The Dry Bones of Ephraim

And the hand of HaShem was upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of HaShem and brought me to rest in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.” Ezekiel 37:1

This story is part of the readings for the Sabbath in the middle of Unleavened Bread, and it reminded me of a story that I’d forgotten. I think this story is very important for Messianics to take seriously. The sages wonder among themselves who these dry bones were. Several answers are given by different rabbis, and each one has a significance that is more theological than historical. We shouldn’t confuse these stories for history, they are meant to teach us a lesson.

The one that struck me as being particularly relevant to us is told by Rav, the first of the Talmudic sages. In BT Sanhedrin 92b, Rav repeats an old story, saying that the dry bones are the remains of a group of Ephriamites who left Egypt thirty years early because they miscalculated the date of the exodus. They knew that God had said Israel would be in Egypt 400 years, and they calculated that starting from the moment that God spoke these words. 400 years after God made that promise, to the day, they left Egypt.

What these Ephriamites didn’t know is that it would actually come 400 years after the birth of Isaac. This entire group died. This is the reason that “Ephriam their father mourned for them many days, and his brothers came to console him.” I Chronicles 7:22

After Spring Break, on the drive back to Baylor my sister and I noticed a sign that screamed at us about the end of the world. I don’t remember the date or the website it gave, but if you went to their website these people were serious. I wanted to believe they were kidding, but they weren’t. And I’m sorry, but what does the Mayan calendar have to do with anything?

All of the clever calculations of hundreds of people before us have been wrong, and there is no particular reason to believe that the new ones we come up with will be better. This story serves as a clear warning about apocalypticism. Maybe the world is going to end tomorrow, but setting dates and taking extreme measures to “prepare” is only going to get us into trouble.

Instead, we should live our lives, we should work to make the world a better place, we should enjoy the world and the life we’ve been given. The end of the world isn’t our concern as long as there is hunger, war, and disease.