then grow weary of attending them : let us use them with a dependence on God for his blessing.]
2. What care has God taken to encourage despond- ing sinners !
[No state can be worse than this represented in the text™ ; yet God has shewn how he could overrule the heart of Cyrus to proclaim liberty, and of his own people to accept it. He displayed also his mighty power in re-establishing his people ; what then can he not do for those who are dead in sin? Let none say, " My hope is lost, I am cut off." Let it be remembered that the power and grace of Christ are sufficient'1. Let every one hear in faith the Apostle's exhortation0 — .]
m ver. 2. "very dry." n John xi. 25. ° Eph. v. 14.
Ezek. xxxvii. 15 — 22. The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions : then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions : and join them one to another into one stick ; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not sheiv us what thou meanest by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick ; and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks ivhereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land : and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel ; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into tivo kingdoms any more at all.
THE restoration of the whole Jewish people, to their own land, and to the favour of their God, is a subject on which all the prophets dwell with great
1122.] STICKS OF JUDAII AND OF EPHItAIM JOINED. 469
delight ; and not with delight only, but with the strongest confidence and assurance. There were indeed then, and there are still, in that nation, cir- cumstances which, if viewed only after the manner of men, render the accomplishment of these predic- tions highly improbable. For instance ; the whole people of Israel, of the ten tribes which were carried captive to Assyria, and of the two tribes in their present dispersion, are scattered, like dry bones, over the face of the whole earth : and we might as well expect a restoration of such scattered bones to life, as the return of that people to their own land. Moreover, from the period of their separation in the time of Rehoboam, to the latest hour of their exist- ence as different states, there existed between them such inveterate hatred, as precludes a hope that they can ever be united into one people again. But the Prophet Ezekiel was inspired to declare, that both these difficulties should be overcome. The resusci- tation of the dry bones he has foretold in the pre- ceding part of the chapter ; and the re-union of the two nations he foretells in the words which we have just read. He was commanded to represent this to his hearers by a very appropriate sign. He was to take two sticks ; and, writing on each of them the nation which it was intended to represent, he was to cause them to become one stick in his hand ; and then to explain to them the figure, by a full declara- tion of God's purpose relative to their re-union in the latter-day.