“O, Ye Dry Bones, Hear the Word of the Lord!”
90 LONG YEARS OF RESTORATION!
The Ezekiel 37 Prophecy and the 1917 Balfour Declaration
November 2, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “The Jewish Graveyard at Newport,” he concluded it with these lines:
“But ah! What once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again.”
Longfellow penned these words in 1852, at a time when it seemed impossible that the dead nation of Israel could ever rise again. Little did Longfellow realize that among the lifeless Jews scattered around the world there was to be thrown the eternal spark of life. It was the spark of rebirth kindled by the message of Theodor Herzl in 1896 – the message of “The Jewish State.” For more than 1800 years the chosen people of God, the dead nation of Israel, wandered as forsaken corpses in the great wilderness of the Gentile nations. But the same God, who allowed this punishment of a rejecting nation to occur, has now caused a dead nation to be resurrected from its Gentile graveyard. Longfellow was wrong; God has lifted up a scattered corpse into a living nation – the risen nation of Israel. When the Great Tribulation Period begins on this planet, both unbelieving Jew and Gentile will personally feel the wrath of Almighty God.
The past activity of nations does influence their future conduct.
In this Balfour blog we shall take a look at one of Ezekiel’s prophecies from about 592 B.C., most of which was fulfilled in the last century, but it still has future applications.
In Ezekiel 37:1 we are told: “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” And, in Ezekiel 37:11, we are advised: “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” These two verses describe Ezekiel being carried to the approximate center of a valley filled with disarranged bones of countless men and women. The valley represents the world, and the bones represent “the whole house of Israel.”
In Ezekiel 37:2 he writes: “And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley, and, lo, they were very dry.” In this verse Ezekiel is led to make an inspection tour of the bones. He discovers two things as he passes through the valley representing the whole world: (1) the bones are “very many” (whole house of Israel); and (2) they are not just dry, they are “very dry.” This verse, coupled with verse 11, represents a prophecy that the day would come when the nation of Israel would not just be dead, but would be very dead, without hope, cut off from all its parts. Ezekiel made this prophecy in about 592 B.C. It was fulfilled more than 600 years after it was written, during the period A.D. 70 to 135. In A.D. 70 the Roman General Titus led an Army of Romans, Syrians, and Arab Mercenaries against Israel, and the destruction was almost complete. What was left of Israel as a nation was finished totally by the Roman Hadrian and his armies in about A.D. 135. From than time until May 14, 1948, there was no recognized nation of Israel in the great open valley of the world.
For more than eighteen hundred years, the dead nation of Israel existed only as very dry bones scattered across the great Gentile valley known as the world.
In Ezekiel 37:3 the Lord poses a very interesting question to Ezekiel, as he asks: “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.” I appreciate Ezekiel’s honesty. It is apparent he does not have the foggiest notion, so he shifts the answer back to the Lord as he states, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” “As I am repeatedly faced with questions of life I cannot answer, I simply say, O Lord, thou knowest.
In Ezekiel 37:4,5 God answers his own question: “[4] Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
[5] Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:” The answer is Yes! God is going to transform these disarranged, very dry, dead bones in an open valley into a living nation of Israel recognized by most of the world’s nations. He speaks His Word to the bones, and as He speaks they hear and obey. Verse 5 gives a preview as to what the end result will be – a living, breathing nation of Israelites gathered home to the land he gave their father Abraham – the promised land of Israel. But this transformation from dead bones (a dead nation) to a living nation of flesh, blood, and breath was not to be done instantly, but rather in a series of stages as one would perform in building a human body over a skeleton frame.
You will find a line by line exposition of Chapter 37 of Ezekiel in our Archive Prophecy Update Numbers 21 to 26, which covers the building of the body over the frame and its future into the millennial reign of the Messiah of Israel. My second book, “Tribulation Triad,” also contains this exposition, and is shown under “books” on our web site.
The Balfour Declaration is being celebrated in Israel today to mark its 90th Anniversary.
It was the Declaration that set the process in motion where the bones eventually began to come together. The Arutz Sheva article by Hillel Fendel, which follows, discusses the Declaration and the events of the celebration.
Begin Arutz Sheva Article
90 Years Since First Int’l Recognition of Zionism
21 Cheshvan 5768, 02 November 07 09:36
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Friday, Nov. 2, marks the 90th anniversary of the issuance of Great Britain’s policy paper known as the Balfour Declaration, which set the stage for the establishment of the State of Israel. It was the first expression of international recognition of the Jewish People’s national aspirations.
Fatah terrorists in Gaza said Thursday they mark the occasion by firing hundreds of rockets at Sderot and other Jewish towns in the western Negev. The terrorists said the attacks would be a response to “the evil Balfour declaration,” as well
as to IDF anti-terror operations in Gaza.
The Balfour Declaration was actually a letter British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild, a British Jewish leader, asking him to trasmit a British government resolution to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. The resolution, as approved by the British Cabinet on Oct. 31, 1917, stated:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
The statement was the result of efforts by Zionist leaders, and particularly of London-based Chaim Weizmann, who later became Israel’s first president, and Nahum Sokolow. The Balfour Declaration was later incorporated into the Sevres peace treaty with Turkey, from whom Great Britain had conquered Palestine just months before, and the British Mandate for Palestine.
Youthful Ignorance
In light of a recent poll showing that nearly half of Israel’s youth do not know the contents of the Balfour Declaration, Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog plans to propose, at the next Cabinet meeting, that the occasion be marked with an official ceremony in the Knesset. He will also propose that special classes on the topic be offered to Israel’s students.
The World Zionist Federation held a ceremony to mark the occasion on Wednesday in Jerusalem.
The event also marked the 55th anniversary of the death of Weizmann.
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