Ezekiel 37
1
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,
2
And caused me to pass by them around: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and lo, they were very dry.
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And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? and I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
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Again he said to me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
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Thus saith the Lord GOD to these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
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And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
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So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
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And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
9
Then said he to me, Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
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So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
11
Then he said to 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.
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Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
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And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you out of your graves,
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And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
15
The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
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Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
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And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thy hand.
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And when the children of thy people shall speak to thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by these?
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Say to them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand.
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And the sticks on which thou writest shall be in thy hand before their eyes.
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And say to them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they are gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
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And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
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Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
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And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
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And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, in which your fathers have dwelt, and they shall dwell in it, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
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Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27
My tabernacle also shall be with them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28
And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for ever.
Apocalypse Revealed # 282
282. "Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation." This symbolically means that the Lord has redeemed those in the church or in any other religion who are impelled by truths in respect to their doctrine and by goods in respect to their life.
Tribes mean, symbolically, the church in respect to religion. Tongues symbolize its doctrine, as we will see presently. People mean, symbolically, people impelled by doctrinal truths, and abstractly doctrinal truths themselves (no. 483). And nations mean, symbolically, people who are impelled by goods of life, and abstractly goods of life themselves (no. 483). It is apparent from this that every tribe and tongue and people and nation has the symbolic meaning stated, as it does also in no. 627.
[2] We will now confirm here that tongues in the spiritual sense symbolize the doctrine possessed by a church and by every religion. This is apparent from the following:
My tongue ponders Your righteousness, Your praise all the day long. (Psalms 35:28)
My tongue shall ponder Your righteousness all the day long. (Psalms 71:24)
Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness... (Isaiah 35:6)
...the tongue of stammerers will be swift to speak... (Isaiah 32:4)
It seems as though tongue there means speech, but in the spiritual sense it means that which is spoken, which is the doctrinal truth that they will have from the Lord.
So likewise:
I have sworn... that to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue swear an oath. (Isaiah 45:23)
The time will come to gather all nations and tongues, that they may come and see My glory. (Isaiah 66:18)
In those days ten men from all the tongues of the nations shall take hold of the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." (Zechariah 8:23)
These passages describe as well the Lord's conversion of the nations to doctrinal truth.
[3] On the other hand, in the following places tongues in an opposite sense symbolize doctrinal falsities:
A smooth-tongued man shall not continue to exist in the land. (Psalms 140:11)
You hide them... in Your tabernacle from the strife of tongues. (Psalms 31:20)
...I will bring a nation against you... whose language you do not know... (Jeremiah 5:15)
(To be sent to peoples heavy in tongue.) (Ezekiel 3:5-6). (To a people barbarous in tongue.) (Isaiah 33:19).
It should be known that the tongue as an organ symbolizes doctrine, while as speech it symbolizes also religion.
[4] Someone who knows that the tongue symbolizes doctrine can understand what is symbolically meant by the plea of the rich man in hell to Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, to keep him from being tormented in the flame (Luke 16:24). The water symbolizes truth, and the tongue doctrine, by whose falsities the rich man was being tormented, and not by any flame. For no one in hell is on fire, but a flame there is how a love of falsity appears, and fire how a love of evil appears.
