Ezekiel 34:30, commentary and pictures

Thus shall they know that the Lord their God is with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are His own people, and this is given as most precious encouragement in the covenant of peace. The assurance stands as part of God's promises of blessing and care for His flock, that His people know they belong to Him and that He is present with them.

They come to know this when He makes them and the places round about His hill a blessing, causing the shower to come down in his season as showers of blessing. Then the tree of the field shall yield her fruit and the earth shall yield her increase, for all nature obeys Him as a servant obeys his master. They shall be safe in their land and shall know that He is the Lord when He has broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. They shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them, but they shall dwell safely and none shall make them afraid. He will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more, and by this they shall know that the Lord their God is with them and that they are His people, His flock, the flock of His pasture, men with Him as their God.

This assurance belongs to the covenant of peace, whose most striking feature is the exceeding richness of pardoning mercy to the sinner if he repents and turns from his sin, salvation through tender mercies. God does not set aside justice, but under the new covenant requires perfect obedience as the condition of life. Pardon is granted to the repentant, confessing sinner through the sacrifice of Christ satisfying the demands of the law. The scattered and oppressed colored people in the South will learn by their own deliverance that God is present with them and claims them as His own people. When the lost are sought out, those driven away are brought back from the cloudy and dark day, the broken are bound up, the sick are strengthened, and the flock is fed and made to rest, then the covenant of peace brings showers of blessing. Desert places become like the garden of God, and those brought out of darkness and ignorance into light know that God is with them.