Ezekiel 37:18 (DRB)

Passage

And when the children of thy people shall speak to thee, saying: Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by this?

Nearby Context

Ezekiel 37:16 And thou son of man, take thee a stick: and write upon it: Of Juda, and of the children of Israel his associates: and take another stick and write upon it: For Joseph the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, and of his associates.

Ezekiel 37:17 And join them one to the other into one stick, and they shall become one in thy hand.

Ezekiel 37:18 And when the children of thy people shall speak to thee, saying: Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by this?

Ezekiel 37:19 Say to 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 that are associated with him, and I will put them together with the stick of Juda, and will make them one stick: and they shall be one in his hand.

Ezekiel 37:20 And the sticks whereon thou hast written, shall be in thy hand, before their eyes.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "children", "people", "shall", "speak", "thee", "saying", "wilt", and "thou". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "children" and "people", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 17's "And join them one to the other..." into verse 19's "Say to them Thus saith the Lord...", so "children" and "people" belong inside that flow. In Ezekiel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "children" and "people" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.