I have written previously on how Ezek 37 is not a prophecy about the Bible and the Book of Mormon. While holding to the view that the “sticks” in Ezek 37 are predictions about the Bible and Book of Mormon, Duane Crowther offers the following commentary on this chapter which is rather insightful:
Some Latter-day Saints do both themselves and their Church an injustice by overlooking several important aspects of the prophecy when discussing it with others. They would do well to recognize that the entire thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel is a prophecy of the restoration of Israel in the last days and that Ezekiel’s prophecy must be interpreted in the chronology which the chapter indicates. The chapter’s concluding verses provide seven clues as to the time when the two sticks will finally be one in the hand of the Lord. It will be in that period when
1. The children of Israel will be gathered from among the heathen and restored to the land of Palestine. (verse 21)
2. The two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, will have combined and will have been established as one nation in that land. (verse 22) This means that the Ten Tribes will have, in that period, in that period, already returned to Palestine.
3. They shall be ruled by a king. (Verse 22)
4. The Lord will have cleansed them from sin. (verse 23)
5. Their king shall be named David. (verses 24-25)
6. The Lord’s sanctuary (temple?) will have been built in the land of Palestine. (verses 26-27)
7. The heathen nations will have been taught that God sanctifies and protects Israel. (verse 28)
Because the careful description Ezekiel gives us of the time when the two sticks will be joined clearly indicates that the event is yet future, the present joint role of the Bible and Book of Mormon should be regarded as only the beginning of the prophecy’s fulfilment. One other aspect of the prophecy is worthy of note and should not be overlooked. Ezekiel describes the stick of Joseph as being of a dual nature: the record if to be “the stick of Ephraim” and it must also be “for all the house of Israel his companions.” Then Ezekiel adds that the stick of Joseph is to be “in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows.” Ephraim, of course, was the leading tribe among the tribes which were carried away captive by Assyria and which are now known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Is the stick of Joseph, then, to be one record, or two, or several? The Book of Mormon neither fulfils nor claims to fulfil Ezekiel’s stipulations that the stick of Joseph must speak for all the house of Israel who are companions to Ephraim, nor that it has been in the hands of the tribes of Israel. Yet it is a record of some of the descendants of Joseph, and the Lord referred to the angel who restored it as “Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fullness of my everlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim.” (D&C 27:5). To complete the requirements set forth by Ezekiel’s prophecy for the record of Joseph, other records—of the Ten Tribes—are still needed. The Book of Mormon, because of both content and chronological relationship, can provide only a partial fulfilment of the prophecy. A prophecy [2 Nephi 29:10-14] found in the Book of Mormon itself serves to explain the records which must someday be combined and tells when they will be gathered in one. (Duane S. Crowther, The Prophecies of Joseph Smith: Over 400 Prophecies by and about Joseph Smith, and their Fulfillment [Bountiful, UT.: Horizon Publishers, 1983], pp. 170-71, n. 27; italics in original; passage in square brackets added).
