Israel - The Land - Ezekiel 36

Ezekiel 36:8 "But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel for they are at hand to come."

I'm not sure if this refers to the end of the captivity or a future time when the glory of Israel is restored at the coming of Christ as their king.

It, nevertheless, tells of a time after the cleansing when the land will again yield in abundance. The people will have a heart for God and the heathen will no longer abuse the land or claim it as their own.

v11 "And I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase and bring fruit, and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD."

The Lord has attached his name to Israel. Israel turned to idols and thus shamed themselves and almost the name of the Lord. That will all change.

v18 "Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they hand polluted it:"

v22 "Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen whither ye went."

Up until now they are going by the law of Moses which is outward toward inward. It relies on the person making the law their life. It was imperfect as the New Testament tells us. There is to be a new way. Christians know it as the plan of salvation where the Spirit of God works from the inside toward the outward.

It changes a person from the inside out.

v26 "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."

The book of Hebrews explains it well.

Hebrews 7:19 "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God."

So in the place of the blood of animals, we have the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God, The Lamb of God who offered himself one time for all time for our sins.

Hebrews 9:12 "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

Once the New Testament is accepted as truth, it is impossible not to see that many of the Old Testament scriptures refer to Jesus Christ and a new and better way. He came as a lamb and not as a warrior. His purpose was not to deliver us from a government but to deliver us from the wages of sin.

v38 "As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they shall know that I am the LORD."