Category: Exegesis

The valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37)

When did God fulfil his promise to raise the bones to life?

Exiled in Babylon, Ezekiel receives news that Jerusalem has fallen (Ezekiel 33). It’s the last gasp of a nation that is no more. Assyria had taken most of the land, and Babylon has taken what remained. There is no house where God is present in the world. There’s no anointed king representing heaven’s reign on earth. The bodies of those who tried to defend it lie unburied in what people were calling the Valley of Slaughter (Jeremiah 7:32; 19:6). What God intended to be his Holy Land lay defiled with their dead bones.

“Can these bones live?” God asked Ezekiel (37:3). The man has no answer. Death is so final. Ezekiel has already been lamenting, “The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land!” (Ezekiel 7:2). Who could argue? Speaking as a human, who could overturn death?

But Ezekiel is not speaking as a human. He’s speaking for his Master, the Sovereign Lord who breathed his breath into the human in the beginning, raising a human from the dust as a living being (Genesis 2:7).

Can this Valley of Slaughter become a new Eden? Is the Lord to breathe his breath into these bones, raising a body of people from the dust to stand as a great force under him? (Ezekiel 37:10)

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“You were in Eden” (Ezekiel 28)

Is Ezekiel 28 telling us about Satan’s origins?

Image: The Bible Project, 2019.

This text from Ezekiel and a related one in Isaiah 14:12-14 are often referenced in studies on the origin of Satan. What do you think?

Ezekiel 28:12–16 (NIV)
12 “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. 16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.”

The problem is that Ezekiel says it was about the king of Tyre, a wealthy trade city just up the coast from Israel. Here’s the immediate context:

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What did Ezekiel mean by “The end is nigh”?

It’s ninety seconds to midnight according to the atomic scientists’ doomsday clock. Their weapons fuel our insecurity. How long before the world ends?

My parents and grandparents lived through world wars I and II. I grew up with images of doomsday prophets and their sandwich boards proclaiming, “The end of the world is nigh.” I think they were copying Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 7:2-3 (NIV)
2 Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: “The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land! 3 The end is now upon you.

But Ezekiel was no weirdo. He wasn’t talking about the end of the world.

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The enigma of God’s throne (Ezekiel 1)

Ezekiel didn’t know where he fitted on earth until he saw the wheels within wheels in the heavens.

By the rivers of Babylon, Ezekiel sat like a fish out of water. Despite all the glitz and glamour of Babylon, he didn’t fit here. He was living in a world that didn’t match his identity. It’s a feeling many of us can relate to.

But what could Ezekiel do? He didn’t really want to be there. Everything he valued was falling apart. A huge storm was brewing, about to blow everything away. It had already swept westward, and now it was turning south towards Egypt, with Ezekiel’s city (Jerusalem) in the firing line. It felt like a hurricane no one could survive.

That’s when Ezekiel looked up and saw another storm in the heavens, north of Babylon:

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New covenant, new king (Jeremiah 31)

A new covenant means a new king. That’s the gospel in Jeremiah.

“I know the plans I have for you,” may be our favourite text from Jeremiah. But here’s the favourite of the New Testament writers (quoted in Luke 22:20; Romans 11:27; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Hebrews 8:12; 10:16-17):

Jeremiah 31 (NIV)
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. … 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Why did God promise a new covenant? What was wrong with the old one?

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The plans I have for you (Jeremiah 29)

You may have heard this one:

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We’re looking at favourite verses in Jeremiah, and this might top the list. We’re asking you to handle Scripture well, understanding how it applied to them before applying it to us. Who was you? What plans did God have for them?

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The hands that shape history (Jeremiah 18)

What did Jeremiah see when he visited the potter’s house? Is his picture consistent with the metaphor of God as ‘potter’ in the New Testament (Romans 9:21)?

You know that time Jeremiah visited the potter to see what God was doing?

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Temple as God’s presence (Jeremiah 7)

How could the temple fall if God was there?

Do you have a favourite text from Jeremiah? By setting the verses you already know in context, you’ll have a better appreciation of this prophet.

“Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?” God asked through Jeremiah (7:11). And Jesus asked the same question about his Father’s house (Matthew 21:13 || Mark 11:17 || Luke 19:46). Understanding Jeremiah’s context makes powerful sense of both settings.

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An overview of Isaiah

In the tragedy of Israel’s fall, Isaiah declared how God would redeem his world.

[Image: the light at the end of Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Allen Browne, 2014]

Hear the Prophets in their setting, and we see how the promises of God restoring his reign find their Yes in Christ. That’s how they apply to us.

The sheer size of the Major Prophets can feel daunting. This post is a high-level drone shot of the Book of Isaiah. He was called to proclaim God’s throne as the kingdom fell apart.

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When God called Isaiah (Isaiah 6)

Isaiah 6 is a great intro on how to read the Prophets. God explains what a prophet is and what a prophet does.

To discover what a prophet is, chat to one. How were they called? What was God calling them to do?

Isaiah gives us that conversation. It all started with the death of the Davidic king who had reigned well for 50 years (2 Chronicles 26). What would happen now?

Isaiah 6:1 (NIV)
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

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The beatific community of the king (podcast)

How do we become blessed? Do the Beatitudes tell me how to get the blessing? Or was Jesus speaking as the king elect, describing how beautiful the community under his heaven-appointed leadership would be?

What are the Beatitudes? What are they calling us to do or be?

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The faith of Enoch (Hebrews 11:5-6)

Enoch walked into God’s presence without dying. That’s inspiring. He’s the second example of faith in Hebrews 11.

Enoch’s relocation into the heavenly realm is intriguing. What did he see when he got there? How is that world different to this one? Where are the dead? Why is there so much evil in this world? How will God sort out the sufferings of his people and bring justice to the world? What can we learn from Enoch?

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Formed in God’s story: Leviticus – Joshua

This is part 3 of a survey of the Torah and historical books, looking at how we are Formed in God’s Story: Genesis–Esther.

We saw that all people belong to God, but in response to the nations going their own way God promised his own nation to show what they’re missing (Genesis).

We saw God freeing Jacob’s descendants from bondage to human rule, forming them into a nation under his leadership through the Sinai covenant (Exodus).

This third part describes life in the kingdom led by the Lord:

  • How were the people to live as a nation that honours its sovereign? Leviticus answers the holiness question.
  • What if his people don’t follow him? Won’t that wreck God’s plans? Numbers addresses the faithlessness question.
  • What about the next generation? Deuteronomy deals with the generational issue.
  • What about the nations that already occupied the land God promised them? Joshua confronts the territorial issue.

So, here are the notes for part 3, covering these four books:

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Covenant or kingdom?

What’s at the heart of the gospel? Kingdom? Or covenant?

We’re God’s kingdom. That defines the relationship between heaven and earth. God is sovereign; we are his creatures in the earthly realm that is governed by heaven. Our relationship with God is that of king and kingdom.

Or maybe covenant is the unifying theme? There’s no shortage of theologians who see it that way. So who’s right? Is it kingdom or covenant?

Both themes run through Scripture, but they’re not competing. Kingdom is established through covenant.

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Formed in God’s story: Exodus

[Updated 2023-05-05: Podcasts added]

God desires to rescue his earthly realm from the powers that oppress us because of lust for power. Pharaoh is the example in Exodus. God saves the descendants of Jacob, forming them in a nation to show the other nations what God intends for us all: how it works when we live under his wise and caring leadership.

But not long after his people agreed to live in covenant relationship with their heavenly sovereign, the whole relationship was compromised by their unfaithfulness. That’s when they discovered the faithfulness of God: his persistent, caring, uncompromising faithfulness kept on rescuing them.

Eventually they provided the holy space for God to live among them and lead them. The final chapter of Exodus celebrates God’s glorious presence as he leads the people who recognize his kingship.

It’s how the world should always have been: God living among us and leading us.

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Looking for a city (Hebrews 11:10)

Why was Abraham looking for a city? He already had one.

Augustine knew: our faith leads us to “the city of God.” Faith may be seeking understanding, but that’s not all. Faith seeks embodiment as a city under God.

Abraham knew: By faith, Abraham … went … for he was looking for a city (Hebrews 11:10).

Did you ever wonder why he lived like that when he already had a city?

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Formed in God’s story: Genesis

Update 2032-04-29: podcasts added.

If you’ve been around church for any time, you’ve heard of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his sons. You’ve probably heard debates about creation and evolution. You know about the snake and the fall. You may have heard of Nimrod or the Nephilim, or compared our time to the days of Noah.

These topics are in Genesis, but they are not the message of the book. Why was Genesis written? What is the theme at the core of the book? What is this book doing at the start of the Bible’s narrative?

Genesis is far more than a collection of fascinating stories. There’s something grander going on, a narrative that is greater than the sum of its parts.

So what is it? How does the story work, and where is it going? Here’s the macro story, the big picture of how the story flows in Genesis, what it says about God and us, and how this draws us into the whole Bible narrative:

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