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God Resurrected a NationThe Watchtower—1973 | April 15
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Therefore prophesy, and you must say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Here I am opening your burial places, and I will bring you up out of your burial places, O my people, and bring you in upon the soil of Israel. And you will have to know that I am Jehovah when I open your burial places and when I bring you up out of your burial places, O my people.”’ ‘And I will put my spirit in you, and you must come to life, and I will settle you upon your soil; and you will have to know that I myself, Jehovah, have spoken and I have done it,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.”—Ezek. 37:11-14.
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God Resurrected a NationThe Watchtower—1973 | April 15
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As Jehovah’s mouthpiece, Ezekiel, by his prophesying, was to have a part in the enlivening of those depressed Israelites with hope of restoration to their beloved homeland, hundreds of miles away. But Jehovah was the One who, by putting his holy spirit in the repentant Israelites, would really organize them and make them alive with eagerness and willingness to be restored to their own soil. He was the One that would miraculously open the way for them to leave their “burial places” in the land of Babylon and go back to the “soil of Israel.”
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God Resurrected a NationThe Watchtower—1973 | April 15
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When Cyrus the Great thus associated Jehovah with this unexpected event, the Israelites knew that Jehovah was the One responsible for opening their burial places in Babylon and bringing them out alive for further activity in his service and worship in their desolated homeland. Assisted by sympathetic Israelites who could not then conveniently leave Babylon, 42,360 Israelites responded to Jehovah’s outpoured spirit and became alive to the opportunity to repeople the hills, mountains and valleys of the soil of Israel, rebuild Jerusalem and its temple and restore Jehovah’s worship there.
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