Ezekiel 36:37-38

A single point in the Lord's restoration of Israel is made prominent, the multiplication of the people. The terrible threats of the diminution of their numbers (Ezekiel 36:12), and of the destruction both of those remaining in the land and those going into exile, were no doubt to a great extent fulfilled (Lamentations 5). The scanty population of Jerusalem is referred to by Nehemiah nearly a century after the first exiles returned (Ezekiel 7:4). The old promise that they should be as the sand of the sea is here repeated, cf. Ezekiel 36:10; Ezekiel 36:33; Jeremiah 31:27; Hosea 1:10; Zechariah 2:4.