The question one might ask is, “What
did Ezekiel intend by those verses?” When Ezekiel wrote, between 592 and
570 B.C., the people of Judah were held captive by Babylon. Ezekiel lived in a
colony of exiles from Jerusalem. He addressed, in his writings, the whole of
Israel. In his day Israel was in shambles. The Kingdom of Judah was separated
from the Kingdom of Israel (the Kingdom of Israel had been taken captive in 721
B.C. by Assyria), and Judah was in chains living under Babylonian domination.
His people doubtless would have petitioned him, “Ezekiel, where is God? Are we
not the covenant people? Have we been abandoned by God?” At this time of great
anguish it seems likely that Ezekiel would have wanted to reassure them that
they had not, in fact, been abandoned by God, but that one day God would take
the two parts of Israel broken off from one another and reunite them in their
own land and under their own rule, out of bondage. Read verses 21 and 22 of
Ezekiel 37. It seems less likely that the captive Israelites would have been
comforted to know that these would eventually be a Bible and a Book of Mormon centuries
hence. Now, certainly, it may be that God intended Ezekiel 37:15-17 to speak to
these of our day and announce that there would be both a Bible and a Book of Mormon,
but it is not clear that Ezekiel was aware of this interpretation. Joseph Smith
never referred to the “stick of Joseph” meaning the Book of Mormon. (The Lord
through Joseph did, however, use the term “stick of Ephraim” in referring to
the Book of Mormon in D&C 27:5.) Another thoughtful exegete, Brother James
E. Talmage, also avoided ever referring to this modern interpretation. (Michael
J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and Covenants [Salt Lake City:
MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 315-16, italics in original)
