, from an exilic perspective, is called to proclaim God’s message to the rebellious people of Israel: both the segment that had already been carried away into Babylonian exile and the survivors who still remained in Jerusalem (2:1 – 3:11). In two graphic pictures, Ezekiel 16 and 23 portray Israel as an abandoned girl whom the Lord found in an open field, compassionately cleansed and purified, and brought into covenant with himself (16:4–14). Yet she rejected the covenant care and provision of her Lord and entered into adulterous religious practices (16:15–34; 23:1–21), thus proving that she is no better than the pagan nations. Likewise, Judah is no better than her older sister Samaria and her younger sister Sodom (16:46). In fact, she is worse (16:47–52). She has become an object of reproach to all those around her (16:57). This powerful and tragic picture describes the pollution that precipitates Yahweh’s judgment. As a result, God abandons the temple in Jerusalem (10:1–22), the land is defiled (6:1 – 7:27) and his glorious presence departs (11:22–25).
The latter prophets repeatedly demonstrate that God’s punishment for Israel’s disobedience to the covenant – and, more importantly, her covenant Lord – is exile and loss of land. This does not, however, negate the prophets’ call to repentance. Nevertheless, neither Israel nor Judah as a whole repented, and the prophets acknowledge their obstinacy and proclaim the certain judgment of exile away from the land and away from Yahweh’s presence. Perhaps none saw, expressed and lamented this land loss more than Jeremiah, the poet of the land par excellence. VanGemeren writes:
Jeremiah loved God’s people and wanted to intercede for them (14:7, 20), but his was a mission of death. He had to speak of starvation, death, exile, and alienation. The prophet could not escape experiencing the pangs of exile before it happened . . . Jeremiah’s loneliness was heightened by the prohibition against marriage (16:2–4).
Although he announced the same message of doom as his prophetic predecessors, he identified with his message and with his people in a more personal way than any other prophet. In the prediction and experience of exile, then, the promises of Israel’s and Judah’s past hope and election are called into question by the prophets’ certain message of inevitable judgment.
As a result, the period of the exile was the most traumatic in the nation’s history. There were various reactions among those who went into exile. Some prospered materially, adapted and assimilated themselves to their new environment, and even intermarried and lost their covenant identity. Others repented and were devoted to the Lord, and, even though they were away from the land and the temple, they drew near to the Lord and remembered his promises. God’s judgment, then, did not necessarily imply his total absence. However, the grief of exile was profound and is reflected in certain psalms such as Psalm 137, where every line is alive with pain and the people could only weep for Jerusalem when their captors taunted them to sing the songs of Zion.
If the glorious part of Israel’s history is her reception of the land, the tragedy is that this gift was forfeited. In Israel’s history, then, just as the exodus served as the paradigmatic event of redemption, so the exile represented the paradigmatic event of judgment. But rather than moving the nation’s experience of redemption forward, expulsion from the land appeared to call into question all the gains made up to this point. At this point in the story, it appears that the end of Israel in the land had come. Bartholomew and Goheen write:
For the Israelites being marched off as slaves to Babylon, it certainly must seem like the end. What has come of God’s great promises to Abraham, of his covenant with Israel at Sinai, of his vow that David’s house would go on forever? The house of the Lord himself has been destroyed! Where was the Lord while Babylon triumphed over Israel? Have God’s purposes for his family run into the sand. Worse, have God’s purposes to redeem the creation through Israel failed?
So it seemed that Israel has walked the path of the promise of land, through its fulfilment, and on to its loss.
The eschatological hope of the prophets
Nevertheless, God’s last word is not judgment. Throughout the prophetic message, comfort and hope often emerge even in the midst of discipline. Routledge notes, ‘The theme of the prophetic books is the death and rebirth of Israel: death, in the form of defeat and exile; rebirth in the return from exile, resettlement in the land and the recovery of Israel’s status as a nation.’ In fact, ‘Of the sixteen canonical writing prophets, ten (Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Zechariah, Joel) write about a future restoration of Israel.’ This message transforms judgment into hope. As a result, judgment and salvation are the two great poles between which the prophetic proclamation moves. Amazingly, God not only promises to restore the faithful exiles (Jer. 24:1–10; 29:10–14; Ezek. 36:8–15; Isa. 40), but will also be a ‘scaled-down sanctuary’ for them in the midst of it (Ezek. 11:16). Indeed, the exile was God’s fatherly process of saving a remnant for himself who would inherit the promises. Thus a thread of hope remained.
The ground of this hope is God and his gracious promises that look back to Eden, Abraham and David. According to Richard Schultz, the
prophetic depictions of the future are richly intertextual in nature and warrant close textual comparisons, while offering a further illustration of the integral relationship and striking continuity between the Torah, the Former Prophets, the Latter Prophets, and the New Testament.
As a result, God will crush the enemy through the seed of the woman and bring about the covenant promises of land, seed and international blessing. Moreover, God will bring these blessings through a Davidic son who will accomplish a greater exodus for his people. To be sure, just as God has fulfilled his promise in the past, so he will do in the future also. These themes resound throughout the prophets.
To begin, if Isaiah opens by confronting the sinful nation, within this same context of judgment a glorious future is also predicted. Dempster notes, ‘Juxtaposed to such bleak images of land and people is the temple mount, which grows to be the highest mountain, dominating the landscape of not only Israel but the world (2:1–5). Zion has become Everest.’ From beginning to end, this alternation of motifs throughout Isaiah presents a glorious vision of a return presented in terms of a restored and renewed city. Barry Webb observes:
The vision of the book moves, in fact, from the historical Jerusalem of the eighth century (under judgment) to the new Jerusalem of the eschaton, which is the center of the new cosmos and symbol of the new age. To this new Jerusalem the nations come (66:18–21; cf. 60:1–22) so that ultimately the nations find their salvation in Zion.
But crucial to Isaiah’s vision is the development within the book concerning this transformation.
Isaiah’s prophecy describes Israel’s return from exile in both imminent and distant ways, and in language reminiscent of the exodus. This return will result in an ideal community established under messianic leadership, followed by a transformed new age brought about by a greater exodus. The first return from exile is a physical release and return to the land (42:18 – 43:21) that will be accomplished by Cyrus, who will permit enslaved Israel to return to their homeland (44:24 – 45:1; cf. Ezra 1:1–3). This restoration was a sign of God’s faithfulness to his promise. But this (partial) fulfilment of God’s promised restoration in no way compares to the prophets’ final vision, for the returning remnant was far from the holiness that the Lord promised would come with the age of the Spirit. VanGemeren notes, ‘they did not give freely to the priests but kept for themselves whatever they could; they failed to give the best sacrifices to the Lord (Hag 1; Mal 1). Even the priests were not fully devoted to the Lord, for they did not teach the full implications of the law (Mal 2:1–9).’ The announcements of return, then, suggest developments on a larger scale than represented by the diminutive community in Jerusalem.
A deeper captivity kept Israel from being fully restored. Oswalt comments, ‘as deliverance from physical bondage demanded the servant Cyrus, so deliverance from spiritual bondage calls for the Servant, One who will be what Israel is not, so that she may have the possibility of becoming what she is to be’. To put it another way, though the people are taken out of Babylon, Babylon needs to be taken out of the people. Just as Isaiah’s reference to Babylon ‘goes beyond the historical empire as a symbol of the epitome of collective human glory and pride in opposition to the purposes of God’, so also Isaiah’s reference to Israel’s glorious restoration extends beyond the nation and includes an international community. In other words, the restoration involves the remnant and the nations: all who trust in Yahweh and his promises of salvation. Therefore a subsequent – and greater – return will be when they are fully and finally forgiven for their sins (43:22 – 44:23). This deliverance will be accomplished by God’s Servant-King, who will bring back Israel so that God’s salvation may reach the nations (49:1 – 53:12). That is, forgiveness will come through Yahweh’s (individual) Servant who will deliver his (corporate) servant Israel (42:1–9; 49:1–6), suffer with his people (7:14–17), redeem his people (9:2–7), rule over his people (11:1–5), and atone for sin by suffering, dying and taking upon himself the punishment they deserve (42:1–9; 49:5–6; 50:4–9; 52:13 – 53:12). The status of the Servant is of such a nature that neither corporate Israel nor any mere human representative can perform such a task. Moreover, Oswalt rightly notes that the Lord’s ‘task of restoring Israel to himself is not a large enough task for the Servant. He is of such a nature, calling and preparation that he should be given a larger task: saving the world!’ Indeed, this one is Yahweh’s Servant par excellence.
The Servant’s substitutionary atonement will, in effect, initiate a new covenant (55:1–5) that offers waters of life and enjoyment of the blessings of both the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants for Israel and the nations (54:1 – 55:13; cf. 19:19–25). Such an international programme was the intention of God all along. Moreover, by means of the Servant in Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 whose substitutionary offering for sin and whose resurrection enable him to bring to fulfilment the promises of Yahweh in the Davidic covenant, a Davidic king will bless and rule the nations because Yahweh has made him leader and commander of the peoples (55:4–5). This work, then, is the basis for the new covenant. As a result, not only is the remnant called the Lord’s servants (Isa. 54:17; cf. 65:13–25), but so also are foreigners (Isa. 56:6).
That is, though the new covenant is directed towards Israel, Gentiles will be included. Likewise, Amos anticipates the coming of a Davidic king who will
raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name.
(Amos 9:11–12)
Astonishingly, this restoration and rebuilding will not be limited to the divided kingdom of Israel, but will extend to the Gentiles (cf. Acts 15:15–17). Finally, in fulfilment of the Abrahamic covenant, the Lord will give his name and blessing to his servants in the land. The result of the Servant’s saving work, then, creates servants. And all – Israel as well as foreigners and eunuchs – will go to Jerusalem, God’s holy mountain, in a pilgrimage of worship (Isa. 2:2–4; 27:13; cf. Mic. 4:1–5).
But Isaiah does not stop with the emergence of a Davidic king who ushers in a new age. Instead, Isaiah proceeds to describe the result of this new covenant age and the glories awaiting the Lord’s servants. Isaiah 65:17 – 66:24 is a cumulative summation of the eschatological themes that occur throughout Isaiah and enlarges the hope of restoration to the city of Jerusalem and the land in otherworldly language that describes astounding realities. Motyer comments:
Like all visionaries Isaiah largely furnished the future from the present. But his development of the ‘city’ theme shows that he was consciously thinking beyond the geographical Zion/Jerusalem to the ideal it embodied. Thus, for example, in 11:6–9 the Lord’s ‘holy mountain’ has become the whole redeemed creation; also in 65:17–18 the easy way the prophet moves from the ‘new earth’ to the newly created Jerusalem speaks to the same point. In the Bible the ‘city’ began (Gen 11:4) as humankind’s attempt to achieve its own salvation without reference to God, and when Isaiah looks forward to the End, he sees the fall of the ‘city’ humankind has built (24:1–10), Babel on a worldwide scale. . . . In a word, Isaiah’s vision is of the Mount Zion to which the redeemed have already come (Heb 12:22) and which is also yet to be revealed from heaven (Rev 21:2).
These eschatological themes have appeared throughout Isaiah. In fact, ‘the “container” of this earlier prophecy (11:1–10) is exploded in superabundance’. What is new, however, is the joining of these earlier prophecies into one consummate vision. This vision provides an interpretation of the earlier prophecies as part of the one eschatological goal: the creation of a new heaven and new earth.
When the various strands are drawn together, Isaiah’s vision of final restoration involves new heavens and a new earth (65:17; 66:22), a new Jerusalem (65:18–19; cf. 4:2–6) and a holy mountain, Zion (65:25; cf. 2:1–4; 4:2–6). Moreover, in fulfilment of the promises to and covenant with Abraham, God will give them a new name and they will receive blessing in the land by the God of truth (Isa. 65:15–16). Finally, this new creation city-mountain calls to mind Eden, ‘the holy mountain of God’ (Ezek. 28:13–14), where his people lived in his presence and under his lordship. By the end of Isaiah, then, this temple-mountain-city is coextensive with the new heaven and new earth. They are one and the same. The final vision resounds with astonishing realities cast in terms of God’s kingdom coming to and filling the earth. Thus God will save his people through the work of the Servant-King and make the place where they will live. The order is crucial, for it is reversed from that in the old creation. In the old creation, God first created the place and then created and put his people there to live. In the new creation, however, God first makes his people and then will make the new creation where they will live.
Complementary pictures of a hopeful restoration to the land emerge in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Though Jeremiah announces that Israel has become God’s stubborn and rebellious son (3:19, 22; 5:23; cf. Deut. 21:18, 20) and, as a result, will be uprooted from the land (4:23–26; 24), there is still hope for a renewed people in a renewed place. Yahweh promises to take back his people – but only if they repent – and if they return to him:
then nations shall bless themselves in him,
and in him shall they glory.
(4:2)
The reference to the nations blessing themselves in him indicates that the promises to Abraham will be realized if Israel repents and glorifies Yahweh. Like Isaiah, then, the nations are in view in the restoration of Israel and Judah, and this cosmological and teleological goal is in fulfilment of the Abrahamic promises. Furthermore, Jeremiah proclaims that Israel will return from exile in terms of a new exodus (16:14–15). In fact, this exodus will be so great that the former exodus will no longer be spoken of.
Then, in Jeremiah 30 – 33, Jeremiah unfolds the great promises of salvation and offers hope beyond the exile that will come in the form of a new covenant and return to the land. Of particular importance is 31:38–40, which concerns the rebuilding and expansion of Jerusalem. In addition to the restoration of Davidic leadership (30:8–11), priesthood (31:14) and people (31:31–34), the restoration of the city brings to completion the glorious reversal of Jeremiah’s pronouncements of judgment. Though the city has been destroyed, the future age of redemption will see its restoration – and more. Derek Kidner comments:
In [31:38–40] the promise is ‘earthed’ not merely in this planet but in the familiar details of Israel’s capital, naming rubbish dumps and all. . . . As for these details, the prophecy is again using the known and the near to project an image of the ultimate. The city would indeed be rebuilt, and we read in Nehemiah 3:1 of the tower of Hananel as situated near the starting-point of that operation, as Nehemiah’s account works its way westward from the northeast corner, turning south at presumably the Corner Gate, eventually to come northwards up the east side, via the Horse Gate (Neh. 3:28) to complete the circuit. But the vision outruns that exercise, in scale and in significance. The measuring line shall go out farther (39), not turning at the Corner Gate; and the places that were once unclean shall be sacred to the Lord (40). Added to these things, the promise that the city would never again be overthrown (40c) is a further sign that we must look beyond ‘the present Jerusalem’ to ‘the Jerusalem above’ (Gal. 4:25–26): the great company of saints and angels which is already our home city, as seen in, e.g., Hebrews 12:22–24; Revelation 21:1–22:5.
The new Jerusalem, then, will be both different and expanded from the old, and the rebuilt city will become the centre of God’s presence among his people (3:14–18; cf. Isa. 65:17; 66:12; Rev. 21:3).
Like Isaiah and Ezekiel, Jeremiah describes the restoration of both people and place in the future and pins these hopes on a Davidic leader, a righteous branch, who, interestingly, in Jeremiah is a combination of both king and priest. This King-Priest will secure a new covenant for his people as certain as Yahweh’s covenant with day and night, make the people dwell securely in the land and multiply the offspring of David to be as numerous as the immeasurable sands of the sea in fulfilment of his covenant with Abraham (33:14–26). Moreover, Jeremiah 31:35–40 indicates that the new covenant age will operate within the contours of a new creation, as Isaiah and Ezekiel also make clear. Accordingly, Jeremiah looks forward to an idealized return to an expanded land.
However, subsequent history proved differently. The post-exilic return to the land failed to live up to its promise. Yet it marks the inauguration of God’s eschatological programme. When would Yahweh ‘build and plant’ his people in the land? Jeremiah describes the return in eschatological language of the ‘latter days’, but also describes Israel as having to spend seventy years in exile before Yahweh will rebuild and replant them in the land (29:10; cf. 25:11–12). Dempster rightly notes:
While not giving a precise timeline for the working out of all the individual details of the future complex of eschatological events, the expression ‘seventy years’ is certainly important. The end of exile would be the sign that building and planting would begin.
This return from exile – aimed at Israel and Judah – will also include the nations who ‘shall be built up in the midst of my people’ (Jer. 12:16), and they shall dwell securely in the new Jerusalem whose borders encompass the land.
Finally, Ezekiel contains glorious prophecies of restoration. Alongside hopes of ingathering are prophecies that the renewed people will be purified in heart and spirit, and they will be one flock under a new David (34 – 37). As a result, ‘the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore’ (37:28). Whereas Yahweh had been a sanctuary to the exiles ‘for a while’ (11:16), his presence will be with them for ever. Thus Yahweh’s sanctuary in the midst of his covenant people will finally convince the nations of his sanctifying power.
Furthermore, the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah will return from exile through a new exodus and be joined once again as one people (36:24–38; cf. 37:15–23). God will make a new covenant (36:16–38), which will deal with their sin and finally fulfil his covenant so that he can say, ‘They shall be my people, and I will be their God’ (37:23; cf. v. 27). In order for this restoration to come, however, Yahweh must create a holy people from nothing. And that he will do by bringing life from the dead. Indeed, Ezekiel resurrects (new) creation language to illustrate vividly that new life will come to Israel from their deathlike existence in exile. In other words, their restoration to the land is related to their resurrection from the dead. The dead will be brought to life so that they too may participate in the restoration. But Ezekiel’s vision of restoration does not stop with Israel, for other nations are included in Yahweh’s everlasting covenant (16:59–63). Gentry notes:
Careful readers will draw the conclusion from what has preceded in Ezekiel 16 that the renewed Israel is no longer based on ethnic parameters, but defined by those who are reconciled to the Lord and believing in him: ‘Jerusalem will be given both Samaria and Sodom, but not on the basis of the Israelite Covenant’ (16:61). In the New Covenant, the old divisions in Israel are healed and the Gentiles are included. Only faithful human partners (i.e. believers) constitute the covenant community. And the Davidic Messiah is ruler over all.
Hence Ezekiel, like similar passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah, indicates that the restoration will have international significance.
Ezekiel continues in chapters 40–48 with his programme by envisioning a rebuilt temple with revitalized worship. That is, a new humanity is (re)created (ch. 37) and then placed in a new Eden. The climactic vision in chapters 40–48 describes the fulfilment of the promises of chapters 1–39. In a significant passage, Ezekiel 37:25–28 pulls together various strands of the new place for God’s people and prepares the way for even more glorious promises in chapters 40–48:
They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there for ever, and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst for evermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst for evermore.
Beale notes, ‘That both passages are part of the same promise is apparent from noticing that twice in 37:25–28 and twice in 43:7, 9 occurs the phrase “I will dwell among the sons of Israel for ever” (with minor variations in wording).’ It is significant, then, that Ezekiel ends with a vision of a purified land with boundaries situated around a new temple complex.
Moreover, from another angle Ezekiel 47:1–12 contains an abundance of Edenic imagery and describes a paradisal temple that extends to encompass the entire land. It can be said, then, that the new temple is the new creation and restores the consummate state of paradise. Taylor comments:
The commentator is justified in looking for parallels to and antecedents for this kind of symbolism, and most turn to the creation narrative in Genesis 2. The former paradise which was watered by the four-streamed river (Gen 2:10) is here paralleled by the new creation which also has its rivers and its trees (7). If we add to this the fact that Ezekiel [in 28:1–19] seems to have known of a paradise tradition linked to a ‘holy mountain of God’ (28:14, 16) as well as a ‘garden of God,’ the parallel to our present passage is almost complete.
Significantly, Ezekiel uses the same language as Jeremiah regarding a measuring line extending the boundaries outward (Ezek. 47:3; Jer. 31:39; cf. Zech. 2). Thus the promise concerning the renewed Israel’s living in the land under a new David is fulfilled in the vision of the temple, recreating Edenic conditions, the boundaries of which are coterminous with the land. From a canonical perspective, then, Revelation presents this worldwide temple as the new heaven and new earth – the new Jerusalem – in the light of the fulfilment of Christ, the true temple. According to Walker, for the New Testament writers
this prophecy became a brilliant way of speaking pictorially of what God had now achieved in and through Jesus. Paradoxically, therefore, although Ezekiel’s vision had focused so much upon the Temple, it found its ultimate fulfillment in that city where there was ‘no Temple,’ because ‘its Temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb’ (Rev 21:22).
Indeed, the temple had necessarily been transformed and expanded from Ezekiel to Revelation in the light of the true temple – Jesus Christ – who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Ezekiel, then, in line with the prophets’ manifold message of restoration, describes astounding hope for the future that includes transformed land and human nature – a new Eden
that has been enlarged to include the entire land of Israel with one immense river of life and many trees of life. The transformation of the Dead Sea into a body of water teeming with vitality shows the radical impact of God’s presence in the land (Ezek 48:35).
Conclusion
The prophetic texts interpret Israel’s exile in the light of prior promises of judgment and blessing. Instead of ending on a note of judgment, however, the prophets end on a note of hope in language ‘which becomes increasingly extravagant’. God will make a new covenant and renew the people and the land – and indeed all nature. Jerusalem will become the centre of the world, the highest mountain, where all the nations will go to receive blessing. Through the substitutionary work of a Davidic Servant-Shepherd-King, God will make a new creation that is reminiscent of the idyllic conditions of Eden, where his people will dwell securely. The land, writes Wellum, ‘will be God’s temple sanctuary and its borders, like the rule of the king, will extend to the entire creation (Ps 72:8–11, 17–19)’. It appears from the prophets, then, that the long-awaited kingdom lies just over the horizon.