Overview continued.
God had assured Israel in chapter 36, that he would gather all of them and would bring them out of their captivity, and take them to their own land.
There were however, two things which made this highly unlikely:
First
They were very scattered.
Not only in Babylon, but in Assyria as well as the Assyrians had taken Jerusalem and had taken Israelites captive.
So they were spread out.
You gotta remember this is thousands of years ago.
There's no real way to communicate with one another.
So destitute and dispirited in their own minds of ever getting back home that by all accounts they were here in this vision compared to a valley of dry bones of dead men which should be brought together and raised to life.
In verses 1-10 there is the vision.
And in Verses 11-14 we have the explication of it and it's application to the nation of Israel in it's state at the time.
Dispersed.
Despondent.
Depressed I'm sure.
Etc.
Second
The nation of Israel was divided itself at this time.
In 930 BC, 10 tribes had formed the independent Kingdom of Israel in the north and the 2 other tribes, Judah and Benjamin, set up the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
(The northern kingdom was also refereed to as Ephriam)
So they are already despondent about being away from home, about being in captivity and to make matters worse, they are split into two kingdoms, even in captivity.
No way to overcome it right?
:-).
Some of this were gonna review again later during the second part of this chapter know as the
"One Nation Under One King"
section.
Right now?
The focus is on Verses 1-14
"The valley of the dry bones."
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