Praise the Lord that He did not leave us in our situation but came in to rescue us! However, the Lord did not come in directly to be our Shepherd, but, in keeping with Ezekiel 37, He came in through the prophesying of His word.
Many Christians have a mistaken understanding of prophesying, thinking that to prophesy is only to predict. But there is hardly any prediction in Ezekiel 37. Instead, the prophesying here is a matter of declaring something or speaking something forth. This indicates that prophesying in this chapter does not mainly mean to predict but to tell forth, to make some kind of declaration. When the Lord told Ezekiel to prophesy, He meant that Ezekiel should speak forth. The Lord told Ezekiel that when he prophesied, He would send the breath and the wind. When Ezekiel spoke forth, God gave people the Spirit. From this we can see clearly that the main meaning of prophesying is not to predict but to speak forth something for the Lord.
Other Christians think that to prophesy is to teach. But no matter how much one may teach dry bones, they remain dry bones. One may teach dry bones about the need for wind, breath, and the Spirit, but nothing happens to these bones. In this chapter Ezekiel neither predicted something to the dry bones nor taught them. On the contrary, when Ezekiel prophesied, he spoke something for God, and God followed him. As Ezekiel was prophesying, God was blowing upon the dry bones, sending the wind, the breath, and the Spirit.
In Ezekiel 37 three things are related to the prophesying: the wind, breath, and Spirit. In English these are three different words, but in Hebrew they are only one word, ruach. Verse 9 uses the word wind and the word breath, but in the Hebrew text both are the same word, ruach. In verse 14 there is the Spirit, but this also is a translation of ruach. It is difficult for translators to decide how to translate ruach in these verses. The translation is based both upon the context and upon the understanding of the translator.
If we apply this matter to our spiritual experience, we may say that when God blows upon us, that is the wind; when we breathe the wind, it is the breath; and when the breath comes into us, it is the Spirit. First comes the wind and then the breath and then the Spirit. When Ezekiel prophesied, God blew the wind, the people received the breath, and the breath became the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b).
In this chapter Ezekiel prophesied twice, in verse 7 and again in verse 10. Verse 7 says, “So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.” Here we see that when Ezekiel prophesied there was a noise and a shaking.
Sometimes others complain that our meetings are too noisy. My answer is that if all were dry bones, everything would be quiet. There would be neither noise nor voice, only quietness. All the bones in the valley in Ezekiel 37 were quiet and motionless. But when Ezekiel came and prophesied, there was a noise and a shaking, and all the bones came together. I cannot explain why this happened. We do know, however, that when we come together in the meetings and make a joyful noise (Psa. 95:1), we are truly one.
Suppose we all came into the meeting and sat quietly for thirty minutes. Soon we would become critical of one another, and eventually we would lose our oneness. But when we shout joyfully to the Lord Jesus, praising Him and calling on His name, we are one. It may not sound nice to you, but the more we make noise in this way, the more we are one. If we get out of ourselves by calling on the Lord and praising Him, we will be one.