Catholic Commentary
The Promise of a Vast, Flock-like Increase of People
37“‘The Lord Yahweh says: “For this, moreover, I will be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock.38As the flock for sacrifice, as the flock of Jerusalem in her appointed feasts, so the waste cities will be filled with flocks of men. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’”
Ezekiel 36:37–38 describes God's promise to restore Israel's population abundantly, but makes this restoration contingent upon Israel's prayer and petition to Him. The restored people are likened to holy flocks designated for temple sacrifice, signifying they will be set apart as a consecrated people whose restoration will demonstrate God's divine authority.
God waits to be asked — the restoration of devastated lives and dead places hangs on prayer, not on His willingness to act.
The verse closes with Ezekiel's signature formula: "Then they will know that I am Yahweh." This refrain appears over sixty times in the book and functions as the teleological anchor of every divine act Ezekiel records. Judgment, restoration, miracle, catastrophe — all converge on this single end: the recognition of God as God. In the Catholic interpretive tradition, this formula points toward the ultimate visio Dei — the beatific vision in which God is known as He knows Himself.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Reading with the Church's fourfold sense of Scripture, the allegorical meaning of these verses finds its fulfillment in the Church. The "waste cities" filled with flocks of men are a type of the Gentile world evangelized by the apostles (cf. Is 54:3; Acts 2). The "flock for sacrifice" typologically anticipates the baptized who, configured to Christ the Lamb, are themselves a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1). The feast-day image prefigures the Eucharistic assembly — the qāhāl, the Church gathered on the Lord's Day — as the eschatological Jerusalem.
Catholic tradition illuminates these verses at several distinct levels.
On prayer as the instrument of divine Providence: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that God "thirsts that we may thirst for him" (CCC 2560), and that "prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father" (CCC 2565). Ezekiel 36:37 offers a profound Old Testament grounding for this teaching: God's salvific will does not bypass human freedom and petition but is mediated through it. St. Augustine's reflection — "Our heart is restless until it repose in Thee" (Confessions I.1) — captures the reciprocal dynamic of this verse: God provokes the longing He then satisfies.
On the Church as the restored flock: St. Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on the Ezekiel shepherd passages, identifies the eschatological flock with the one Church gathered from Jews and Gentiles under Christ, the one Shepherd. The Second Vatican Council's Lumen Gentium §6 explicitly draws on the shepherd-flock image to describe the nature of the Church, calling her "the flock of which God himself foretold he would be the Shepherd." The abundance of verse 38 is thus fulfilled not in a restored Jewish state alone, but in the catholicity of the Church — her spread to every nation.
On the sacrificial and priestly character of the restored people: The image of the tso'n qodashim (holy, consecrated flock) finds its New Covenant fulfillment in the sacerdotium regale — the royal priesthood of 1 Peter 2:9. The Catechism teaches that the baptized share in Christ's priestly office and are called to offer "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (CCC 1141, citing 1 Pet 2:5). The "waste cities filled with flocks of men" are a prophetic image of the Church's mission of evangelization, filling the desolate spaces of a world alienated from God with a consecrated, priestly humanity.
On the recognition formula as beatific vision: The Fathers, including Origen and St. Gregory the Great, read Ezekiel's "they shall know that I am Yahweh" as pointing to the final and perfect knowledge of God in eternal life — the fulfillment of the new covenant promise written on the heart (Jer 31:34: "they shall all know me").
For the contemporary Catholic, verse 37 poses a searching, practical challenge: Do I actually ask God for the restoration of what is desolate? It is easy to lament the decline of Catholic practice — empty pews, collapsed families, post-Christian cultures — while quietly assuming that prayer is insufficient to the scale of the problem. Ezekiel 36:37 directly rebukes this fatalism. God Himself commits to superabundant restoration and then waits to be asked. The implication for parish life, family prayer, and personal intercession is concrete: sustained, specific petition for the renewal of the Church and the world is not naive optimism — it is obedience to a divine structure of covenant.
Verse 38's image of a city overflowing with consecrated people on feast days also calls Catholics to rediscover the Eucharistic assembly as the anticipation of eschatological abundance. Every Sunday Mass, however poorly attended, is a sacramental foretaste of Jerusalem crowded with holy pilgrims. Approaching the liturgy with this vision restores its cosmic weight and may itself deepen the missionary zeal needed to fill those empty seats.
Commentary
Ezekiel 36:37 — "I will be inquired of by the house of Israel"
The oracle opens with an arresting grammatical turn. God does not simply announce that He will act; He says He will be inquired of before acting. The Hebrew verb darash (to seek, to inquire) carries a rich liturgical and covenantal resonance throughout the Old Testament — it is the verb used for consulting God at the sanctuary, for the earnest seeking that characterizes genuine covenant relationship (cf. Ps 105:4; Amos 5:4). This is theologically striking: the sovereign God who has just promised new hearts, new spirit, and transformed land (Ez 36:26–35) deliberately makes the fulfillment of this promise contingent on Israel's prayer. It is not that prayer earns the blessing — the entire chapter has already established that restoration comes "not for your sake" (v. 22, 32) — but that God wills to give His gifts through the relationship of petition. The Almighty chooses to be asked. This is a mystery of divine condescension: omnipotence elects to work through the weakness of human supplication.
The phrase "I will increase them with men like a flock" (k'tso'n adam) introduces the controlling metaphor of these two verses. The word tso'n (flock) typically denotes sheep and goats kept together, and its application to human beings is deliberately pastoral and tender. God is not merely promising population growth; He is invoking the image of the divine Shepherd replenishing His own flock. This anticipates the great shepherd discourse of Ezekiel 34 (which chronologically precedes chapter 36 but theologically grounds it) and points forward to the Good Shepherd of the New Testament.
Ezekiel 36:38 — "As the flock for sacrifice, as the flock of Jerusalem in her appointed feasts"
The simile works on two levels simultaneously and should not be flattened into one. The "flock for sacrifice" (tso'n qodashim) refers to consecrated animals — holy flock — designated for temple offering. The "flock of Jerusalem in her appointed feasts" (tso'n yerushalayim b'mo'adeha) evokes the vast herds of pilgrimage animals that crowded the city during Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Ancient sources suggest that Jerusalem's population swelled from perhaps 50,000 to over 100,000 during major festivals, with tens of thousands of animals driven through the gates for sacrifice. The image is therefore one of overwhelming, almost unmanageable abundance.
But the comparison cuts deeper than mere numbers. The restored people are likened specifically to animals, set apart for divine purposes. The restored Israel that fills the waste cities is not a secular demographic recovery — it is a people. There is a priestly dimension to this new humanity.