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Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
Prophecy Literally Fulfilled
Ezekiel 36:1-15
Ezekiel series, Part 64
Introduction
Is prophecy meant to be taken literally, or is it all symbolic? And if it’s both, then how can you know the difference? That’s the question we’re going to answer today.
Because we Christians find a lot to argue about on the subject of prophecy. How can we know if the Israel of today is the fulfillment of prophecies in Old Testament Scripture? How can we know if the Millennium is something future or something happening now? How can we know if it is 1000 actual years?
It’s the “how-can-we-know” questions that I want to settle for you today. And the best way to understand how future prophecy should be interpreted is to examine how past prophecy was fulfilled. And you’ll learn about that today on the Cross References podcast.
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Welcome to the book of Ezekiel: a Cross References Bible study where we learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
My name is Luke Taylor, and I’m the Founder of the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture.
You probably have not heard of the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture, unless you’ve been listening to this podcast for a long time. But the last time it came up on this show was many many episodes ago, so here’s a refresher.
It has to do with interpreting the Bible literally. And when you read prophecies in the Bible, there’s a huge debate within Christianity about when prophecies should be interpreted literally and when they should be interpreted symbolically.
Especially when it comes to things in the book of Revelation.
And so one great rule of thumb to remember is that when the literal sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
If the literal sense doesn’t make sense, it’s probably symbolic.
Now, that’s not the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture, but my rule is related to that. Sometimes the literal sense makes sense, but it seems highly improbable or unlikely. So here’s how I deal with that. My rule is: if the Bible says something that seems improbable but is clear, ask yourself what would it take for it to be convincing. This helps us stay grounded in the text.
My preference is to take the Bible literally as much as possible. So my rule is, if you can’t accept something the Bible said as literal, then what would the Bible have needed to say to convince you?
For example, hell is a controversial topic. Some Christians will try to deny that the Bible teaches an eternal conscious torment in hell. Now, I’ll point out the verses that prove that it’s eteral and that the people there are conscious and in torment. But yet they’ll tell me that scripture is too vague and mysterious, or that it must be symbolic language. So when they say that, I put it to the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture. I say, “if the Bible actually was not literal enough for you, what would it have needed to say to convince you.”
They can’t answer that question on hell because the Bible is already as clear as it can be that hell is real. They just don’t want to accept the Bible’s clarity.
Now, if you’re still confused about what I mean by the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture, let’s look at some today, and we’ll apply the Taylor Test to it, and we’ll also look at it from a historical lens to see whether the Taylor Test works.
V1-7, Thus Says the Lord
So we embark into a new chapter today: Ezekiel 36. This chapter mirrors the last chapter. Last time, it was a prophecy against Mount Seir, which was Edom, and it was a prophecy about how Edom would be demolished because of how they spoke against Israel when Israel was driven out of its land by Babylon.
In Ezekiel 35:10, Edom had said
we will take possession
They thought that since Israel had been run off, they could have Israel’s land for themselves. But it wasn’t really Israel’s land. It was God’s land, and Israel was currently evicted, but this chapter will show that God was still saving it for them. So with that background, let’s read
Ezekiel 36:1-7
“And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord God: Because the enemy said of you, ‘Aha!’ and, ‘The ancient heights have become our possession,’ 3 therefore prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Precisely because they made you desolate and crushed you from all sides, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and you became the talk and evil gossip of the people, 4 therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and the hills, the ravines and the valleys, the desolate wastes and the deserted cities, which have become a prey and derision to the rest of the nations all around, 5 therefore thus says the Lord God: Surely I have spoken in my hot jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave my land to themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and utter contempt, that they might make its pasturelands a prey. 6 Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I have spoken in my jealous wrath, because you have suffered the reproach of the nations. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: I swear that the nations that are all around you shall themselves suffer reproach.
Kind of like chapter 35, this section is about God promising to hold these nations accountable who mocked Israel and wanted its land. To repeat something from last time, this doesn’t sound like it belongs in this section of the book. This is the happy, positive section of Ezekiel; the judgment on the nations part was before, right? But this is happy for Israel, because their enemies are going to be held accountable. God is taking revenge on their behalf.
I’ve often mentioned a word-of-the-day in these short sections of Ezekiel; the word-of-the-day today is a phrase: “Thus says the Lord.” Now, that’s a common phrase in the Bible, and especially in Ezekiel, but it’s super-clustered right here. It appears 6 times in those first 7 verses we just read. Every sentence, it’s like God is reminding you that He is the one putting His name on the promise.
And these promises are saying that when someone speaks against you, God hears it and God will deal with them for it. That was true for the ancient Jewish people in covenant with God; how much more for you who has joined into a covenant through the blood of Jesus!
V8, Timing of the Return
Ezekiel 36:8
8 “But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they will soon come home.
If you wanna write in your Bible, underline that phrase “soon come home” and write in “70 years” after it. This precise fulfillment of prophecy underscores the reliability of God’s Word. When He says ‘70 years,’ He means exactly that. The first kidnapping by Babylon was in 605 BC. Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC. They were allowed to come back home exactly 70 years later. When they were conquered, they were attacked by the Babylonians. But the Babylonians themselves were conquered by the Persians (I believe in 539 BC).
And it was the Persians who allowed the Jews to return home. You can read about this in Ezra and Nehemiah, as they told this story. Nehemiah 2 is your best cross reference for that.
God had told them before it even took place that it would be for 70 years, and the reason was that the Israelites were supposed to let the land rest for one year every 7 years, and they never did this. Once they had committed this sin 70 times, God said, “You owe the land 70 years of rest,” and so God had them conquered and taken out of the land for that time.
II Chronicles 36:20-21
20 He (that is, Nebuchadnezzar) took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
As it said there, this was Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Jeremiah 25:11
This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
So Jeremiah had prophesied how long it would be, and Jeremiah’s prophecy was precise. 70 years. Now, Ezekiel would probably not live to the time of the return of the Jews. He likely died as a captive here in Babylon. Daniel actually did live until the time of the return, because he was just a teenager when he went into the 70-year captivity, and Daniel was an old old man when he got to come back home. Daniel 9 records his prayer about this.
Verses 1 and 2
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
So Daniel had studied the prophecies of Jeremiah and put it together that, wow, I trust Bible prophecy and believe that it’s coming to pass soon. Jeremiah said 70 years; I believe it’s gonna be 70 literal years. And that’s exactly what it was.
So, my point today is that prophecy is fulfilled literally. Now, does prophecy also use dreams and visions and symbols at times that aren’t literal? Yes. No doubt. I’m not discounting that. But I’m also discounting that it’s all symbolic. Because many disparage the idea that prophecy is ever literal, they try to hand wave it away as all meaning something else. It’s not all symbolic. Some is, and some is literal.
How do we tell the difference? Remember what I said before: when the literal sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
So Jeremiah says you’ll be in captivity 70 years. Does that make sense if you take it literally? Sure. It makes perfect sense. So I don’t have to sit here and say, “Well 7 is the number of perfection or completion, and 10 is the number of this, and 7 times ten means this, and so the 70 years means blah blah blah.” I don’t have to do that; I can just say 70 years means 70 years. That’s all good with me. I have no problem there. The literal sense makes sense.
“Can you explain this 70-year gap in your resume?” Why yes I can.
The Bible even told me why it was going to be 70. I don’t have to guess at why it says 70 or make it mean something else or go into numerology. It was 70 because they owed the land 70 years of rest for their disobedient stewardship of it. Bingo. Got it. All good. I understand.
But let’s say that wasn’t good enough for some people. Let’s say they wanted to say that the 70 years means something else. I mean, Chronicles said it was 70 years. Jeremiah said it was 70 years. Daniel said he took it as 70 years. But if you were living back then, I’m sure some ancient Jews didn’t accept the idea of 70 years as literal. They were probably scratching their heads saying, “I wonder what that means.”
So here’s the Taylor Test for Interpreting Scripture: I’d ask them, “What WOULD the Bible have needed to say to convince you that 70 years means 70 literal years?” They would have no answer for me. The Bible was as plain as can be. You can either believe it or not. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Remember how much Jesus kept telling the disciples He was going to die and rise again. Kept telling them as plainly as He could. I think He said it at least 3 times before it actually happened.
Mark 8:31-34
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Notice verse 32, that Jesus “said this plainly.” He said “I’m going to be killed and then rise again three days later.” He said it plain as can be. But as we all know, a while later when Jesus was killed, none of the disciples were expecting Him to rise three days later. They probably hadn’t even remembered Him saying something like that. Why? Because they didn’t take him seriously. They thought He was being non-literal. When Jesus was being as literal as can be.
When the literal sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
V9-15, restoration of the land
So now let’s read the last set of verses for today.
Ezekiel 36:9-11
9 For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. 10 And I will multiply people on you, the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities shall be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt. 11 And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. And I will cause you to be inhabited as in your former times, and will do more good to you than ever before. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
Throughout this book, God has said again and again and again: “I am against you.” I have no idea how many times we’ve read those words. But here, God says the opposite: I am for you. God wants to restore.
God’s punishment is not just to blow off steam. If you are still breathing air, then God wants to restore you. He wants your repentance and to do good with you again.
The Land of Israel is going to get that rest for the 70 years that Israel didn’t let it rest before. But once they’re allowed to return, God’s going to make that land grow. It’s going to be like an oasis in the desert, quite literally. You can even see it today that Israel is a bright spot in a very bleak wilderness of the Middle East. When the land is taken care of, things grow there. When the 12 spies went in and spied it out, they came back talking about how fruitful it was. God said those days will come back.
I don’t believe God is even talking about today right here; I believe He’s talking about back then. There are many who want to apply Ezekiel 36 to Israel in 1948; chapter 37 is going to be about 1948. Chapter 36 is about what God did by bringing Israel back from the Babylonian captivity. It was just a foretaste of what God would do thousands of years later. But we’ll get to later later. Let’s finish up today’s verses with
Ezekiel 36:12-15
12 I will let people walk on you, even my people Israel. And they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no longer bereave them of children. 13 Thus says the Lord God: Because they say to you, ‘You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children,’ 14 therefore you shall no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children, declares the Lord God. 15 And I will not let you hear anymore the reproach of the nations, and you shall no longer bear the disgrace of the peoples and no longer cause your nation to stumble, declares the Lord God.”
These verses in particular are a stumbling block for Bible translators. They aren’t quite sure where to insert quotation marks and exactly how to best render what God is saying. There’s a really odd phrase in here where it gives this accusation against Israel: “You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children.” What exactly does that mean?
It seems that this is an accusation levied at the land itself, not the people of the land, but the literal land of Israel. And it seems to be a response to something Ezekiel prophesied way back in the negative section of the book, in
Ezekiel 5:17
I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.
So this seems to be a direct response to that; that God had cursed the land, but now God is reversing the curse. God can reverse a curse, even His own curse. And He’s doing that throughout this chapter.
God is also reversing an earlier message through Hosea. In
Hosea 1:9, Hosea’s wife had a child
And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
The name “Not-My-People” was Lo-Ammi. But in this chapter, He reverses it, and says “You are my people.” God reverses the curse.
And one last time: this is all literally. In Charles Lee Feinberg’s commentary, he says this about Ezekiel 36:
This chapter constitutes the acid test for those who would explain prophecy any other way than literally. It must be admitted, even grudgingly, that the chapter is speaking of a literal Israel, a literal land and a literal regeneration experience. Those who suggest the passage may be expounded in a typical or figurative fashion do not make a convincing case; first, they give no valid reason for departing from the literal, commonsense interpretation, and second, in their comments they are forced to treat the promises as literal ones.
Housekeeping/Mailbag
Next time on this podcast, we’ll continue further in Ezekiel 36 with verse 16 through 23. This will be a deep-dive into what it means when God refers to His name. What is the significance of God referring to His own name so often? Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it and find out!
If you like weird stuff, or the Bible, I have another podcast you might like: WSITB. New episodes every Wednesday. This week, I’ll be explaining a strange story from I Kings with an old prophet, a young prophet and a lion. It’s a story that used to really confuse me as to what the lesson was, but I think I’ve got it figured out now.
Email: crossreferencespodcast@gmail.com
Closing Thoughts
In recap, let me just reiterate some interpretive principles we studied today. When the literal sense makes sense, seek no other sense, lest we turn Scripture into nonsense.
And when you’re reading it and understanding it literally, yet it still doesn’t quite make sense, apply the Taylor Test. If it doesn’t make sense to you when taken literally, what would it have needed to say for you to accept it as literal.
If there’s nothing it could have said, perhaps you just need to take it as literal.
So the Messiah literally came to earth, was born of a literal virgin, died on a literal cross, rose again three literal days later, all as prophesied. Prophecy fulfilled literally.
So I believe the Messiah is literally going to come again. Some Christians take it as a symbolic return; some say the Kingdom of God has already come to this earth, that we’re in the Millennium right now and that it’s a non-literal Millennium, and that Christ’s reign is simply in our hearts but that He won’t literally reign from Jerusalem over the whole planet.
I believe God will literally regather the Jews to a literal Israel, the Antichrist will literally try to exterminate them, and Jesus will literally return to a literal Jerusalem someday. That all of this will take place just as prophecy was fulfilled literally before. It will be again.
And this, by the way, is why I believe the Millennium will be 1000 years. Because Revelation 20 says it will be, six times. Six times it says it will be a thousand years. How many times do you need the Bible to say something before you’ll believe it? 7 times? 8 times? Is 6 times enough? 6 times is enough for me.
Jeremiah said the Babylonian captivity would be 70 years. It was 70 years. Revelation says the Kingdom of Jesus will be 1000 years. I believe it’ll be a thousand years.
Because that makes sense.
Thanks for listening to this Cross References Bible Study on the Book of Ezekiel. This has been Luke Taylor, and I hope the Bible makes more sense to you after this episode.