25 And I will put clean water on you so that you may be clean: from all your unclean ways and from all your images I will make you clean. 26 And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you: I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit in you, causing you to be guided by my rules, and you will keep my orders and do them. 28 So that you may go on living in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you will be to me a people, and I will be to you a God. 29 And I will make you free from all your unclean ways: and at my voice the grain will come up and be increased, and I will not let you be short of food. 30 And I will make the tree give more fruit and the field fuller produce, and no longer will you be shamed among the nations for need of food. 31 And at the memory of your evil ways and your wrongdoings, you will have bitter hate for yourselves because of your evil-doings and your disgusting ways, O children of Israel. 32 Not because of you am I doing it, says the Lord; let it be clear to you, and be shamed and made low because of your ways, O children of Israel. 33 This is what the Lord has said: In the day when I make you clean from all your evil-doings I will let the towns be peopled and there will be building on the waste places. 34 And the land which was waste will be farmed, in place of being a waste in the eyes of everyone who went by. 35 And they will say, This land which was waste has become like the garden of Eden; and the towns which were unpeopled and wasted and pulled down are walled and peopled. 36 Then the rest of the nations round about you will be certain that I the Lord am the builder of the places which were pulled down and the planter of that which was waste: I the Lord have said it, and I will do it. 37 This is what the Lord has said: The children of Israel will again make prayer to me for this, that I may do it for them; I will make them increased with men like a flock. 38 Like sheep for the offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem at her fixed feasts, so the unpeopled towns will be made full of men: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 36:25-38
Commentary on Ezekiel 36:25-38
(Read Ezekiel 36:25-38)
Water is an emblem of the cleansing our polluted souls from sin. But no water can do more than take away the filth of the flesh. Water seems in general the sacramental sign of the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost; yet this is always connected with the atoning blood of Christ. When the latter is applied by faith to the conscience, to cleanse it from evil works, the former is always applied to the powers of the soul, to purify it from the pollution of sin. All that have an interest in the new covenant, have a new heart and a new spirit, in order to their walking in newness of life. God would give a heart of flesh, a soft and tender heart, complying with his holy will. Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul, as the turning a dead stone into living flesh. God will put his Spirit within, as a Teacher, Guide, and Sanctifier. The promise of God's grace to fit us for our duty, should quicken our constant care and endeavour to do our duty. These are promises to be pleaded by, and will be fulfilled to, all true believers in every age.