Ezekiel 36

Today’s Passage: Ezekiel 36

After long chapters of judgment against Israel and the nations around her, the LORD turns at last to speak comfort, and the words rise like sunrise over a ruined land. First He addresses the very mountains of Israel, the hills that had been trampled and mocked and left desolate, and He promises that they will be tilled and sown and filled with people again. Then, in the great heart of the chapter, He tells why He will do it, and how. He will act for the sake of His holy name, which His people had dragged through the mud among the nations. He will gather them home, sprinkle clean water on them to make them clean, and then do the deepest thing of all: He will give them a new heart, put a new spirit within them, take out the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, and put His own Spirit inside them so that they finally walk in His ways. This is one of the highest peaks of hope in all the Old Testament, and every believer in Christ stands on it.

As you read, hold this: God cleanses His people and gives them a new heart, not for their sake but for the sake of His holy name.

Ezekiel 36:1–5 (BSB)

¹ “And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say: O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD. ² This is what the Lord GOD says: Because the enemy has said of you, ‘Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession,’ ³ therefore prophesy and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Because they have made you desolate and have trampled you on every side, so that you became a possession of the rest of the nations and were taken up in slander by the lips of their talkers, ⁴ therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD. This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and abandoned cities, which have become a spoil and a mockery to the rest of the nations around you. ⁵ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Surely in My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who took My land as their own possession with wholehearted joy and utter contempt, so that its pastureland became plunder.

Notice first to whom the LORD speaks. He does not begin with the people at all but with the mountains, the ravines, the ruined cities, as though the very ground had been wronged and needed to hear a word of hope. There is a tenderness in that which we should not rush past, for it tells us that God cares about the whole of what He made and is grieved when it lies waste. The enemy had crowed over the desolation, saying “Aha, the ancient heights are ours now,” and had swallowed up the land with wholehearted joy and utter contempt. But every mocking word had been heard in heaven. When the LORD says He has spoken in His burning zeal, He means that His love for His people and His land is not cool and distant. It burns. He will not leave His inheritance in the hands of those who gloated over its fall.

Ezekiel 36:6–7 (BSB)

⁶ Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and tell the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I have spoken in My burning zeal because you have endured the reproach of the nations. ⁷ Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I have sworn with an uplifted hand that surely the nations around you will endure reproach of their own.

Here the LORD lifts His hand and swears an oath, which is the most solemn thing He can do. The nations who heaped reproach upon His people will one day bear reproach themselves. There is a great steadiness in this for anyone who has felt small and mocked. The God who governs the world keeps accounts, and the scorn poured out on His people does not vanish into the air. What Israel has endured, her proud neighbors will taste in turn. This is not petty revenge but the even hand of a righteous Judge, and it prepares the way for the mercy that is coming, for the same God who will not let the mockers go unanswered is about to pour out kindness on the mocked.

Ezekiel 36:8–12 (BSB)

⁸ But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and bear fruit for My people Israel, for they will soon come home. ⁹ For behold, I am on your side; I will turn toward you, and you will be tilled and sown. ¹⁰ I will multiply the people upon you—the house of Israel in its entirety. The cities will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. ¹¹ I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful. I will make you as inhabited as you once were, and I will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD. ¹² Yes, I will cause My people Israel to walk upon you; they will possess you, and you will be their inheritance, and you will no longer deprive them of their children.

Now the promises come tumbling out one after another, and every one of them is stitched together with the little words “I will.” I will turn toward you, I will multiply, I will fill you, I will make you prosper more than before. Read them slowly and let them wash over you, for this is the language of a God who takes personal responsibility for the healing of His people. The bare hills that had grown nothing but thorns will put out branches again and bear fruit, because the LORD Himself has turned His face toward them. And notice the beautiful phrase, “I am on your side.” When God is for a people, the wilderness itself begins to bloom, and the ruined places become the very inheritance in which His children walk. Here the great refrain of Ezekiel sounds once more, “then you will know that I am the LORD,” but now it comes not through disaster but through blessing, for God is known not only by His justice but by His extravagant mercy.

Ezekiel 36:13–15 (BSB)

¹³ For this is what the Lord GOD says: Because people say to you, ‘You devour men and deprive your nation of its children,’ ¹⁴ therefore you will no longer devour men or deprive your nation of its children, declares the Lord GOD. ¹⁵ I will no longer allow the taunts of the nations to be heard against you, and you will no longer endure the reproach of the peoples or cause your nation to stumble, declares the Lord GOD.”

The land had gained a grim reputation, spoken of as a place that swallowed its own people, a land of famine and death and loss. But the LORD promises to wipe that reputation clean away. No longer will the taunts of the nations be heard against it; no longer will it be a byword for ruin. There is a deep comfort in this for any soul that has carried a name it was ashamed of, a history it could not undo, for the God who speaks here is a God who changes not only our circumstances but the very story that is told about us. He takes what was mocked and makes it honored, takes what was barren and makes it fruitful, and lets no accusation stand against those He has chosen to restore.

Ezekiel 36:16–21 (BSB)

¹⁶ Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ¹⁷ “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds. Their behavior before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman’s impurity. ¹⁸ So I poured out My wrath upon them because of the blood they had shed on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols. ¹⁹ I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered throughout the lands. I judged them according to their ways and deeds. ²⁰ And wherever they went among the nations, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, yet they had to leave His land.’ ²¹ But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they had gone.

Here the LORD is honest about why the exile came, and we must be honest too. It was not an accident of history or a stroke of bad fortune. His people had defiled the land with idols and with violence, and He judged them according to their ways. But then comes the heart of the matter, the thing that turns the whole chapter. When Israel was scattered, the nations did not glorify God; they mocked Him, saying, “These are the LORD’s people, yet they could not stay in His land.” The exile had brought reproach on the holy name of God, as though He had failed. And that, the passage says, is what stirred the LORD to act. He had concern for His holy (קָדוֹשׁ) qadosh, pronounced kah-DOSH. Strong's H6918, holy, set apart. At the root of this word is the idea of being set apart, distinct, in a category all His own. To say that God’s name is qadosh is to say that He is not one god among many, not a tribal deity who rises and falls with the fortunes of His people, but the LORD, utterly other, utterly pure, high above all the earth. When His people sinned and were carried off, the nations dragged that holy name down into the dust, treating the Almighty as though He were weak. And so when God says He acts for the sake of His holy name, He is saying He will make the world see Him for who He truly is. The whole chapter, and indeed the whole gospel, rests here: that God is jealous for His own holiness and will vindicate it by saving sinners in a way that leaves all the glory with Him. name. This is a truth that both humbles us and gives us hope, for it means that the ground of our salvation lies not in ourselves but in God’s own honor, and that ground can never crumble.

Ezekiel 36:22–24 (BSB)

²² Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: It is not for your sake that I will act, O house of Israel, but for My holy name, which you profaned among the nations to which you went. ²³ I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations—the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when I show My holiness in you before their eyes. ²⁴ For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

Read verse twenty-two again and let it land with full weight: “It is not for your sake that I will act, O house of Israel.” What a strange and wonderful foundation for salvation. God does not save His people because they have finally become worthy of it, nor because He has weighed their merits and found them sufficient. He saves them in spite of what they are, for the sake of His own great name. This should not wound our pride so much as set us free, for a rescue that depends on our goodness is a rescue that can be lost the moment our goodness fails, but a rescue anchored in God’s own honor is as secure as God Himself. And so He begins to describe it plainly: I will take you, I will gather you, I will bring you home. The scattered are not left to find their own way back. The Shepherd goes out and gathers His flock.

Ezekiel 36:25 (BSB)

²⁵ I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

Now the LORD stoops down to wash. Sprinkle clean water on you, He says, and you will be clean, and I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. There is a whole world of grace in this single verse. God does not merely forgive from a distance; He takes the defiled and washes them until they are clean, dealing not only with the outward stain but with the inward love of idols that caused it. Every believer who has ever felt too dirty to come near God should read this verse until it sinks in. The cleansing is His to give and His to accomplish, and no impurity is beyond the reach of the water He sprinkles. What Israel could never scrub away by all her ceremonies, the LORD promises to wash away Himself.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 (BSB)

²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

Here we come to the summit, the verses that shine at the very center of the book and reach forward across the centuries to us. The problem with God’s people had never been merely their circumstances; it was their hearts (לֵב) lev, pronounced LEV. Strong's H3820, heart; the inner person, mind, will, and self. When the Bible speaks of the lev, it does not mean merely the organ that beats in the chest, nor even the emotions as we tend to use the word “heart” today. The lev is the command center of the whole inner person: the mind that thinks, the will that chooses, the conscience that judges, the affections that love and hate. To have a heart of stone, then, is to be unmoved and unmovable at the deepest level of one’s being, dead to God right at the core. And this is exactly why the promise is so glorious. God does not offer to improve the old stone heart or to educate it or to frighten it into behaving. He promises to take it out entirely and set a heart of flesh in its place, one that is soft, alive, and turned toward Him. Only the Maker of the heart could ever make such a promise, and only in Christ has He kept it. , hard as stone, cold and unresponsive to the God who loved them. And no amount of outward reform could change that inward stone. So the LORD promises the one thing no one could do for themselves: a heart transplant. I will give you a new heart, He says, and remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, a heart that feels and responds and loves. More than that, I will put My Spirit within you, so that you finally do what you could never manage on your own, and walk in My ways. This is the new covenant in its clearest colors, and it is exactly what Jesus meant when He told a religious teacher that he must be born again. When a person trusts in Christ, God fulfills this ancient promise: the stone is taken out, a living heart is put in, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside, gently and powerfully turning a rebel into a son who wants to obey. Praise God, for the change we could never work in ourselves He works in us by His own hand.

Ezekiel 36:28–30 (BSB)

²⁸ Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will summon the grain and make it plentiful, and I will not bring famine upon you. ³⁰ I will also make the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field plentiful, so that you will no longer bear reproach among the nations on account of famine.

Once the heart is made new, everything else follows. You will be My people, He says, and I will be your God, which is the oldest and sweetest promise in all of Scripture, the very center of what it means to be saved. God binds Himself to His people in covenant love, and He surrounds that relationship with every good thing, saving them from uncleanness, filling their fields with grain, lifting the reproach of famine. See the order of it, for it matters greatly. First the inward work, the cleansing and the new heart and the indwelling Spirit, and then the outward blessing flowing from it like fruit from a healthy tree. God does not merely make our lives comfortable and leave our hearts cold; He changes us within, and out of that change comes a whole life set right, a people who belong to God and enjoy His unfailing care.

Ezekiel 36:31–32 (BSB)

³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and abominations. ³² It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD—let it be known to you. Be ashamed and disgraced for your ways, O house of Israel!

It is worth pausing over what happens in the heart that has been made new. It does not grow proud of its rescue; it grows humble. When they finally understand the depth of the grace shown them, they will look back on their sin with grief and shame, loathing the old ways that once seemed so sweet. This is one of the marks of a truly changed heart, that it thinks less of itself, not more, the nearer it draws to God. And once again, for the second time in ten verses, the LORD repeats the great foundation: “It is not for your sake that I will act.” He will not let them forget it. All of this, the cleansing, the new heart, the Spirit, the land, the plenty, is pure gift, and the proper response to such a gift is not pride but a lowly, wondering gratitude that God should be so good to those who deserved so little.

Ezekiel 36:33–36 (BSB)

³³ This is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be resettled and the ruins to be rebuilt. ³⁴ The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through. ³⁵ Then they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. The cities that were once ruined, desolate, and destroyed are now fortified and inhabited.’ ³⁶ Then the nations around you that remain will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt what was destroyed, and I have replanted what was desolate. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do it.

Here the LORD lets us glimpse the end of the story, and it is glorious. The desolate land, the one the nations had mocked as a graveyard, will one day be spoken of in wonder: “This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden.” Think of that. God does not simply patch up the ruins; He turns them into paradise, taking the place that was cursed and making it bloom like the garden where the world began. And the watching nations, who once sneered, will be forced to confess that only the LORD could have done it. Then comes a line to rest all our hope upon: “I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do it.” God’s promises are not wishes or hopes; they are as good as done the moment He utters them, because the One who speaks them has all power to fulfill them. What He has said, He will do.

Ezekiel 36:37–38 (BSB)

³⁷ This is what the Lord GOD says: Once again I will hear the plea of the house of Israel and do for them this: I will multiply their people like a flock. ³⁸ Like the numerous flocks for sacrifices at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

The chapter closes with a picture of overflowing abundance. The emptied cities, once silent as tombs, will be so full of people that the only way to describe them is as flocks, as many as the countless sheep once brought to Jerusalem for the great feasts. Where there had been death and desolation, there will be teeming, joyful life. And notice the tender detail in verse thirty-seven, that God will do all this in answer to prayer, hearing the plea of His people. He is not distant from them in their restoration; He invites them to ask, and He delights to give. So the great chapter ends where so much of Ezekiel ends, with the refrain “then they will know that I am the LORD,” but now that knowing is soaked in mercy, for they have seen with their own eyes a God who cleanses the guilty, softens the hard heart, fills the empty land, and keeps every word He ever spoke.