CLAIM: Israel is symbolized by a valley of dry bones that are suddenly infused with God’s life. After the time when all hope is lost, then God’s covenant blessings will be manifested in a restored and unified Israel. This will happen in context to Jesus’ Second Coming.
Mixed.
This passage is part of the section that goes through Ezekiel 39. In Ezekiel 39, God restores His face to the nation, and, as they are born again through faith in the name of the Lord Jesus, they receive the Holy Spirit, and as a nation, receive the Kingdom (answering the question of Acts 1:6 of the Kingdom being restored to the nation, see here).
The gathering of the bones could represent their being gathered together, but with the breath, that is, the Spirit within them. They are being assembled, bone to bone, and have the form of life, but they are still dead in their transgressions and sins. What has been spoken beforehand has been fulfilled, and now there is the need for latter rain, the second prophetic wave, to prophecy the salvation and Holy Spirit baptism for the whole of the nation of Israel.
[What follows is my own suppositions of possible interpretation, and not necessarily the exact fulfillment of the text itself. As it stands, however, portions of this chapter appear unfulfilled, and some, fulfilled].
What began in 1948 was the regathering together the dried bones scattered across the whole Earth as a result of the massive cruelty inflicted upon her by the nations. What will come next, as reflected in Ezekiel 38 through 39, is their coming alive. As Paul said, if their hardening produced such salvation for us, their salvation will be as life from the dead.
The Ezekiel 39 outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the nation of Israel will, as I understand, be accomplished along with the time of the Gentiles being fulfilled, and the whole of the nation of Israel becoming saved, healed, restored, and delivered. This prophetic picture, through their regathering and then their infilling apparently depicts both the 1948 beginning of their regathering, as well as their restoration.
The end of this chapter indicates that the God’s sanctuary will be among them forever. As God does not live in temples made with hands, it does not seem apparent that this will be a physical structure. While God may have them construct one, or one may be erected in memorial, we, today, are the temple, His sanctuary. The true dwelling of God is His church, His people and body, and when that is fully established in Jerusalem, that is His sanctuary forever established among them.
There will be a covenant of peace made with them (not the “new covenant”, but a promise of enduring peace), and they will be established.