And Ye Shall Live

Ezekiel was a priest, trained to serve in the temple in Jerusalem, but in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity he was a refugee by the river Chebar in Babylon (1:1–3). There, of all places, “the heavens were opened.” He saw a storm of fire, living creatures, wheels full of eyes, and above them a throne with “the appearance of a man” surrounded by brightness like a rainbow. He sums it up carefully: “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (1:28). The point for the exiles was enormous. God had not stayed behind in the temple they had lost. His glory could come to them in a foreign land, and it can come to us wherever we are.

🔗 Cross-references

• Revelation 4:2–3 ↗John also sees a throne in heaven encircled by a rainbow.
• Doctrine and Covenants 110:2–3 ↗Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery see the Lord in the Kirtland Temple in glory brighter than the sun.

The Lord calls Ezekiel to a hard audience. They may listen or not, but either way “they shall know that there hath been a prophet among them” (2:5). He tells Ezekiel not to fear them, even “though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions” (2:6). Then He hands him a scroll written with lamentation and mourning and tells him to eat it. Surprisingly, “it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness” (3:3). Before Ezekiel preaches, he goes to the captives and sits “where they sat” for seven days (3:15). Only then does the Lord make him a watchman (3:17). A messenger first takes the Lord’s word inside himself, then sits with the people he is sent to.

🔗 Cross-references

• Jeremiah 15:16 ↗Ezekiel’s contemporary describes finding the Lord’s words and eating them, and finding joy.
• Revelation 10:9–10 ↗John also eats a little book that is sweet as honey in his mouth.
• Psalm 119:103 ↗The psalmist finds the Lord’s words sweeter than honey.

Chapter 33 renews Ezekiel’s charge as a watchman and reveals the Lord’s heart: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye” (33:11). Then a survivor arrives with news: “The city is smitten” (33:21). Jerusalem has fallen. Even so, people treat Ezekiel like “a very lovely song” they enjoy without doing anything about it (33:32). Chapter 34 turns to Israel’s leaders, shepherds who fed themselves and never healed the sick or sought the lost (34:2–4). So the Lord says He will do it Himself: “I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out” (34:11). He promises one shepherd, “my servant David” (34:23), a promise fulfilled in the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

🔗 Cross-references

• John 10:11 ↗Jesus declares, “I am the good shepherd,” the Shepherd Ezekiel foretold.
• Luke 15:4–6 ↗The parable of the lost sheep shows the Shepherd leaving the ninety and nine to find the one.
• Doctrine and Covenants 88:81 ↗Every person who has been warned is to warn his neighbor, a watchman’s charge for all of us.

Chapter 36 is full of “I will.” The Lord will gather His people (36:24), “sprinkle clean water” on them to cleanse them (36:25), and then do what no amount of effort on their part could: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (36:26). The stony heart comes out; a heart of flesh goes in. Verse 27 explains how obedience becomes possible: “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.” The Lord adds that He does this “for mine holy name’s sake” (36:22), because of who He is, not because they earned it. By the end, people will say that the desolate land “is become like the garden of Eden” (36:35).

🔗 Cross-references

• Alma 5:14 ↗Alma asks the members of the Church whether they have experienced this mighty change in their hearts.
• Mosiah 5:2 ↗King Benjamin’s people describe a change of heart so deep they have no more desire to do evil.
• Psalm 51:10 ↗David prays for a clean heart and a right spirit, the same gift Ezekiel promises.

Chapter 37 holds two signs of reunion. First, the valley of dry bones: the exiles said, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost” (37:11), and the Lord showed Ezekiel bones joining, gaining flesh and then breath, standing as “an exceeding great army” (37:10). Then He had Ezekiel take two sticks, one “For Judah” and one “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim,” and join them so “they shall become one in thine hand” (37:16–17). Latter-day Saints understand the sticks as the Bible, the record of Judah, and the Book of Mormon, a record of Joseph’s descendants through Lehi. The Lord told Joseph of Egypt that these writings would “grow together” (2 Nephi 3:12).

🔗 Cross-references

• 2 Nephi 3:12 ↗The Lord promises that the writings of Judah and of Joseph will grow together to confound false doctrine.
• 1 Nephi 5:14 ↗Lehi discovers in the brass plates that he descends from Joseph, who was sold into Egypt.
• Doctrine and Covenants 27:5 ↗The Lord refers to the Book of Mormon as “the stick of Ephraim.”

Ezekiel ends with a vision of a restored temple, and in chapter 47 water flows out from under its threshold (47:1). A guide measures the stream every thousand cubits: ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, and finally “waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over” (47:3–5). The river runs east into the desert and down to the sea, the Dead Sea, and heals it until fishermen spread their nets there (47:8–10). Trees line the banks, bearing fruit every month, with leaves “for medicine” (47:12). John saw the same river flowing from the throne of God (Revelation 22:1–2). Blessings that flow from the house of the Lord start small and grow deeper, and they reach places that seemed beyond life.

🔗 Cross-references

• Revelation 22:1–2 ↗John sees the river of the water of life and the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
• John 4:14 ↗The Savior promises water that becomes a well springing up into everlasting life.

Read the valley of dry bones again, slowly. In Hebrew one word, ruach, means breath, wind and spirit, and it runs through the whole passage: the bones need breath, Ezekiel calls to the four winds, and the Lord promises, “And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live” (37:14). The bodies came together first, but they did not live until the breath came. Latter-day revelation tells us that Ezekiel’s vision also points to the Resurrection (Doctrine and Covenants 138:43), made possible because Jesus Christ rose from the tomb. As you take the sacrament today, bring Him whatever feels dry, and ask for His Spirit to be with you, as He promises in the sacrament prayers.

🔗 Cross-references

• Doctrine and Covenants 138:43 ↗President Joseph F. Smith sees Ezekiel among the prophets and connects the dry bones to the Resurrection.
• John 11:25 ↗Jesus tells Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life.”
• Moroni 4:3 ↗The sacrament prayer promises that we may always have His Spirit to be with us.