Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me out in Yahweh’s Spirit, and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass by them all around: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and behold, they were very dry. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I answered, “Lord Yahweh, you know.”
Again he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and tell them, ‘You dry bones, hear Yahweh’s word. The Lord Yahweh says to these bones: “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you will live. I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you will live. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, there was an earthquake. Then the bones came together, bone to its bone. I saw, and, behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” ’ ”
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 9 Or, valley.
Or, valley.
He showeth by a great miracle that God hath power, and also will deliver his people from their captivity, inasmuch as he is able to give life to the dead bones, and bodies, and raise them up again.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Eze 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon…
Eze 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which [was] full of bones,
Ver. 1. The hand of the Lord,] i.e., The force and impulse of the Holy Spirit, fitly called "the hand of the Lord"; {a} because holy men of old spake and acted as they were moved or carried out by the Holy Ghost. {2Pe 2:22}
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In the spirit,] i.e., In a spiritual rapture.
And set me down.] Not really, but visionally.
In the midst of the valley.] That same valley, some think, where {Eze 1:3} he saw that glorious vision. Prophecies were often received, and prayers are best made, in one and the same place.
Which was full of bones.] So it appeared to him in his ecstasy.
{a} Manus est impellere; manus est organum agendi. - Theodoret.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–10 The hand; either the prophetic Spirit, as Eze 1:3;…
The hand; either the prophetic Spirit, as Eze 1:3; 8:1, moving him to prophesy by this emblem; or else the Spirit of God carrying him visionally, not corporeally, as in Eze 8, into such a prospect or landscape.
In the spirit; either in the power of the Spirit of God, or it may refer to the prophet’s own spirit, he was in his spirit, or mind and apprehension.
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Set me down; so it seemed to me in the vision, that I was set gently down.
In the valley; it is vain to inquire what valley this should be, which was visional, not corporeal or real.
Full of bones: it is as vain to inquire whose bones these were, they are visional, and hieroglyphics of Israel’s present condition.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Here is, I. The vision of a resurrection from…
Here is, I. The vision of a resurrection from death to life, and it is a glorious resurrection. This is a thing so utterly unknown to nature, and so contrary to its principles (a privatione ad habitum non datur regressus - from privation to possession there is no return), that we could have no thought of it but by the word of the Lord; and that it is certain by that word that there shall be a general resurrection of the dead some have urged from this vision, "For" (say they) "otherwise it would not properly be made a sign for the confirming of their faith in the promise of their deliverance out of Babylon, as the coming of the Messiah is mentioned for the confirming of their faith touching a former deliverance," Isa 7:14. But,
1. Whether it be a confirmation or no, it is without doubt a most lively representation of a threefold resurrection, besides that which it is primarily intended to be the sign of. (1.) The resurrection of souls from the death of sin to the life or righteousness, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life, by the power of divine grace going along with the word of Christ, Joh 5:24, Joh 5:25. (2.) The resurrection of the gospel church, or any part of it, from an afflicted persecuted state, especially under the yoke of the New Testament Babylon, to liberty and peace. (3.) The resurrection of the body at the great day, especially the bodies of believers that shall rise to life eternal.
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2. Let us observe the particulars of this vision.
(1.) The deplorable condition of these dead bones. The prophet was made, [1.] to take an exact view of them. By a prophetic impulse and a divine power he was, in vision, carried out and set in the midst of a valley, probably that plain spoken of Eze 3:22, where God then talked with him; and it was full of bones, of dead men's bones, not piled up on a heap, as in a charnel-house, but scattered upon the face of the ground, as if some bloody battle had been fought here, and the slain left unburied till all the flesh was devoured or putrefied, and nothing left but the bones, and those disjointed from one another and dispersed. He passed by them round about, and he observed not only that they were very many (for there are multitudes gone to the congregation of the dead), but that, lo, they were very dry, having been long exposed to the sun and wind. The bones that have been moistened with marrow (Job 21:24), when they have been any while dead, lose all their moisture, and are dry as dust. The body is now fenced with bones (Job 10:11), but then they will themselves be defenceless. The Jews in Babylon were like those dead and dry bones, unlikely ever to come together, to be so much as a skeleton, less likely to be formed into a body, and least of all to be a living body. However, they lay unburied in the open valley, which encouraged the hopes of their resurrection, as of the two witnesses, Rev 11:8, Rev 11:9. The bones of Gog and Magog shall be buried (Eze 39:12, Eze 39:15), for their destruction is final; but the bones of Israel are in the open valley, under the eye of Heaven, for there is hope in their end. [2.] He was made to own their case deplorable, and not to be helped by any power less than that of God himself (Eze 37:3): "Son of man, can these bones live? Is it a thing likely? Cast thou devise how it should be done? Can thy philosophy reach to put life into dry bones, or thy politics to restore a captive nation?" "No," says the prophet, "I know not how it should be done, but thou knowest." He does not say, "They cannot live," lest he should seem to limit the Holy One of Israel; but, "Lord, thou knowest whether they can and whether they shall; if thou dost not put life into them, it is certain that they cannot life." Note, God is perfectly acquainted with his own power and his own purposes, and will have us to refer all to them, and to see and own that his wondrous works are such as could not be effected by any counsel or power but his own.
(2.) The means used for the bringing of these dispersed bones together and these dead and dry bones to life. It must be done by prophecy. Ezekiel is ordered to prophesy upon these bones (Eze 37:4 and again Eze 37:9), to prophesy to the wind. So he prophesied as he was commanded, Eze 37:7, Eze 37:10. [1.] He must preach, and he did so; and the dead bones lived by a power that went along with the word of God which he preached. [2.] He must pray, and he did so; and the dead bones were made to live in answer to prayer; for a spirit of life entered into them. See the efficacy of the word and prayer, and the necessity of both, for the raising of dead souls. God bids his ministers prophesy upon the dry bones. Say unto them, Live; yea, say unto them, Live; and they do as they are commanded, calling to them again and again, O you dry bones! hear the word of the Lord. But we call in vain, still they are dead, still they are very dry; we must therefore be earnest with God in prayer for the working of the Spirit with the word: Come, O breath! and breathe upon them. God's grace can save souls without our preaching, but our preaching cannot save them without God's grace, and that grace must be sought by prayer. Note, Ministers must faithfully and diligently use the means of grace, even with those that there seems little probability of gaining upon. To prophesy upon dry bones seems as great a penance as to water a dry stick; and yet, whether they will hear or forbear, we must discharge our trust, must prophesy as we are commanded, in the name of him who raises the dead and is the fountain of life.
(3.) The wonderful effect of these means. Those that do as they are commanded, as they are commissioned, in the face of the greatest discouragements, need not doubt of success, for God will own and enrich his own appointments. [1.] Ezekiel looked down and prophesied upon the bones in the valley, and they became human bodies. First, That which he had to say to them was that God would infallibly raise them to life: Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, You shall live, Eze 37:5 and again Eze 37:6. And he that speaks the word will thereby do the work; he that says, They shall live, will make them alive: He will clothe them with skin and flesh (Eze 37:6), as he did at first, Job 10:11. He that made us so fearfully and wonderfully, and curiously wrought us, can in like manner new-make us, for his arm is not shortened. Secondly, That which was immediately done for them was that they were moulded anew into shape. We may well suppose it was with great liveliness and vigour that the prophet prophesied, especially when he found what he said begin to take effect. Note, The opening, sealing, and applying of the promises, are the ordinary means of our participation of a new and divine nature. As Ezekiel prophesied in this vision there was a noise, a word of command, from heaven, seconding what he said; or it signified the motion of the angels that were to be employed as the ministers of the divine Providence in the deliverance of the Jews, and we read of the noise of their wings (Eze 1:24) and the sound of their going, Sa2 5:24. And, behold, a shaking, or commotion, among the bones. Even dead and dry bones begin to move when they are called to hear the word of the Lord. This was fulfilled when, upon Cyrus's proclamation of liberty, those whose spirits God had stirred up began to think of making use of that liberty, and getting ready to be gone. When there was a noise, behold, a shaking; when David heard the sound of the going on the tops of the mulberry-trees then he bestirred himself; then there was a shaking. When Paul heard the voice saying, Why persecutest thou me? behold, a shaking of the dry bones; he trembled and was astonished. But this was not all: The bones came together bone to his bone, under a divine direction; and, though there is in man a multitude of bones, yet of all the bones of those numerous slain not one was missing, not one missed its way, not one missed its place, but, as it were by instinct, each knew and found its fellow. The dispersed bones came together and the displaced bones were knit together, the divine power supplying that to these dry bones which in a living body every joint supplies. Thus shall it be in the resurrection of the dead; the scattered atoms shall be ranged and marshalled in their proper place and order, and every bone come to his bone, by the same wisdom and power by which the bones were first formed in the womb of her that is with child. Thus it was in the return of the Jews; those that were scattered in several parts of the province of Babylon came to their respective families, and all as it were by consent to the general rendezvous, in order to their return. By degrees sinews and flesh came upon these bones, and the skin covered them, Eze 37:8. This was fulfilled when the captives got their effects about them, and the men of their place helped them with silver, and gold, and whatever they needed for their remove, Ezr 1:4. But still there was no breath in them; they wanted spirit and courage for such a difficult and hazardous enterprise as this was of returning to their own land. [2.] Ezekiel then looked up and prophesied to the wind, or breath, or spirit, and said, Come, O breath! and breathe upon these slain. As good have been still dry bones as dead bodies: but as for God his work is perfect; he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; therefore breathe upon them that they may live. In answer to this request, the breath immediately came into them, Eze 37:10. Note, the spirit of life is from God; he at first in the creation breathed into man the breath of life, and so he will at last in the resurrection. The dispirited despairing captives were wonderfully animated with resolution to break through all the discouragements that lay in the way of their return and applied themselves to it with all imaginable vigour. And then they stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army; not only living men, but effective men, fit for service in the wars and formidable to all that gave them any opposition. Note, With God nothing is impossible. He can out of stones raise up children unto Abraham and out of dead and dry bones levy an exceedingly great army to fight his battles and plead his cause.
II. The application of this vision to the present calamitous condition of the Jews in captivity: These bones are the whole house of Israel, both the ten tribes and the two. See in this what they are and what they shall be.
1. The depth of despair to which they are now reduced, Eze 37:11. They all give up themselves for lost and gone; they say, "Our bones are dried, our strength is exhausted, our spirits are gone, our hope is all lost; every thing we looked for succour and relief from fails us, and we are cut off for our parts. Let who will cherish some hope, we see no ground for any." Note, When troubles continue long, hopes have been often frustrated, and all creature-confidences fail, it is not strange if the spirits sink; and nothing but an active faith in the power, promise, and providence of God will keep them from quite dying away. 2. The height of prosperity to which, notwithstanding this, they shall be advanced: "therefore, because things have come thus to the last extremity, prophesy to them, and tell them, now is God's time to appear for them. Jehovah-jireh - in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen, Eze 37:12-14. Tell them," (1.) "That they shall be brought out of the land of their enemies, where they are as it were buried alive: I will open your graves." Those shall be restored, not only whose bones are scattered at the grave's mouth (Psa 141:7), but who are buried in the grave; though the power of the enemy is like the bars of the pit, which one would think it impossible to break through, strong as death and cruel as the grave, yet it shall be conquered. God can bring his people up from the depths of the earth, Psa 71:20. (2.) "That they shall be brought into their own land, where they shall live in prosperity: I will bring you into the land of Israel (Eze 37:12) and place you there (Eze 37:14), and will put my spirit in you and then you shall live." Note, Then God puts spirit in us to good purpose, and so that we shall indeed live, when he puts his Spirit in us. And (lastly) in all this God will be glorified: You shall know that I am the Lord (Eze 37:13), and that I have spoken it and performed it, Eze 37:14. Note, God's quickening the dead redounds more than any thing to his honour, and to the honour of his word, which he has magnified above all his name, and will magnify more and more by the punctual accomplishment of every tittle of it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–10 The hand of the Lord was upon me,.... The…
The hand of the Lord was upon me,.... The Spirit of the Lord, a powerful impulse of his upon the prophet; the Targum interprets it a spirit of prophecy; See Gill on Eze 1:3,
and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord: out of the place where he was to another; not really, but visionally, as things appeared to him, and as they were represented to his mind by the Spirit of God:
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and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones: of men, as the Targum adds: this valley, Kimchi thinks, was the same by the river Chebar, where the prophet had his visions at first. R. Jochanan says it was the valley of Dura, and these the bones of them that were slain by Nebuchadnezzar there, Dan 3:1. Rab says these were the children of Ephraim, slain by the men of Gath, Ch1 7:20. Some of the Jewish Rabbins think there was a real resurrection at this time. R. Eliezer says, the dead Ezekiel quickened stood upon their feet, sung a song, and died. R. Eliezer, the son of R. Jose the Galilean, says, they went up into the land of Israel, married wives, and begat sons and daughters. R. Judah ben Bethira stood upon his feet, and said, I am of their children's children, and these are the "tephillim" my father's father left me (r); but these are all fabulous and romantic: others of them understand the whole in a parabolical way: these bones, and the quickening of them, were an emblem of the restoration of the Jews from their captivity, who were in a helpless and hopeless condition, as appears from Eze 37:11, and of the conversion of that people in the latter day, which will be as life from the dead; and of the revival of the interest and church of Christ, when the slain witnesses shall rise, and ascend to heaven; and of the resurrection of the dead at the last day; and may be applied unto and be used to illustrate the quickening of dead sinners, by the efficacious grace of the Spirit of God.
(r) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 92. 2. Vid. Kimchi & Abendana in loc.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 The vision of the resurrection of the dry bones,…
The vision of the resurrection of the dry bones, ver. 1- 10. The explication of it, ver. 11-14 A type of the happy coalition which would be between Israel and Judah, ver. 15-22. A prediction of the kingdom of Christ, and of the glories and graces of that kingdom, ver. 23-28.
And set me down - So it seemed to me in the vision. Which is a lively representation of a threefold resurrection:
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1. Of the resurrection of souls, from the death of sin, to the life of righteousness:
2. The resurrection of the church from an afflicted state, to liberty and peace:
3. The resurrection of the body at the great day, especially the bodies of believers to life eternal.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 This chapter treats of the same subject with the…
CHAPTER XXXVII
This chapter treats of the same subject with the preceding, in
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a beautiful and significant vision. Under the emblem of the
open valley being thickly strewed with very dry bones is
represented the hopeless state of the Jews when dispersed
throughout the provinces of the Chaldean empire. But God,
contrary to every human probability, restores these bones to
life, thereby prefiguring the restoration of that people from
the Babylonish captivity, and their resettlement in the land of
their forefathers, 1-14.
The prophet then makes an easy and elegant transition to the
blessedness of the people of God under the Gospel dispensation,
in the plenitude of its manifestation, when the genuine
converts to Christianity, the spiritual Israel, shall be no
longer under the domination of heathen and anti-christian
rulers, but shall be collected together into one visible
kingdom, and constitute but one flock under one Shepherd, 15-28.
The vision of the dry bones reviving is considered by some as
having a remote view to the general resurrection.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXVII
Verse 1. The hand of the Lord was upon me] The prophetic influence was communicated.
And carried me out in the spirit] Or, And the Lord brought me out in the spirit; that is, a spiritual vision, in which all these things were doubtless transacted.
The valley which was full of bones] This vision of the dry bones was designed, first, as an emblem of the then wretched state of the Jews; secondly, of the general resurrection of the body.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7 Eze 37:1. The hand of the Lord was upon…
Eze 37:1. The hand of the Lord was upon me — I was actuated by a divine power; and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord — Or, by the Spirit of the Lord. It is highly probable that all this passed in vision. And set me down in the midst of the valley full of bones — The first and great object of this prophecy seems evidently to be the restoration of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. A nation carried into captivity ceases to be a nation, and therefore may be fitly compared to bones, or dead bodies; so that by the valley of bones was first signified, the Babylonish dominions filled with captive Jews. Bishop Warburton observes, “that the messengers of God, prophesying for the people’s consolation in disastrous times, frequently promise a restoration to the former days of felicity; and, to obviate all distrust from unpromising appearances, they put the case even at the worst, and assure the people, in metaphorical expressions, that though the community were as entirely dissolved as a dead body reduced to dust, yet God would raise that community again to life.” But besides the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon, this vision is a lively representation of a three- fold resurrection: 1st, Of the resurrection of souls, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life, by the power of divine grace accompanying the word of Christ, Joh 5:24-25. 2d, The resurrection of the gospel church, or of any part of it, from an afflicted state to liberty and peace. 3d, The resurrection of the body at the great day, especially the bodies of believers, to life eternal. This last seems to be one thing particularly designed. “Though the generality of commentators,” says Mr. Peters, “regard this vision and prophecy as no other than a figurative representation and prediction of a return of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon, or some other of their captivities and dispersions, yet, perhaps, we shall find, upon a more attentive consideration, that whatever hopes it might give them of a temporal and national deliverance or prosperity, yet there was evidently something further designed; and that to comfort them in their distressed situation, with the prospect of a future resurrection in a proper sense, was as much intended by the Spirit of God, or rather more so, than the other.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 9 The valley - The same word as “the plain”…
The valley - The same word as “the plain” Eze 3:22; Eze 8:4. The “dry bones” represented the Israelites dispersed abroad, destitute of life national and spiritual.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 7, 9 Spirit, by a divine impulse. He was not really…
Spirit, by a divine impulse. He was not really removed. (Menochius) (Calmet) --- Bones. "This passage is very famous." (St. Jerome) --- It insinuates the liberation of the captives and of the Gentiles, as well as the mystery of the resurrection. (Worthington) --- If this were not to take place, it would not be adduced as a figure. (Tertullian) (St. Jerome)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 3. The Vision of the Resurrection and Re-quickening of…
3. The Vision of the Resurrection and Re-quickening of the Dead Bones, and the Symbolical Action with the One Stick out of the Two Sticks, along with the Interpretation (Ch. 37)
1The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and [as] Jehovah took me out in the Spirit and made me rest [brought me, set me down] in the midst of the 2valley, and it was full of bones. And He led me over by them round about, and behold, [there were] very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, 3[they were] very dry. And He said to me, Son of man, will these bones 4live [become alive]? And I said, Lord Jehovah, Thou knowest. And He said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Ye dry bones, hear the 5 word of Jehovah, 5Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to these bones, Behold, I 6bring spirit into you, and ye live. And I give sinews on you, and make flesh to come up over you, and cover you with skin, and give breath in you, and 7ye live, and know that I am Jehovah. And I prophesied as I was commanded; and there came a voice as I prophesied, and behold, a rustling, and 8the bones drew near, bone to his bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh came up on them, and skin covered them from above, yet breath 9[was] not in them. And He said to me, Prophesy to the Spirit; prophesy, son of man, and say to the Spirit, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Come from the four winds, thou Spirit, and breathe into these slain, that they may live 10[become alive]. And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the Spirit came into them, and they lived [became alive], and stood upon their feet a very great 11army. And He said to me, Son of man, these bones [are] the whole house of Israel; Behold, they say, our bones were dried and our hope perished, for us, 12we are undone. Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I open your graves, and lead you up out of your graves, 13My people, and bring you to the land of Israel. And ye know that I am Jehovah, when I open your graves and lead you up out of your graves, My 14people; And I give My Spirit in you, and ye live, and I bring you to rest upon your land, and ye know that I, Jehovah, spoke and did—sentence of 15,16Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, And thou, son of man, take to thee a stick, and write on it, For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his associates; and take another stick, and write on it, For Joseph, the 17stick of Ephraim, and of the whole house of Israel, his associates. And bring them near the one to the other for thee into one stick, that they may be 18[become] one in thy hand. And when the sons of thy people shall speak to 19thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what these [sticks] are to thee? Then say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his associates, and put them on it, that is, the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in My hand. 20And the sticks on which thou shalt write are 21in thy hand before their eyes. And say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I take the sons of Israel out from among the heathen, whither they went, and gather them from round about, and bring them to 22their land. And I make them one people in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all; and they [there] shall no more be two peoples, and they shall never again be divided into two kingdoms. 23And they shall no more defile themselves with their foul idols, and with their detestable things, and with all their transgressions; and I help them from all their dwelling-places where they have sinned, and cleanse them, and they 24shall be My people, and I will be their God. And My servant David shall be king over them, and one shepherd shall be to them all; and they shall 25walk in My judgments, and shall keep My statutes, and do them. And they dwell upon the land which I gave to My servant Jacob, in which your fathers dwelt, and they dwell on it, they and their sons, and their sons’ sons, for ever, 26and David My servant [is] prince to them for ever. And I make for them a covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant [covenant of eternity] shall be with them; and I give them and multiply them, and give My sanctuary in their 27midst for ever. And My dwelling is over them, and I am their God and they shall be My people. 28And the heathen know that I, Jehovah, sanctify Israel, in that My sanctuary is in their midst for ever.
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Eze_37:1. Vulg.: … in spiritu domini—
Eze_37:5. Sept.: ... εἰς ὑμας πνευμα ζωης.
Eze_37:6. ... νευρα … πνευμα μου ἐφ̓ ὑμας—
Eze_37:7. κκθως ἐνετειλατο μοι κυριος—(Another reading: כאשר צוני, Syr., Vulg., Arabs.)
Eze_37:9. ... κ. ἐμφυσησον εἰς τ. νεκρους τουτους κ. ζησατωσαν.
Eze_37:10. … συναγωγη μεγαλη σφοδρα.
Eze_37:11. … διαπεφωνκαμεν.
Eze_37:14. … κ. θησομαι ὑμας ἐξι τ. γην ὑμων—
Eze_37:16. … ῥαβδον … τους προσχειμενους προς αὐτον.
Eze_37:17. ... εἰς ῥ. μιας του δησαι αὐτχς χ. ἐσονται ἐν τ. χειρι σου. (Another reading: plur. בידיך.)
Eze_37:19. Sept.: ... την φυλην Ἰωσηφ την δια κειρος Ἐφραιμ … ἐκι τ. φυλην του Ἰουδα … ἐν τ. κειρι Ἰουδα. Vulg.: … et dabo eas pariter cum ligno J. … in manu ejus. (Anoth. reading: בידו.)
Eze_37:21. Sept.: ... λαμβανω καντα οἰχον Ἰ … γην Ἰ.
Eze_37:22. αὐτος εἰς ἐθνος ἐν τ. γη μου—
Eze_37:23. ... ἱνα μη … εν οἱς ἡμαρτοσαν ἐν αὐτοις, χ. ἐν τ. χροσοχθισμασιν αὐτων κ. … ἀπο πασων τ. ἀνομιων ὡν ἠμαρτοσαν ἐν αὐταις—(Another reading: פשעיהם et Arabs.)
Eze_37:24. ἀρχων ἐν μεσω αὐτων … ὁτι ἐν—
Eze_37:25. … οἱ πατερες αὐτων—
Eze_37:28. Sept.: ... ὁ ἁγιαζων αὐτους—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The two sections of the chapter, Eze_37:1-14 and Eze_37:15-28, are already distinguished by the introductory formula (Eze_37:1; Eze_37:15); still more decidedly by their difference of form,—first a vision, and then a symbolic action; as also by their contents, which, however, with all their diversity, show the most intimate connection—what in the first section is prophesied of the whole of Israel is in the second ratified by promise in relation to the parts. [Hengst.: “the restoration of Israel as a covenant-people, and the restoration of Israel as a brotherhood.”] The re-quickening and reunion of Israel. The interpretation is connected with both prophetic sections of our chapter, appended (Eze_37:11-14) to the first, while in the second it is given along with the prophecy. The connection with Ezekiel 30. is apparent from the close of that chapter, Eze_37:24 sq.
Eze_37:1-10. The Quickening of the Bones in the Valley.
Eze_37:1. הָיְחָה, comp. Eze_1:3 (וַהְּהִי עָלָיו) and Eze_33:22 (הָיְתָה אֵלַי). Although not the stronger introductory formula (as in Eze_8:1), yet the description given of Ezekiel’s condition is sufficient simply to set aside a mere “product of poetical intuition” (Hitzig). “The abrupt commencement without and” is, according to Hengstenberg, meant to point out that “the fact here related is extraordinary, and out of connection with the usual prophetic activity.” [“As the subject itself is a quite unusual one, so also the description is such as Ezekiel never elsewhere draws. Such a never-seen sight is seen by itself in a moment of higher inspiration, or never,” Ewald.] As the Vulgate, so also Hitzig, against the accent: “in the Spirit of Jehovah;” but יְהוָֹה is subject, and בְרוּחַ simply: ἐν τνευματι (Mat_22:43), in contrast to ἐν σωματι (2Co_12:2), to which it is easy to supply אֱלֹהִים (Eze_11:24), which (as Keil justly observes) was omitted because of the יְחוָֹה (comp. Eze_8:3). Ecstatic state in which he was inwardly transported from the things around him.—The valley can only be the one mentioned in Eze_3:22, when we consider that those who speak in Eze_37:11 were settled there in the neighbourhood, and consequently could be represented as the bones in the valley. At all events, it is not a valley in general, but a certain valley; and if nothing else, that (וְהִיא) which was full of bones. Hengstenberg points out the contrast to the mountain (Eze_17:22), the “lowness of condition”! Hitzig: “The valley is fitted to represent a huge grave;” but the thought is less of graves than of their opposite (עַל־פְּנֵי, Eze_37:2), namely, that the slain (Eze_37:9) have remained unburied, their bones bleach and dry there.—The bones are men’s bones (Isa_66:14); in the connection here: the remains of the slain, abundance of which might be in the disturbed districts of Judah; according to the Talmudists: slain Ephraimites, 1Ch_7:20 sq. Looking from the midst of the valley, he could warrant that it was full of bones.
Eze_37:2. עֲלֵיהֶם, over by them, or “over past them;” hence not: “over,” to tread them with the feet, or to hover over them, but: round about, so that he might be able to view them exactly, as the repeated וְהִנֵּה, as the result of such inspection, brings to view the very many and their being very dry, neither sap nor strength in them. Comp. moreover, Ezekiel 6. [Ewald refers for “the rapid narration, with its constant fall into the present,” to his Grammar, § 342 b.]
The question in Eze_37:3 is fitted to bring the prophet, and, through him, his hearers and readers, to the consciousness of the impossibility presented to human eyes (son of man); and considering the words uttered by Israel (Eze_37:11), its intention doubtless is to bring out the despair of the people, in order to make room in their hearts for the prophecy of salvation (Eze_37:12). Ezekiel’s answer refers the matter to God (Rev_7:14), for with God there is no impossibility, unless He wills it, and that God alone can know. Comp. on this point Isa_26:19.
Eze_37:4. When Ezekiel is summoned to prophesy over the bones, their future, asked (Eze_37:3) by Jehovah in relation to them, comes to view as an affair of Jehovah’s, of His counsel, will, and purpose; they may therefore be addressed (וְאָמ׳ אֲלֵיהֶם), however dry they are. Grotius observes: so much the more as the prisoners in the exile are to be understood.—The word of Jehovah (Eze_36:1; Eze_36:4) mediates the salvation, the life to be prophesied. Hence not see, for then death, and nothing but death, will come to view. In Ezekiel’s vision all depends on “hearing;” recognise God’s word, and trust to it (Joh_4:48; Joh_20:19). This, at the same time, legitimates as divine the word of Ezekiel’s prophetic announcement. The tenor, however, of the divine word—Jehovah announces what will take place, what He purposes to do (Amo_3:7)—follows in Eze_37:5. What is said to them is, from the certainty of its being accomplished, in reality said of them, as הִנֵּה already formally points to the accomplishment.—רוּחַ, although followed by וִחְיִיתֶם of the effect generally on the whole, is yet not exactly ר׳ חַיִים of Gen_6:17, or נִשְׁמַח־ת׳ ח׳ of Gen_7:22, “breath”; for it is just that which is in a living being that is here left out of view, and, in contrast to that which is dried up, above all, simply the creative divine power, hence spirit quite objectively and generally is contemplated. (“The Spirit of God is the principle of all real life in the creaturely existence,” Häv.) That we have here another order (Hengst.) than in the execution (Eze_37:7 sq.) is not the case, for the more detailed description which follows immediately in Eze_37:6 presents the same order as the execution follows. The Spirit also does not press forward at the beginning as the (Hitzig) chief thing, without which the rest, the merely bodily resurrection, is of no importance (Hengst.), but as וִחְיִיתֶם implies: “to live” in genera], without separation for the present into political and spiritual, so אֲנִי מֵבִיא בָכֶם ר׳ introduces the divine causality simply as first, as conditio sine qua non. The more special is expressed
Eze_37:6—by a parallel וְנָתַתִּי; and afterwards by נִּידִים, the “binding matter,” the sinews, and by the making of “flesh to come up,” and by the קרם (a word only found in Ezekiel), with skin, the outward form of life is completed, from which the spirit which enlivens the flesh is distinguished, but is as yet to be considered as natural, now as breath, the individual life, in consequence of which it certainly can be said: וִידַעְתֶּם׳. But the spiritual element, although intimated in this, is first expressly stated in the interpretation (Eze_37:14), with reference back to Eze_36:27.
The prophecy, in accordance with the command given to Ezekiel (Eze_37:4), is not limited (as Hengst.) in Eze_37:7 to the summons to the bones to “hear,” sq., but comprehends also what Jehovah says to these bones in Eze_37:5-6; for that He is the speaker makes the saying a prophecy, although to prophesy in general may be said to mean the same as: “to speak in the Spirit.”—The voice which came was audible; its simplest interpretation is in accordance with Eze_1:25. The prophet was to prophesy; what Jehovah purposed to say to the bones (Eze_37:4-6), the prophet now prophesies; and since he prophesies according to the command, Thus saith Jehovah, that which was prophesied to the bones is from God, and the voice is to be understood as Jehovah’s, from which the New Testament representation is perhaps coloured (Joh_5:28), and neither a “noise” nor “sound” in general-anything like a thunder-clap would be out of place in this sublime and orderly connection—nor in particular: “the sound of a trumpet.” Keil’s position, that it cannot be supposed that God should bind His voice of power to the prophecy of the prophet, has in reality no significance. On the other hand, he is right in referring רַעַשׁ (Eze_3:12; Eze_12:18) to the noise by which the effect of the word of Jehovah announced itself to the bones, now coming together in consequence thereof. [Hävernick makes the “sound” pass into a “mighty peal.” Hitzig, in order to have the “fitting impulse” from the ground, translates: “earthquake” (Mat_27:51), under reference to Eze_38:19.] God’s voice of power is followed by a rustling, caused by the bones coming rustling up from the surface of the valley. Thereafter (וְ consecutive) “the bones come together,” which may be thus distinguished from what follows, that it refers to whatever belongs to one body, while עֶצֶם אֶל־עַצ׳ specializes a single bone in relation to another, e.g. the upper to the lower part of the arm (on the form חִּקְרְבוּ, see Ewald, Gr. p. 505). [“This may also be interpreted of the first movements of the scattered Israelites in the various settlements in Chaldea, and their assembling for quiet consultation, where the members of the people met again in secret,” Schmieder.]
Eze_37:8, as was promised in Eze_37:6. [“May be interpreted of Israel’s first growth in hope, conscious strength, and vigour,” Schmieder.] The remark that yet breath was not in them may serve formally for the dramatic colouring of the event in the representation; as to actual fact, it sets forth the creative power of God in the action, which is in this way twofold. That thereby is shown that “the restoration is first pre-eminently an external, political one” (Hengst.), is not of necessity contained in the text, but the original creation of man, as related in Gen_2:7, forms a pattern for the text. (Joh_7:39 makes the deepest application of the וְרוּחַ׳.)—Correspondingly, therefore, Ezekiel has in Eze_37:9 to prophesy once more,—this time to the Spirit (Eze_37:5), that is, not to the “breath,” for that is רוּחַ only in a living person, as we have already said, and still less to the “wind,” which is the sensuous natural symbol of the Spirit. And from what follows it is still clearer that the “outpouring of the Spirit” cannot be spoken of here, but what is spoken of is the universal spirituality which pervades all creation. Hence the Spirit is to come from the four winds; not without reference, moreover, to Eze_5:10; Eze_5:12; Eze_12:14; Eze_17:21 (Mat_24:31; Rev_7:1). מֵאַרְבַּע׳ makes clear the distinction between רוּחוֹת and הָרוּחַ. Our passage has nothing to do with the “breathing on” in Joh_20:22, and just as little is “the fulness and force of the Spirit’s operations, Act_2:2” (Hengst.), indicated by the “wind from the four winds.” וּפְחִי makes a very plain allusion to Gen_2:7. [“The quickening Spirit of God awakens the resolution to return to God’s covenant and to the land of their fathers,” Schmieder.]—Slain: killed, not deceased (Doct. Reflect. 5). The colouring is taken from those condemned and executed by the Chaldeans (Eze_37:11). Regarding וְיִחְיוּ, comp. on Eze_37:5.
Eze_37:10. Exchanging Hithp. וְהִנַּבְּאתִי (Ewald, Gr. p. 331) for Niphal of Eze_37:7, and צִוָּנִי Piel in place of Pual in Eze_37:7.
Eze_37:9; Eze_37:5. The Spirit, in order to become the breath of life in them (comp. Eze_2:2; Eze_3:24).—2Ki_13:21; Rev_11:11.
Eze_37:11-14.The Divine Interpretation of the Vision
The process in the vision Eze_37:1-10 is symbolical, as shown by the phrase in Eze_37:11 : these bones are, etc., which refers to the whole vision as it treated of the bones. Hence the bones, which lay there very dry, but at Jehovah’s word became alive, which were very many (Eze_37:2), a very great army (Eze_37:10), bear the sense of and signify the whole house of Israel; and this already prepares for the second section of our chapter. According to Hitzig, Judah and Israel combined denote the State broken up by the war, and also the generation cut off by it; against which view we observe that the dead cannot be “saying” here any more than the bones, but, as in Eze_11:15 sq., the Israel in exile must be contemplated, who now indeed compared themselves to the dead, but to whom, on the contrary, life is immediately (Eze_37:12) to be proclaimed and promised. In what they say (comp. Eze_33:10) is contained the so frequently overlooked tertium comparationis, and the cause for the vision in Eze_37:1-10. Hence the divine interpretation does not primarily start from the outward condition of the people in general, and still less from that of a part of them, the dead of Israel, but from what the despair of those in exile says, hence from the frame of mind which thus found voice: our bones are dried, etc. The relation of יָבְשׁוּ and יְבֵשׁוֹת (Eze_37:2) to each other is evident.—נִגְזַרְנוּ, properly: “cut off,” separated, shut out from God’s help (Psa_88:6 [5], 31:23 [22]; Isa_53:8).—לָנוּ, according to Gesenius, a superfluous pronominal dative, as much as to say: We are undone. Hitzig: Reduced to ourselves. [Delitzsch: It is over with us. Hengst.: We are cut off for us, referring the “for us” to the sadness of the fact for those concerned.] The language which they employ corresponds thoroughly to the question in Eze_37:3. That which, believing themselves abandoned, without any hope (Eze_19:5) of again rising up to be a nation, they say of themselves, Ezekiel beheld in the valley,—merely very dry bones. So much the more, and the more literally, can what was done with these bones, a procedure which the prophet had to prophesy, and was afterwards permitted to behold, avail as a promise to them.
Eze_37:12 therefore parallel to Eze_37:4 sq., but still keeping primarily in view the despairing speech of the exiles: הִנָּבֵא וְאָמַרְתָּ, not yet, however, הנֵּה אֲנִימֵבִיא בָכֶם רוּחַ׳ (Eze_37:5), as Eze_37:14 hereafter, but first: behold, I open your graves, meaning thereby the abodes of the exile, since the Jews who were in exile considered themselves like dead men. The accommodating interpretation changes the valley with the many bones on its surface into many graves, which have “to be opened,” etc. My people, here and in the following a very comforting title. Israel, however, ought always to be so, and therefore also to have constantly been so. Consequently we have at the same time prominence given to the contrast between Israel’s destiny and its deadly despair, and hence a notification of its unbelief and offences in general.—What in the vision the clothing with sinews, flesh, and skin was in relation to the bones (Eze_37:6 sq.), could in the interpretation applying to the living be regarded as political restoration, as this has to begin with leading out of Babylon and bringing back to Canaan.
Eze_37:13. וִידַעְתֶּם reminds of וִידַעְתֶּם in Eze_37:6.
Eze_37:14 takes up וְנָתַתִּי בָכֶם רוּחַ of Eze_37:6 and the rest of the vision, pointing, however, by רוּחִי to Eze_36:27, as by וְהִנַּחְתִּי to לְעוֹלָם in the following, for which comp. Ezekiel 28:26, 34. The inspiriting and quickening for a home system which is to have permanence, and especially in the case of a people like Israel, will of necessity be spiritual and religious.—Isa_14:1.—Eze_17:24; Eze_22:14; Eze_36:36.
Eze_37:15-18. The Reunion of Israel and Judah
After the vision thus interpreted, there follows in Eze_37:16—accompanied by an interpretation—a symbolic action, the outward reality of which there is no difficulty in admitting. Both the contents (comp. Eze_37:11) and the transition with וְ connect what follows with the first section of the chapter, of which it forms the continuation and completion. Israel again become a nation, must, overcoming the separation which had taken place, also again become one nation. What follows draws the consequence from what has preceded.—עֵץ, “board” (tablet), or “staff,” or simply “wood,” stick.—For the “writing,” comp. Numbers 17.—The sons of Israel, his associates (while the text reads the singular for “association”), are, according to Hengstenberg, a “small” part of Benjamin, Simeon, and Levi, and the members of the kingdom of the ten tribes who had attached themselves to Judah; according to Keil: the “greater” part of Benjamin and Simeon, the tribe of Levi, and the pious Israelites who had at various times immigrated into Judah from the kingdom of the ten tribes, 2Ch_11:13 sq., 15:9, 30:11, 18, 31:1.—Joseph is placed first, as Hengstenberg says, because Ephraim’s equality with Judah rests upon him in consequence of the blessing of Jacob; more simply, because it is the genealogical title of the patriarch. That the stick of Ephraim (comp. Eze_37:19), which has been looked on as a later interpolation, is subjoined, is an addition taken from historical reality, for Ephraim was the head of the kingdom of the ten tribes.
Eze_37:17. וְקָרַב אֹתָם אֶחָד אֶל־אִחָד reminds of וַתִּקְרְבוּ עֲצָמוֹת עֶצֶם אֶל־עַצְמוֹ in Eze_37:7.—בְּיָדֶךָ illustrates לְךָ, corresponding to the symbolic action—here in the hand of Ezekiel, as hereafter in his word. In order to make them appear as one stick, they must hare been adapted for that, and could scarcely have been “staves.”
Eze_37:18. Comp. Eze_24:19. The purpose of the symbolic action, what it was meant to incite, on which account it is to be conceived of as externally real (Eze_37:20).—What (are) these sticks to thee? that is: what is their signification?
Eze_37:19, the interpretation. Where Eze_37:16 has the stick of Ephraim, we have now the stick of Joseph, which first of all implies exactly the same as the stick described “for Joseph.” In what respect it is designated the stick of Ephraim is then made plain by the Words: which is in the hand of Ephraim (the expression בְּיַד doubtless suggested by בְּיָדֶךָ, Eze_37:17); and thereby, at the same time, the transition is made from the sign to the thing signified, for to be in the hand = to be in the possession, in the power, hence it denotes the supremacy of this tribe. Hence, too, instead of וְכָל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל, more expressly יְשִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (“staves,” “sticks,” as “tribes”).—If the noun is anticipated by עָלָיִו, it would certainly be better to read, with Hitzig, אֶל, than אֶת: “to it, to the stick of Judah.” It lies away, however, from לֹקֵחַ, as Keil connects, to combine אוֹתָם, namely, the tribes, after they have been put on the stick of Joseph (עָלָיו), by אֶת with the stick of Judah; besides, one does not see why the tribes already joined to Joseph should still have to be united with him. The “taking” is ended with the tribes of Israel, his associates; the “giving” relates to those (אוֹתָם) taken together (וְ), that is, Joseph-Ephraim and his tribes, for the purpose of union (אֶחָדוַעֲשִׂיתִם לְעִץ) with Judah, and it is only to this that עָלָיו can refer. Hengstenberg explains אֶת: “the stick of Judah, I mean,” “to indicate that Judah is the proper stem of the people of God.” The interpretation still keeps a firm hold of the symbolic action (לְעֵץ אֶחָד), and אֶחָד בְּיָדִי evidently expresses an antithesis to Ephraim’s hand,—the union by and in God, as opposed to the separation by and in Ephraim (comp. Isa_11:13).
Eze_37:20. The symbolic sign which the prophet is to perform (Eze_37:16) is expressly designed for the eyes of those concerned, and, with the repetition of the thing to be done, at the same time mediates the connection with what follows.
Eze_37:21 sq. treats of the effecting of the reunion of the nation, after first glancing back to Eze_37:12 sq. Comp. Eze_36:24; Eze_11:17; Eze_20:34; Eze_20:41; Eze_34:13.
Eze_37:22. וְעָשִׂיהִי אוֹתָם לְגוֹי אֶחָד is the וַעֲשִׂיתִם לְעֵץ אֶחָד of Eze_37:19. The now plainly expressed signification of the stick.—Eze_34:13-14.—The one nation will be one kingdom. Comp. Eze_37:24-25; comp. Hos_3:5. [According to Hävernick, the unity of the kingdom testifies to its truth, that it represents Jehovah.] Qeri יִהְיוּ, but גּוֹי might also serve as subject to יִהְיֶה. Strong and effective negation of the old, that has passed away for ever.—Since sin, and especially idolatry, had contributed to the separation spoken of, the discourse turns to that, Eze_37:23. Comp. Eze_14:11; Eze_36:25; Eze_5:11.—מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיהֶם ought not, after Eze_6:6; Eze_6:14, to cause so much difficulty to expositors. The worship of idols, which is the subject of discourse, is just localized “transgression.” The relief consists in this, that idolatry disappears, Eze_36:29. To think with Hengstenberg of the places of abode in the exile, so that the earlier sins in Canaan did not come into account—that they, as it were, left their sins behind them in the foreign land, etc., neither suits the present connection,—is a thought here postponed, as Hitzig justly observes,—nor harmonizes with Eze_37:12 sq., according to which the exile, on the contrary, localizes the wages of sin, i.e. death. Alteration of the text is equally unnecessary, just as Keil’s “preserving from,” and Kliefoth’s idea of leading out into the glorified Canaan, are imported into the text. Comp. besides, Eze_34:13.—Eze_36:25; Eze_33:28; Eze_34:24. The closing statement, recurring in Eze_37:27, only in reverse order, seems to interrupt the consecution of the verses, so that the prophecy forms itself into two sections
Eze_37:21-23 and Eze_37:24-27—with one conclusion. What the first section contains more as to the thing done and generally, is given in the second Messianically and as to the individual, for the full completion of the thought.
Eze_37:24. See on Eze_34:23.
Eze_37:22.—Eze_11:20; Eze_36:27.
Eze_37:25. Eze_36:28; Eze_28:25; Eze_34:24.—עַד־עוֹלָם, so that the terminus ad quem is “concealed,” cannot be seen; hence for an interminable future, is to be understood Messianically, that is, in Christ, as shown by the immediately following לְעוֹלם, and all that comes after. As we find expressed here without interruption (this is the peculiarity of the whole prophecy here, in distinction to that repeated from Ezekiel 34, 36) the unity of the nation, its continued possession of Canaan, and that very plainly of the earthly Canaan, so just as plainly is all conceived of under the dominion of the King Messiah. Israel’s nationality in Canaan is bound up (Eze_37:22) with this one kingdom. As to the moral and spiritual condition of the people, their position towards God (Eze_37:23), Eze_37:24 connects likewise with the one shepherd, the King David = Messiah, the “walking in, sq.,” “keeping,” and “doing.” And in the same connection occurs Eze_37:26 (likewise לְעוֹלָם, and also בְּרִית עוֹלָם), for which comp. Eze_34:25 (Isa_55:3; Jer_32:40). As shown by comparing Eze_34:25, and confirmed by the connection with Eze_37:21-23, especially Eze_37:23, as that is the peculiar, the leading idea of the divine covenant, to which the לָהֶם corresponds, and by the whole mode of expression here, including the repeated “giving,” the making of the covenant proceeds from God in the most manifest exhibition of grace. The fact that בְּרִית שָׁלוֹם is alike explained and completed by בְּרִית עוֹלָם, expresses the Messianic character of this covenant; for the terminus ad quem (עוֹלָם) of Israel, still hid to appearance, is just the Messiah. In the “salvation” (שָׁלוֹם), when it embraces time and eternity, eternity in time, alongside of the ideal reference in the whole, the real side in the particular cannot be wanting; hence what is the daily bread for a nation, namely, putting them in the position of increase, cannot be wanting; therefore: And I give them [Keil: to be a nation] and multiply them, Eze_36:10-11; Eze_36:37. But with the giving of the sanctuary of Jehovah in their midst for ever, another Messianic type, now in close preparation for Ezekiel 40 sq., is presented to us in the text, in addition to the one king and shepherd for all, the servant of Jehovah, David. Comp. on Eze_11:16. The reference to Lev_26:9; Lev_26:11 is shown by the harmony of the prophecy with the promise given by Moses. And although the מִשְׁכָּן there in Eze_37:11 (as שָׁכַן is said of the symbol of Jehovah’s presence in the wilderness) does not so much signify the outward building, and in Ezekiel too (Eze_37:27) it is regarded as עֲלֵיהֶם, yet בְּתוֹכָם, which stands beside מִקְדָּשׁ, points to the midst of the people; comp. Exo_25:8. Hitzig is right in this, and also as to what distinguishes this passage from Eze_11:16. But he overlooks the express reference to each other of מִקְדָּשִׁי בְּתוֹכָם לְעוֹלָם and מְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵי, Eze_37:28. There is, at all events, expressed a visible national unity in Canaan as formerly, one political government, which, however, as mediated by the one King Messiah, exhibits itself as a national life purified from idolatry and conformed to law, hence moral, so also an outward serving of God by Israel is here prophesied, the sanctuary of Jehovah in the midst of Israel—that this cannot be Zerubbabel’s temple is triumphantly proved to the Jews by Keil, from the fact conceded by themselves, that the Shechinah was wanting to it;—but the heathen see therein (בִּהְיוֹת, Eze_37:28) something yet different, namely, the continuing (particip.) sanctification of Israel by God, hence religious-moral conditions. [Not merely gratiosa Dei habitatio in cordibus eorum, as Piscator.] We remember here, where what is prophesied of the sanctuary is so evidently connected with the promised servant David as king and prince, that the kingship is specially prominent in Ezekiel’s figure of the Messiah (Introd. § 9); and besides this, the passage here shows that, as likewise observed in the Introduction, § 9, with Ezekiel the main point of view continues to be the Messianic nation, the Messianic salvation of the nation. And so the phrase: My sanctuary in their midst for ever, לְעוֹלָם explaining itself in מְקַדֵּשׁ (Eze_37:28), appears essentially as prophesied of the future church of salvation, the realized kingdom of priests (Introd. § 9). (Comp. Zech. 2:14 [Zec_2:10]; Joh_1:14; Rev_21:3; Rev_7:15; 1Co_3:16; 1Co_6:19; 2Co_6:16.) [“This promise has, at all events, come to be gloriously fulfilled in the election which forms the stem of the Christian Church. It is again taken up in the saying of Christ: ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,’ ” Hengst.]
At this point of the understanding of our prophecy—and herein its most important advance, in distinction to Eze_11:16, is perhaps announced—the certainly not unintentional exchange of: My sanctuary in their midst, of Eze_37:26, for: My dwelling over them, in Eze_37:27, must decidedly be taken more spiritually than is done when Hengstenberg refers it to the “protecting power” which is afforded in the house of God (Psa_68:29 [30]), or Keil, to the “position of the temple towering up over the city.” Hitzig comes nearer the truth when he directs attention to God’s dwelling in heaven, directly (?) over the temple of Jerusalem (Isa_33:5; Psa_29:9; Psa_104:3; 1Ki_8:33-34; Gen_28:17; Psa_7:7 [8]). The sanctification of Israel before the world, as connected with the Kingship of the Messiah, and the establishing of the eternal sanctuary of God in Israel’s midst, as effected by the founding of the Church of Christ, serve for illustration and fulfilment of the עֲלֵיהֶם in Ezekiel here, as is very clear from Acts Ezekiel 2, to which is prefixed a repeated (comp. Luk_24:50 sq.) and circumstantial account of the exaltation of the Son of man, Ezekiel 1
Eze_37:23. Eze_11:20; Gen_17:7.—Eze_34:30.
Eze_37:28 (Eze_36:23; Eze_36:36). Although the mention of the heathen is still confined to the “knowing” of the sanctification of Israel, yet such knowledge cannot remain without result, without fruit; comp. Isa_44:5.—“Indication of the participation of the heathen in the promised salvation” (Hengst.).—Eze_20:12. “To sanctify” is to purge from sin as well as to consecrate, hence embracing forgiveness of sin, and quickening. The former must become clear to the heathen from the latter, and so much the clearer as they have seen the judgment of God executed on His people—have even executed it themselves. Comp. for the harmony with the promises in the Pentateuch, Exo_31:13; Lev_22:32.
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON Ezekiel 37
[“In closing this section, we present a brief outline of the view that has been taken of the prophecies contained in the three closely related chapters, 34, 36, 37, and which in substance applies equally to many other portions of the prophetical Scriptures. 1. They were originally given to revive and animate the hearts of God’s covenant-people, by holding out to them the assured prospect of a reversion from the present evil, and their still certain destination in God’s purpose to the highest and most honourable place on the earth. 2. It was the duty of those to whom such prophecies were delivered at once to believe the word spoken to them, and apply themselves in earnest to do what was needed to secure its accomplishment; and had they only done this, a far larger measure of the promised good would have been reaped than they actually experienced: this later prospect of blessing, like the earlier, given before entering Canaan, greatly failed through their own sinful unbelief. 3. But there being manifestly ideal features introduced into the delineation, especially the good spoken of being so peculiarly connected with the rule and presidency of David, clearly betokens a kind and degree of blessing which could not have been completely fulfilled under the Old Covenant, nor intended to be altogether fulfilled any time according to the letter. It shows the prophecies in question to be, like several of an earlier kind in Ezekiel, descriptions of the future under the form and image of the past—not as if the past were actually to return again, but that its general spirit and character were to revive. 4. The new things thus to be looked for in the future could only meet with their full and adequate accomplishment in Christ, who is certainly the David of the promise. They are consequently of a higher and more comprehensive nature than any that could be enjoyed under the Old Covenant, when the kingdom of God was so straitened in its dimensions, and so outward and earthly in its visible constitution. But still they were of necessity described under the hue and aspect of the things belonging to the Old Covenant—as if it were these only returning again, or these with certain alterations and improvements, such as might give the future a pre-eminence in glory over the past. For only by means of what belonged to existing or previous dispensations of God could the prophet have given any detailed exhibition of what might be expected under another and higher dispensation. The details of the future must have been cast into the mould of things already perceived or known. 5. Therefore, in forming one’s conceptions now of the real import of such prophecies—now that the transition has been made into the new and higher dispensation—we must throw ourselves back upon the narrower and more imperfect relations amid which they were written, and thence judge of what is still to come. Thus, as the David of the promise is Christ, so the covenant-people are no longer the Jews distinctively, but the faithful in Christ; and the territory of blessing no longer Canaan, but the region of which Christ is king and lord. What was spoken immediately of the one class of personages and relations, may most fully be applied to the other; and by such a method of interpretation alone do we get a uniform and consistent principle to carry us through the whole. While those, on the other hand, who would find a literal Israel, and a non-literal David, or a literal restoration in Christian times, and a non-literal tabernacle and ritual of worship, arbitrarily confound together things dissimilar and incongruous, and render certainty of interpretation absolutely impossible. 6. Sixthly, the view thus given is confirmed by the reproduction of some of these prophecies in the field of the New Testament Church, set free, as was to be expected, from the outward distinctions and limits of the Old. Thus, in particular, the resurrection-scene of this 37th chapter substantially recurs in the 20th chapter of Revelation, and is followed precisely as here by the attack from the embattled forces of Gog and Magog; while not a word is said which would confine the things spoken to the land of Canaan, or the literal Israel; it is the Church and people of Christ at large that are discoursed of. We say nothing respecting the probable time and nature of the events there referred to, but simply point to the identity in character of what is written with the prophecies before us. In those visions of the Apocalypse, the inspired evangelist stretches out the hand to Ezekiel, and shows how the word spoken so long before by that servant of God, freed from the peculiarities of its Jewish form, is to find its application to the Christian Church. The shell has gone, but the substance remains. 7. We may add, lastly, that the common interpretation, which understands Christ by David, and takes all the rest literally, must inevitably tend to justify the Jew in his unbelief. For he naturally says, Your Messiah has not done the thing you yourselves hold must be done—to fulfil the prophecy; He has not set up His throne in Canaan, and gathered Israel there, and re-established the old worship in its purity; this was the very purpose for which He was to appear, and we must wait till He comes to do it. On the basis of the literal interpretation, there seems no satisfactory answer to this; and it is well known that since it has become prevalent, many Jews believe that Christians are coming over to their view of the matter. We are not surprised to hear, as we have heard, of converted Jews declaring that such a mode of interpretation would carry them back to Judaism.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 412–414.—W. F.]
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. What has Jehovah caused, Eze_37:1-10, to be prophesied for comfort to His people (Eze_37:12-13)? The resurrection of the dead in the literal sense Kliefoth still maintains, a view which is the older ecclesiastical one, shared by Jews and Christians, so that Jerome, when expressing a different opinion regarding famosam hanc visionen, omnium ecclesiarum Christi lectione celebratam, thought it necessary to state that he did not therefore by any means wish to deny the doctrine of the resurrection. How little the connection in Ezekiel says in favour of the dogma of the general resurrection of the dead is best seen from the artificial way in which Eze_37:11 sq. is disposed of. Kliefoth interprets the prophesied bringing of Israel into their own land (as already, Eze_36:28) of the “final introduction of the people of God into the eternal Canaan,” and the quickening in Eze_37:14, of “inward renewal by the Spirit of God;” an interpretation which he has also put upon Eze_36:25 sq. From similar perplexity, Eze_37:11 has been combined with the “first resurrection” of Revelation 20, and the bringing of Israel into their own land understood in accordance with Mat_5:5. Hengstenberg, holding that “all the other comforting words of the prophet relate to things of this world,” insists upon this connection in general, and singles out in particular Eze_36:8, “which was soon to take its beginning,” and the connection of Eze_37:15 sq. and the vision. If the relation is this, that the house of Israel of the vision, reanimated by the Spirit of God, is “the whole” (Eze_37:11), and hence is to experience the reunion symbolized (Eze_37:15 sq.), then this union, which cannot be sought for among “the last things,” will also not suppose the re-quickening of Israel past. But in addition to the contradiction between the wider and the narrower connection, comes also the contrariety of the picture drawn here to the doctrine laid down in 1 Corinthians 15; those who rise again in Ezekiel’s vision simply return into earthly existence, with skin and flesh and bones. If the doctrine of the general resurrection is maintained in Eze_37:1 sq., then Eze_37:11 sq. must more or less, as also Kliefoth gives to understand, he denied to be “in the proper sense an interpretation and explanation of the significant occurence:” we must content ourselves with an application for an express purpose, namely, in order to comfort and raise up the hope of Israel with the prospect in question (see above, Eze_37:1). Against this Hengstenberg, appealing at the same, time to analogies in Daniel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel himself, justly observes: “Whosoever feels himself constrained to take Eze_37:11-14 not as an interpretation, even thereby expresses judgment concerning his view of Eze_37:1-10.” Eze_37:11 begins expressly with an explanation of the signification of “these bones,” which formed the subject of discourse, Eze_37:1-10.
2. A question which, unless one dismisses entirely the doctrine of the resurrectio mortuorum from the text before us, comes into consideration is, whether this dogma already existed in the time of Ezekiel? Hengstenberg, for example, denies indeed the express application of the doctrine to our passage, but makes the dogma serve as “figure.” Hence he must answer the question put in the affirmative. It is a necessary supposition, not only—as already Tertullian, de resurr. carnis, points out to the Gnostics, and Jerome expresses himself—that the typical application of the resurrection of the dead by Ezekiel implies the actual taking place of that resurrection, and consequently its truth must be beyond doubt, but also that the doctrine of the resurrection was already at that time a common property of religious popular knowledge in Israel, if it could thus be figuratively applied in Ezekiel. Hengstenberg (Christology, vol. 3 p. 51, Clark’s trans.) cites Pareau’s Comment. de Immortal. p. 109, and refers to Isa_25:8; Isa_26:19; Dan_12:2. The raising of the dead (1Ki_17:22; 2Ki_4:35; 2Ki_13:21) can, as isolated cases, prove nothing in its behalf; and passages like Deu_32:39, 1Sa_2:6, attest only the omnipotence of the living God. Comp. Hävern. Vorles. über die Theol. des A. T. p. 109, and his Comment, p. 581; Oehler, V. T. sententia de rebus p. mort. fut. p. 37 sq., 42 sq. Furthermore, Eze_37:3 of our vision, where the prophet leaves to the Lord the answering of the question put to him, says nothing in favour of the consciousness of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. If there was such a consciousness, we should certainly expect a corresponding answer from the prophet. Comp. Joh_11:23-24. (Hävernick: “If the prophet could have supposed such a general belief, he would necessarily (?) have appealed to it in order to establish thereon the restoration of the people, etc. But in such a hopeless case as Eze_37:11 the prophet cannot make suppositions, nor will he; he will just build anew—establish firmly anew hope in the heart.”)
3. Hengstenberg says: “The prophet, however, does not merely set out from this doctrine and use it as a means of representation; his primarily figurative representation, and the historical confirmation which it received, must also have served to awaken powerfully the belief in the resurrection. If God proves Himself the master of death in the figurative sense, if He redeems His people from outward and the spiritual misery into which they had fallen during the exile, how should the death of the body set a limit to His grace?” And again: “The salvation announced here under the figure of the resurrection is completed in the resurrection; comp. 1Co_15:19.”
4. But the text protests also against this merely typical acceptation of the doctrine of the resurrection. There are indeed (Eze_37:2) “very many,” according to Eze_37:10 “a very great army,” sufficient to suggest all the dead, at any rate sufficient for the interpretation in Eze_37:11 of the “whole” house of Israel. They are, however, not the bones of deceased men, but of slain men, as expressly stated in Eze_37:9. The open surface of the valley, moreover, hardly corresponds to the situation of the resurrection of the dead; the graves in the interpretation, still closed and yet to be opened, would be more suitable. Finally, the twofold transaction in regard to the re-quickening in the vision (Eze_37:7 sq., Eze_37:9 sq.) can hardly set before the eye the representation of the awakening of the dead; but as the direct design of the vision is to make prominent the creative in what is prophesied, the thing that is possible with God alone (Eze_37:3), so the first and the second act, especially the observation after the first in Eze_37:8, that “yet breath was not in them,” serves from the outset to make prominent the point of the interpretation, namely, God’s putting His Spirit in them, Eze_37:14.
5. Hitzig’s view of the vision takes more account of the noteworthy circumstance that it treats of slain men. But how? He makes (as already in Ezekiel 34, King David) the Israelites slain in the destruction of the two kingdoms be called upon by the prophet to rise again. Thus the vision is a vision of a partial resurrection. There was already a similar opinion among the Talmudists (Sanhedr. xcii. 2)—comp. on Eze_37:1; and it is also maintained that such a resurrection did actually take place, and even that those who rose again begot offspring in Canaan; thus one Talmudist expressly declares his descent from one of them.1 To say nothing of the strangeness of such a view,—for which certainly the “supernatural character of the Hebrew system” offers, as Hitzig must grant, no sufficient support,—“the idea itself of the resurrection” proves nothing, but it must be maintained in Eze_34:23-24; Eze_37:24-25, in order that it may be referred to for the vision before us; moreover, as to the context, such a resurrection prophecy does not fit in excellently before and after, as Hitzig supposes. For the multiplication of the people promised in Eze_36:37-38 (comp. Eze_36:10) surely points to something else than specially a multiplication by resurrection of the slain; and the combination of the vision in the chapter here with Ezekiel 38, however ingenious and plausible, is by no means the necessary combination imperatively required by the text. Comp. the exegesis in loc.
6. Thus the dogma of the resurrection of the dead, as well as the announcement of a “first resurrection” of Israel, or of his slain, literally understood, must be dismissed from our chapter. So also the parabolical application of that dogma is not the sense of the text. If the view is put forward that the whole is figurative, then a mere poetical figure excogitated by Ezekiel cannot certainly be harmonized with the express character of Eze_37:1-10; comp. on Eze_37:1. We have before us a divine vision, which the Lord in express revelation gave His prophet to behold. Hence there must be more to find in this vision than the clothing of an idea, “well conceived and carried out with dramatic effect” (Philipps.). The objection raised by Hävernick against the view of only outward liberation of the people and the flourishing of the State anew already under Zerubbabel (Grotius, Vatablus, Ammon’s Bibl. Theol.), and also against Ewald’s deeper penetration into the matter, the objection, namely, that it is not permissible to repeat this idea from Ezekiel 36, cannot be maintained. But we have first to deal with the form, and then we will have to remember that the conformation of the thought as contained in the vision cannot be suggested by what is known and suitable for restoration of any kind, as is coming to life again out of a state of death, but on the contrary will have to be accounted for on other grounds. The vision—and this is the reason why it proceeds in the form before us—is intended to afford to Israel a strong ground for what is already prophesied to him, a specially strong encouragement against his hopelessness. The ground on which what is promised to the people is based is the creative power of God (comp. on Eze_37:5; Eze_37:8). “God Himself appears to the prophet as the quickener of the bones,” as Hävernick justly observes. “A thoroughly real relation is treated of, namely, the relation of God to death.” Then, as regards the encouragement to Israel on this ground, it must speak so much the more powerfully to their hearts, when, taking them at their word, it borrows from their despairing words the answer against all doubts. The vision (Eze_37:1-10) is such a thorough answer in a matter-of-fact form, because He who answers, the Promiser, is the Almighty God of Israel, who “speaks and does,” Eze_37:14. Comp. how very near Calvin (Inst. ii. 10) came to this understanding. Only because Kliefoth is so confused in the exposition of our chapter does it appear that he could gather nothing from Hävernick’s remarks, which so often hit the sense, and who refers with far better right than the expositors of the literal resurrection of the dead to Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; Hos_13:14, etc.
7. The vision of Ezekiel in our chapter takes, as has been said, the discouraged of the Israelites at their word. Already in Eze_37:3, where the question put to the prophet tends in this direction, the way is opened up for the after interpretation. At the very outset in Eze_37:2, where the bones filling the valley (Eze_37:1), which are very many, are described as “very dry,” the whole house of Israel lies before us, namely, those who say, “Our bones were dried,” as the interpretation (Eze_37:11) puts beyond all doubt. By their speaking thus—since their “perished hope” was Jerusalem and the people in the land of Judah—the exiles in their despondency compare themselves to those who had perished in their native land; and this explains the designation “slain” given in the vision, which takes them for what they give themselves out to be, as, on the other hand, from the close interweaving of Eze_37:1-10 and Eze_37:11-14, the interpretation speaks of their places of residence in exile as their “graves.” At the same time, by the bones which He places before the prophet in the valley, the judgment formerly (comp. Ezekiel 6) threatened by Jehovah is conceded to have taken place. Since this judgment was executed as killing,2 to which death what of Israel still exists has given itself up (Eze_37:11) with full sympathy, if there is still prospect of salvation after the judgment and arising out of the judgment, this salvation can only be life, God’s act of salvation, and consequently nothing but re-quickening.3 And because the slain, to whom Israel in exile compare themselves, are to be supposed in Canaan, the bringing back of Israel to their own land is connected repeatedly (Eze_37:12 sq.) with the re-quickening of the nation. Thus the salvation to be prophesied is externally restoration of the nation—Israel is again in his own land. There is one element which the vision could not set forth (unless, perhaps, it is hinted at by the expression: “and stood upon their feet,” Eze_37:10), but which the interpretation brings in felicitously through the dead bones of the vision, by the bringing of them “out of the graves.” The vision has chiefly in view the inward side, namely, the quickening by the Spirit, in general the national life as such, although, as is clear from the interpretation (Eze_37:14), not without spiritual reference back to Ezekiel 36; comp. the exposition.
8. “The faith of Israel in his redemption was to rest not so much on the belief in a resurrection of the dead, as on belief in God the Creator, who brings being out of nothing, who awakens life out of death, even in its most fearful form, the annihilation of all existence” (Hävern.). It may be said more generally regarding the significance of hope for faith, that hope demonstrates the blessedness of faith, yet is not the ground of its knowledge or certainty, but as certainly as I believe, so certainly shall I also behold—the future, which hope expectantly anticipates.
9. As has been above remarked, Revelation 20 was early introduced into the discussion. Kliefoth recently, while making “the resurrection of the dead generally, limited, however, to a single definitely bounded field of dead” (בִּקְעָה), be shown to the prophet (Eze_37:1-10), “because it is afterwards to be referred to the appointed resurrection of the people of God,” borrows from Revelation 22 a very peculiar confirmation of this exposition of his. The ἀναστασις ἡ πρωτη in Eze_37:5 there, namely, is based on our passage, and the proof of this he makes to be that the souls of the πεπελεχισμενων there (who are the הֲרוּגִים here) are seen, and that both here and there Gog and Magog follow on the resurrection. He who is constrained to recognise in the first section of our chapter the re-quickening of Israel as a nation, will not be thereby hindered from conceding that it will be followed by the re-quickening of all Israel, that is, as Paul expresses it in 1Co_15:23, of οἱ χριστου ἐν τη παρουσια αὐτου. If this ζωοποιησις is likewise meant in Rev_20:4 (ἐζησαν), then the reference of our passage to it can as little be denied as that the βασιλευειν μετα χριστου may be prefigured in Eze_37:23 sq., the repeated לְעוֹלָם here can be interpreted by χιλια ἑτη there, the ἱνκ μη πλανηση τα ἐθνη ἑτι in Rev_20:3 compared with Eze_37:28 here, and that the κριμα, Rev_20:4, refers to Ezekiel 38. But the beheaded witnesses of the Apocalypse of John by no means harmonize with the slain of Ezekiel; and although Gog and Magog make their appearance in Rev_20:8 sq., as here in Ezekiel 38, yet already Rev_19:17 sq. makes reference to Ezekiel 39, 38 in Ezekiel. Moreover, Rev_20:6 also can be compared to the so often used לְעוֹלָם of our chapter.
10. “Since God as the self-existent life in itself is Spirit, all life in its various grades and forms originates and subsists only through the Spirit, which proceeds from God; the possession of spirit forms the universal ground of life, connecting the whole creation with God” (Beck.).
11. We have here ἐγειρειν and ζωοποιειν together, the full and entire conception of the sovereignty of the Father and of the working of the Son in the Holy Ghost; comp. Joh_5:21 sq.
12. In regard to the religious spirit which animated the returned exiles, reference has been rightly made to the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, and also to the psalms belonging to this period.
13. The truth of the section Eze_37:1-14 is not so well expressed by saying with Ewald, “that the individual or the nation that does not despair of the Divine Spirit is never in any situation forsaken by that Spirit, but is always borne onward to new life,” as by saying that it has its expression in the eternity of the Church of God. “We need not,” says Hengstenberg, “extend our prophecy to the unbelieving Jewish people and their future conversion. As expressly stated in Eze_37:12-13, it applies only to Israel as the people of God, and the dispensation of grace grows out of this relation.”
14. “It is doubtless the power of his people which the prophet sees in this vision rising up to new life; it is the sons of Israel, held in captivity and scattered, who are destined to return to the soil of their beloved heritage. But on the ground of the deep word of typical representation we read the joyous announcement: I live, and ye shall live also” (Umbreit).
15. The reunion of Israel and Judah has, in consequence of the pronounced heathenizing character (still continuing in the Samaritans) or the former (Doct. Reflec. 4 on Ezekiel 20.), a co-reference to the heathen; and this is more to be thought of than “the separation between believers and unbelievers,” which Hengstenberg makes ensue “after the coming of Christ,” as “a still worse” separation. Yea, the less Israel-Judah has become one in the Messiah, who is Christ, the more has the heathen world come into consideration for the fulfilling of the prophesied union, Rom_11:26 : κ. οὑτω πας Ἰσραηλ.
16. As the exile of the Jews ceases in Christ, so the alienship of the heathen ends in Christ, Ephesians 2.
17. “A continued separate existence of the ten tribes in some unknown region is a fable” (Hengst. ).
18. Why could not the Jews, like other nations of the sinking world-dominion of Rome, preserve their nationality in a distinct state? Think of the Maccabees. Not only their exclusive national habits, but still more the Messianic hope in the heart of the nation, fitted the Jews for this above other nations. From within and from without everything was here conjoined for building up a strong and important nationality among the fluctuating nations and gods of the Old World. In both respects there was given with the return from exile a new tone to their history. (On the characteristic peculiarities of Israel, their particular national disposition, comp. the Doct. Reflec. on Ezekiel 34) Their greater zeal for the law of Jehovah, the more decided antithesis of the national life to the heathen world-form after the exile, has been often remarked on; and also that a more definite expectation of the Messiah is clear consciousness of the pious of the land, and not of the prophetic circle alone. The Jewish people have, in the great part of them scattered through all nations, served to prepare the heathen for Christianity. Consider the importance of Jewish Hellenism; think of the net of the proselytism “of the gate” drawn through the heathen world; and do not overlook the Septuagint. How much might their gathering together in Christ into a Christian people and state have contributed to the ingathering of the heathen! When the kingdom of priests which Israel should have been became contracted to the number twelve of the apostles (Mat_19:28), still the effect of this mission into the world is the fulness of the Gentiles. What the emphasizing of Judah (Eze_37:19) already signifies, is expressly uttered in a Messianic sense by the repeated naming of the “one king” (Eze_37:22) as David the servant of Jehovah (Eze_37:24-25). Our promise can relate only to Christian Israel, for the Jewish nation either completed itself in the Messiah by receiving Christ, or deprived itself of Him, as may be read in Joh_19:15. Then with the perishing of its spirit, its flesh also perished; what still remained in form of Israel was therefore broken up by the false Messiahs, the Romans, etc. It is a fundamental mistake still to seek at the present day to see in the Jews a nation, especially when the remains of nationality—the offspring of pride—which still manifested themselves in the Middle Ages in the individual members of the race, are being ever more and more spiritualized, or even materialized, by the spirit of indifference, into cosmopolitanism. Because they are “My people” (Eze_37:12-13), Jehovah makes the leading out of exile and the return to Canaan to he prophesied to them. In view of the Messiah, He promises them a united nationality (Eze_37:21 sq.), and the inhabiting of Canaan for ever, the peaceable possession of the land. The promise here has nothing to do with “individuals,” and what Hengstenberg says of its conditionality in this respect is superfluous. After the people of Israel relinquished their claim to nationality in presence of the manifested Messiah, there can he no further talk of their conversion as a nation to Christ (Keil); and so much the less as the kingdom of God over Israel as a nation has passed over for fulfilment to the idea of humanity given in Israel. In this last and at the same time highest respect, the unity and eternity, kingly and priestly, under the one shepherd, here prophesied, have in Christianity—alike as regards the kingship and as regards the sanctuary (Eze_37:26 sq.)—their universal and also their progressive realization (Joh_10:16; Rev_1:6; Rev_21:3; Rev_21:22 sq., 22:3 sq.).
19. The literally verbal interpretation of our prophet has been repeatedly spoken against. For in whatever way the prophets may prophesy the glorious future of Israel, the popular form of their discourse, expressed in accordance with the times, must not keep out of view the eternal hope of Israel, the Spirit-anointed One. Since the beginning and the end of God’s march in history through the world is man, is humanity, it must seem childish to believe that the “millennial kingdom” will be centralized at Jerusalem, that this will be its capital under the Jews brought back to Palestine, that the Lord will at His coming again dwell in a real temple, and that the law of Moses, and even the ceremonial and the civil law of Moses, will be the law of the kingdom, etc. This is “realistic” exposition indeed; and while people cross and bless themselves with it against “spiritualism,” the thought never troubles them that they are borne along by the materialistic current of the age. The New Testament has not thus understood, not thus expounded the Old. Comp. moreover, the penetrating and partially conclusive arguments of Keil in loc. against the Chiliasm of the modern Apocalyptic. From God’s covenant with Abraham onward, the development of Israel moves in the direction of the formation of a nation and the possession of a land, the land of Canaan. The prophets would have been unintelligible to Israel had they prophesied to it a future without regard to these two particulars. How far that which after the judgment of the exile was prophesied, as restitution of people, land, and cultus, had to serve the purpose of affording the historical nexus and point of departure for the Messiah—to what extent what was prophesied on these points would have political earthly reality, could be discerned from the very character of the coming Messianic kingdom. A kingdom which, according to the confession before Pilate, is not of this world, could not fail to show that the apparent, sensuousness of the prophecies portraying the future of the people and land of Israel is in reality spiritual allegory. In the history of the nation, in its institutions, etc., the vessels were sufficiently well placed for types and symbols, in order in due time to change the water in them into the wine of Christ.
[See additional note above, at the close of the Exegetical Remarks.—W. F.]
20. “The New Testament,” says Hengstenberg, “knows nothing of a future possession of the land of Canaan.” “If the fulfilment is sought in this, then the interruption of two thousand years is inconceivable, since a constant possession is here placed in prospect. With respect to the perpetual possession, we must rather look to Mat_23:37,” etc. “For supplementing Ezekiel we have Zechariah, one of his immediate successors, who soon after the return from the exile predicts (Ezekiel 11.) a desolation of the land in consequence of the rejection of the Good Shepherd.”
21. The two powers which in the second section of our chapter (Eze_37:15 sq.) are destined to. realize the idea of the symbolized unity of the nation, are the royal power (Eze_37:22) and the sanctuary (Eze_37:26). As these express that which from the commencement Israel was appointed to be (Exo_19:6), Israel’s destiny as a nation, they are the two pillars of its unity. When the kingdom was divided, and the sanctuary was no longer the one sanctuary for all, then there came an end, first to Israel, and then to Judah. As without the raising up again of the kingdom of David, and without the restoration of the sanctuary of Jehovah, there can be no re-quickening, so there can be no reunion of Israel. That which the last destruction of the temple, on the one hand, gives to the Jews to ponder to this very hour, Pilate on the other, by his question (Joh_19:15), laid on the consciences of their national representatives of that time, and in such a manner that we feel reminded of verses like Eze_37:22 and others here.
22. In relation to Eze_11:16 it has to be observed, 1st, that where מְעַט occurs there we find here לְעוֹלָם—in contrast to the temporary the completion appears in a permanent form; 2d, that where we have there וָאֱהִי לָהֶם לְמִקְדָּשׁ, we have here וְנָתַתִּי מִקְדָּשִי בְּתוֹכָם; hence, instead of the “I, the temple” of the exile, which also appeared in Christ (John 2.), the perfect and also the final will be (Rev_21:22)—as Paul says—“the temple of God are ye.” As the latter will be an enduring, an eternal one, inasmuch as it forms the other side of the final tabernacle (Rev_21:3), so it is explained in Eze_37:27 by this, that the presence of the Eternal, formerly represented by the angel of the covenant in the cloud, will now as our flesh be exalted to heaven, in consequence of which Christ “by His Holy Spirit pours out the heavenly gifts into us, His members, as He also protects and preserves us by His power against all enemies” (Heidelb. Cat. Question 51).
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_37:1 sq. “The hope of the Israelites lay quite prostrate; but the hope of the people of God shall never cease, because God will assuredly reveal and glorify His grace on us. Therefore God by His word always furnishes fresh courage in every affliction,” etc. (Diedrich.)—“This valley is found indeed everywhere. In other words, is there not plenty of dead bones? The best thing is, that God still cares even for such” (Berl. Bib.).
Eze_37:2. “When our state seems to us so extremely miserable that none of God’s promises will apply to it, then we should remember these bones” (Starck).—The Church of Christ, too, may at times look like such a field of the dead.—“What else are we, too, through our corrupt nature, than dry bones, empty and alienated from the life of God and from the righteousness of Jesus Christ, until the Lord gives us His Spirit of life ?” (Berl. Bib.)—“It is the Lord who makes the dead to live, who visits His people in grace and raises them again from the dust, who redeems us by His Spirit from spiritual bondage, yea, who will also in the last days awaken the dead,” etc. (Tüb. Bib.)
Eze_37:3. “God asks counsel of us, that we may learn to acknowledge our ignorance, Joh_6:6-7” (Cr.).—“Would that all theologians had thus confessed their ignorance, and not sought to cover it with a semblance of knowledge!” (Schmieder.)—“It is God Himself who gives in us the first presentiments of regeneration and resurrection” (Diedrich).—Not only, however, in that which is impossible with men, but in all things should we look to God.—The recourse of faith when assailed to the divine omnipotence.—“Since God is omniscient and omnipotent, the resurrection of the dead is possible; but since He has also promised it, and cannot break His word, it is also certain, Joh_5:25” (Starke).
Eze_37:1-3. Faith in the field of the dead world and of the dead church; what it sees (death, and with men the impossibility of life); on what it trusts (on the Lord alone).
Eze_37:4 sq. “As God here addresses the bones by the prophet, so He also by the gospel speaks to the dead in sin. He says, namely, that He can quicken from death in sin; and commands the dead to hear, and to arise from the dead, or to repent, that is, to believe that they are dead in sins, and in want of divine illumination and sanctification, and to lift up their eyes to the truth which is in Christ,” etc.; Rom_4:17; Joh_5:28-29; Eph_5:14 (Cocc.).—“Even the dead must hear the word of God from the lips of men; the man of God speaks to them” (Diedrich).—We are in our whole life and in death directed above all to the word of the Lord—entirely to the Lord who is the Word, John 1.—“The wretched state of sin dominant in a man cannot be more forcibly typified than by the state of the dead, 1Ti_5:6” (Lange).—“From this we may draw an important lesson both for ourselves and others, namely, that however worn out, however unconscious and dead to our Condition we may be, yet God is able to redeem us from it, and to impart a life so much the greater the less hope of life there is apparent. This makes the soul still hope against all hope, Rom_4:18. The worse and the more hopeless the prospect around the soul, the more is it aware that it is well with it, and that God is able of stones to raise up children to Abraham, Mat_3:9. Although the soul esteems all as lost, yet it troubles not itself about that, and does not say, I am lost and shall never come back, which is the language of self-love,” etc. (Berl. Bib.)—“Without God there is only death, whether natural or spiritual, whereas God’s Spirit is able to quicken all and everything” (Starck).—“We have, however, chiefly to see to it that we ourselves are alive, and so, above all, may have part in the first resurrection. For blessed and holy,” etc. (Berl. Bib.)
Eze_37:4-5. The word of God over the dead bones, how it is spirit, and promises life.
Eze_37:6. In the resurrection of the dead it will not, however, be as the hymn says: “Then shall this very skin, as I believe, surround me.”—“As this spiritual resurrection here is a gradual process, so also in conversion and renewal, the man proceeds from glory to glory, until he stands fast in the Lord, and in the power of His might, in order to walk henceforth in the ways of the Lord” (Starck).
Eze_37:7 sq.: When it is prophesied according to God’s word, there are still always voices, noise, movement, and things that belong to one another come together.—“If the voice of the Holy Ghost is heard in the heart, then there is a movement of the heart, and blessed is he who obeys the impulse” (Starck).—The wonderful experiences on the field of the dead in the churches.—But what do bones, sinews, flesh, and skin, all brought together and fitted to one another, avail without the spirit? This remark applies not so much to the confessions of the churches, as to the attempts at revival through constitutions and liturgies. Certainly the coming together of members of each body—if the passage is made to apply to “reunion” (as by Richter)—is God’s work; but not when the bodies, taken from different bodies, are as a matter of compulsion bound together promiscuously. The spirit, and not the uniform, is that which truly unifies; and the consciences of men are not to be dealt with as the regimental tailor deals with soldiers. The fact that an “army” is spoken of, Eze_37:10, cannot certainly give the tone to our view of the Church of Christ.—Pure doctrine is not skin and bones, flesh and sinews, but spirit, which has and brings life. But those who teach their own wisdom and holiness still seek life where it cannot be found.
Eze_37:9. Thou mayest prophesy to the wind, provided thou prophesiest only God’s word: “Thus saith the Lord,” and not: Thus must ye do.
Eze_37:10. Richter suggests of this “very great army,” that, consisting of those drawn “from restored Israel,” it “will serve for the spiritual conquest of all the Gentile nations, and especially for the gaining over of the Mohammedans to the kingdom of Christ.”—“All (?) Scripture announces that the children of Israel, once converted, will be full of zeal to subject to the gentle rule of Jesus Christ and His grace those nations which will not be extirpated as anti-Christian (!) by divine justice. These dry bones, still scattered at present upon the earth, shall be changed into preachers and apostles,” etc. (Where is it said that the “army” has to conquer the world?)—“One needs no power or army when there is nothing to fight with and conquer, and no enemy to overcome. But this conversion of the world will first take place in the kingdom of the Lord when, Revelation 20, the devil shall be bound in the bottomless pit, etc. The spirit of grace and of supplication will, however, make them invincible; and the blood of the New Covenant, which their fathers shed with blind fury, will so inspire them, that they would, if necessary, drink even the cup which their Saviour drank (Mat_20:22). By the confession of their sin, above all, will they work to procure entrance for His name and His mysteries into the remotest lands, etc. In this the natural ability, warmth, and activity of this people will be exceedingly useful, especially, however, through the Spirit of God, Zec_9:15; Zec_9:13-14.”—The Berleburg Bible subjoins to Eze_37:9 sq. the prayer: “Would that it might also please our great prophet Jesus Christ to prophesy with power, and by His intercession and mission compel the Spirit to come! Oh, what a great army will then come forth to do battle against the beast and the whore!”
Eze_37:11 sq. These bones are, that is, signify, sq., and yet: “this bread is my body,” etc., is held not to signify!—“We see the foolishness of our flesh when we are pressed by afflictions which go quite contrary to our expectations; we then either forget the divine promises, or accord to them scarcely a half faith” (Luther).—The language of unbelief makes the calamity great, and God’s power to help little.
Eze_37:12 sq. “But He opens the graves of despair, and makes the light of a better state arise to the house of Israel, to which all the elect belong. As the spirit of life is given to the bones from all the four corners of the world, so must the true Israelites be brought together by the same spirit out of the four corners of the world, from all places, to the unity of the faith, and these obtain the inheritance that passeth not away” (Heim-Hoffmann).
Eze_37:14. Only let us not forget that heaven is our fatherland, and that we should delight to be with Christ.—“The Lord has always shown Himself such a God in His people. His people remain for ever, and have already often experienced resurrection” (Diedrich).
Eze_37:15 sq. “How often does God repeat His promises! how many seals does He append to them! Is it not wonderful that men doubt not withstanding? Isa_11:12; Hos_1:11” (Starke).—(We may mention here the wooden alphabets of the ancient Britons, e.g. the runes written or engraved upon wood.)
Eze_37:19 sq. “That was a type of the union of all believers in the whole world, Jews and Gentiles, through one spirit and faith, under one Head, King, and Saviour, the promised Messiah” (Tossanus).—“Thus the kingdom of Israel was to cease entirely, and not to rise up again” (Starke).—“Unity is a mark of the Spirit” (Heim-Hoffmann).
Eze_37:22-23. The union which is not merely two sticks in one hand (above all in a secular hand): (1) That which is preceded by separation from the State, it is a purely ecclesiastical, and e.g. not a military one; (2) Where the unifying Head in everything is seen ever more and more to be Christ, and not the king, as bishop of the country; (3) Where the essential thing is: to be God’s people, and not so much a German Established Church.—“The separation arose from the worship of idols, and the earthly-minded never ask after unity and purity of doctrine”(Diedrich).
Eze_37:24. Comp. on Ezekiel 34.—The royal dominion of the Anointed One as the fulfilment of God’s promises, as the pledge rich in promise of eternity.—“Of the kingdom of Christ there shall be no end” (Starck).
Eze_37:26 sq. “Jesus is the temple of the Godhead, through which we obtain what we ask” (Heim-Hoffmann).—The covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant and a holy covenant.—The everlasting priestly kingdom of the Messiah (Psa_110:4), the revelation for the heathen.
Footnotes:
[1]It may be remarked in passing, that Hävernick misapprehends the dealings between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Talmud regarding the resurrection, for the Sadducees there do not, when appealing to Ezekiel 37, claim the figurative as the received explanation of our passage, but only suppose in the passage not the resurrectio futuri sæculi, but on the contrary a merely particular, and not the general resurrection.
[2]“It is from the beginning a fundamental law for all human development, that death is decreed for the transgression of the divine commandment; holding good in the first instance for the individual life, but also for the national domain, where the law lays hold of Jehovah’s Israel as an individual personality, and sets in view before it life and death, particularly the latter, for the decision of the nation from the beginning onward takes always more plainly the similitude of Adam’s decision. Captivity, or the separation of Israel from their land, announced as the last and worst punishment, is, according to the law, to be conceived of as the death of the nation. This the Old Testament consciousness looks upon as death, for the individual is related to his body as the nation to its land, and the land separated from the nation is subjected to the most fearful desolation and devastation (Ezekiel 36), like the human body bereft of the soul. Or, as death dissolves into dust, so the captivity of Israel is its dissolution into the primal elements out of which it was at first formed, etc.”—Baumgarten.
[3]Hofmann rightly observes, that what is illustrated in Ezekiel is “not so much the newness of the life into which, as rather the completeness of the state of death out of which Israel is to be restored.”
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–10 dry--bleached by long exposure to the atmosphere.
dry--bleached by long exposure to the atmosphere.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v1 1-14. This is one of the most marvelous visions…
1-14. This is one of the most marvelous visions of the Old Testament. The companions of Ezekiel were in hopeless despair. Israel had been moldering in an Assyrian grave nearly one hundred and fifty years, and now all Judah, excepting a small and unworthy remnant, was buried in Babylon, without any hope of resurrection (Eze_37:11),while Jerusalem and the holy temple had been totally destroyed. Ezekiel had tried to awaken his fellow-captives from their dull and voiceless stupor (Eze_24:17; Eze_24:22) by a bright vision of a future when they should return to their home land and enjoy the fullness of temporal and churchly prosperity (36), but all his hopeful prophecies had proved ineffectual. They could not believe. Then God lifted his prophet “by the power of the Spirit” into ecstatic vision, and he found himself alone in the midst of a deserted battlefield (Eze_37:9-10) strewn with bones. He passed through this desolation and noticed that every vestige of life had disappeared from the dried-up remains. There was nothing left for even the vultures to feed upon. Long ago every skeleton had been cleaned by the jackals’ teeth and the broken parts scattered far and wide. The bones were many and they were very dry. The valley was a charnel house, visibly displaying the absolute victory of death over life. Then came the question from heaven, “Can these bones live?” and the humble answer, “O Adoni Jehovah, thou knowest.” Then the prophetic impulse came upon the prophet, and with faith that the Almighty was still able to breathe the breath of life into the lifeless (Eze_37:5; Gen_2:7) he cried unto the withered and dislocated skeletons, “O bones, hear the word of the Lord,” and even as he began to speak the words — which to any listener would have seemed a mere sound in the air — there came a mysterious noise followed by a groaning as of an “earthquake” (Eze_37:7, R.V., Kautzsch), and the prophet saw a terrifying sight, for each bone was rushing toward its fellow; and when he dared to look again “lo, there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up and skin covered them” (Eze_37:8, R.V.). They were no longer skeletons, for all the organs of life were there, but they were still dead bodies. Then the prophet once more took heart and finished the prophecy (compare Eze_37:6; Eze_37:9), crying to the universal life-giving divine Spirit to breathe life into these slain, and even as he spake, so was it done! It must be remembered that the same word in Hebrew may be translated either “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” Jehovah himself interpreted the vision. Israel and Judah were not only dead corpses, but their bones were “dried up” and they were “clean cut off,” as they themselves declared (Eze_37:11); yet, since Jehovah still lived, the case was not entirely hopeless, for God could raise the dead. Out of the graves of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity those fragments of a people should surely come forth through his power (Eze_37:12-13), and not only receive again the social and civil institutions, which were the organs of national life, but should be spiritually regenerated (Eze_37:14; Eze_36:26-27; compare Godet, Studies in the Old Testament; Maurice, The Prophets; Cornill, Das Buch Ezechiel). Cornill has called this “one of the noblest passages the Old Testament can show.” Its influence upon the national thought was incalculable. Darmesteter tells of the rabbi whom he met in India who referred to a village, named Gilead, which he had visited in an obscure part of Persia, the population of which he believed to be descended from the bones resurrected by Ezekiel! (Les Prophetes D’Israel, p. 107.) But the fact is that all Israel is descended from these bodies re-animated by prophecy. If it had not been for the resurrection trumpet-note of hope which Ezekiel blew it looks as if the whole nation would have perished in despair. It may be added that while this vision teaches a national, not an individual, resurrection (as Hos_6:2; Hos_13:14), yet the idea of a personal resurrection was even then not unknown. (Compare Isa_26:19; Job_14:13, etc.; and especially note Dan_12:2.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 1. The hand of the Lord] The prophetic ecstasy…
1. The hand of the Lord] The prophetic ecstasy from the Lord, ch. Eze_1:3. On “spirit” of the Lord cf. Eze_3:14, Eze_8:3, Ezek. 9:24. The “valley” is probably that mentioned early in the Book, Eze_3:22.
1–14. The vision of Israel’s resurrection from the dead
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The vision seems suggested by the saying current among the people, “our bones are dried, our hope is lost; we are wholly cut off.” This idea and feeling of the people takes form in the vision which the prophet saw in the valley. The language of the people is figurative: they speak of the nationality, which is no more,—it is dead and its bones scattered and dry. And this idea regarding the nationality, figuratively expressed by the people, is embodied to the prophet in a vision. Hence the passage is not a literal prophecy of the resurrection of individual persons of the nation, dead or slain; it is a prophecy of the resurrection of the nation, whose condition is figuratively expressed by the people when they represent its bones as long scattered and dry. Perfect consistency is not maintained by the prophet: in Eze_37:1-2 the dry bones are represented as lying on the face of the valley, very many and very dry; in Eze_37:12 they are represented as buried and brought up out of their graves. Hosea had already used the figure of resurrection for the resuscitation of the nation (Eze_6:2, Eze_13:4); but, though the language used both here and by Hosea shews familiarity with the idea of the raising again of individuals, this is not what is prophesied. In Isa_26:19; Daniel 12 the actual resurrection of individual members of Israel is predicted, cf. Job_14:13 seq.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 (1) In the midst of the valley.—The word is…
(1) In the midst of the valley.—The word is the same as in Eze_3:22; Eze_8:4, and having the definite article prefixed, is very probably the same plain, now seen in spirit, in which Ezekiel had seen his former visions.
Which was full of bones.—It is better, with the Hebrew, to put a stop after “plain” (valley), and then read, this was full of bones. The bones, as the subsequent verses show, were not heaped together, but thickly strewn upon the face of the plain. After the prophet’s mind had so long dwelt upon the desolating campaigns of Nebuchadnezzar, these ghastly reminders of the loss of human life might naturally enter into his thoughts.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 This chapter embraces, in its earlier section (vers. 1-14),…
This chapter embraces, in its earlier section (vers. 1-14), the concluding portion of the "word of God" begun at Eze_36:16; in its later section (vers. 15-28), an additional "word," to which the former naturally leads. The earlier, under the figure of a resurrection of dry bones, beheld by the prophet in vision, describes the political and religious reawakening of Israel; in the later is depicted, by means of a symbolic action, the reunion of its two branches. The first divides itself into two parts the vision (vers. 1-10) and its interpretation (vers. 11-14). The vision was to all appearance designed to meet the objections the preceding picture of Israel"s future glory might naturally be expected to call forth. It was true that in the past Israel had often suffered a decline in her national life, and as often experienced a revival. But with the fall of her capital, the burning of her temple, the slaughter of her people, and the expatriation of her nobles, her life was henceforth extinct; and to speak of returning prosperity to her in such a condition was like talking of the restoration of vitality to withered bones. Besides, the exiles were, comparatively speaking, only a handful, and to picture Judah"s waste cities as being filled with flocks of men was like mocking the dejected with hopes certain to be dashed to the ground. The Exposition will show how the vision was fitted to dispel such despondent reflections. Yet diversity of sentiment prevails as to whether the vision was intended to predict an actual resurrection of the physically dead at the end of time, or merely to symbolize an ideal resurrection of Israel, then nationally dead.
1. The view, that what the prophet beheld in vision was the final resurrection of mankind, though favored by Jerome, Calovius, and Kliefoth, must be abandoned, not because the doctrine of a general resurrection would not have been a powerful consolation to the pious-hearted in Israel, or because that doctrine was not then known, but because, in the prophet"s own explanation, the bones are declared to be those, not of the whole family of man, but merely of the house of Israel. At the same time, those interpreters are right who, like Hengstenberg, Keil, and Plumptre, hold that, even if the doctrine of a general resurrection had not been current in Ezekiel"s time, this vision was enough to call it into existence, and even to lend strong probability to its truth.
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2. Accordingly, the view is commonly preferred that, while an objective reality to the prophet"s mind, and by no means a mere rhetorical garb for its conceptions, the vision was designed as a symbolic representation of Israels resuscitation; though here again opinions diverge both as to what formed the mental background for the prophet"s use of such a symbol, and as to how it served to suggest the thought of Israel"s revival. While some, like Jerome and Hengstenberg, as above indicated, regard "the doctrine of the proper resurrection" as "the presupposition of the expanded figurative representation," others, with Havernick, find its historical basis in such instances of raising from the dead as were performed by Elijah and Elisha, and perhaps also in such passages as Isa_26:19. If Smend thinks the vision was intended to assist Israel merely by suggesting that "the unbelievable might happen," and Havernick that it was designed to inspire hope by presenting to the mind a lively picture of the creative, life-giving power of God, "which can raise even dead bones to life again," Ewald finds its chief power to console in the thought "that the nation or individual which does not despair of the Divine Spirit will not be forsaken of this Spirit in any situation, but will always be borne on by it to new life.
The hand of the Lord was upon me. The absence of the customary "and", (comp. Eze_1:1, 3 3:14, 22) wanting only once, (Eze_40:1) appears to indicate something extraordinary and unusual in the prophet"s experience. In the words of Ewald, such a never-beheld sight one sees freely (by itself) in a moment of higher inspiration or never;" and that in this whole vision the prophet was the subject of a special and intensified inspiration is evident, not alone from the contents of the vision, but also from the language in which it is recorded. And carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord. So the Vulgate and Hitzig a translation which Smend thinks might be justified by an appeal to," Eze_11:24, in which the similar phrase, "Spirit of God (Elohim) occurs; though, with Grotius, Havernick, Keil, and others, he prefers the rendering of the LXX, "And Jehovah carried me out in the Spirit." The Revised Version combines the two thus: "And he carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord." Keil suggests that the words, "of God," in Eze_11:24, were omitted here because of the word "Jehovah" immediately following. And set me down in the midst of the valley. As the article indicates, the valley in the neighborhood of Tel-Abib, where the prophet received his first instructions concerning his mission; (Eze_3:22) although Hengstenberg holds, wrongly we think, that "the valley here has nothing to do with the valley in Eze_3:22." Which (literally, and it) was full of bones; i.e. of men who had been slaughtered there (ver. 9; Eze_39:11) and whose corpses had been left unburied upon the face of the plain (ver. 3), so that they were seen by the prophet. Whether these bones were actually in the valley, or merely formed part of the vision, can only be conjectured, though the latter opinion seems the more probable. At the same time, such a plain as is here depicted may well have been a battle-ground on which Assyrian and Chaldean armies had often met.
Vers. 1-14. The valley of dry bones.
I A VISION OF RESTORATION. Undoubtedly, the restoration of Israel is the immediate thought in the mind of Ezekiel. He sees his people stricken to death. The nation is virtually dead. The exiled citizens of Jerusalem have lost all spirit and energy. But with the restoration will come a restored energy to the people. The nation also will once more rise up as from the dead. These resurrections of communities have been seen more than once in history; e.g. when papal Rome rose on the ashes of imperial Rome, when Germany was reunited under the Emperor William, when France astonished the world by her renewed strength and prosperity after the terrible invasion of 1870. But while this material form of national resurrection is not infrequent, a moral resurrection is more rare. Byron was enthusiastic for the liberation of Greece, and our age has witnessed the establishment of a free Greek kingdom at Athens. But it remains to be seen whether the genius of ancient Greece will ever return to its old seat. Athens may be rebuilt, and yet Athene (the goddess of intellect) may still slumber in the grave. A true national restoration is only possible as a work of God. Degenerate nations need more than liberation from external tyranny they need national regeneration.
II A VISION OF REDEMPTION. The people could not be truly restored unless they were reformed and renewed in heart and character. Hence the strange and striking form in which the promise of restoration is given. It appears as a resurrection. What happened to ancient Israel happens to all the people of God. They are restored to true life and prosperity by means of a spiritual resurrection. Souls are dead in sin. The world is like a valley of dry bones ugly in its wickedness, helpless in its confusion, utterly unable to save itself. But Christ has come to give new life to the souls of men. His resurrection is a type of the soul"s resurrection. St. Paul assumes that Christians are "risen with Christ". (Col_3:1) The gospel is thus supremely a message of life. It comes to us in our most degraded, desolate, despairing condition. It brings life and incorruptibility to light.
III A VISION OF THE RESURRECTION. A fair reading of this passage will not permit us to take it as a promise of an individual resurrection after natural death. It is a parable of the restoration of Israel. The notion that the very bones of the dead are to be pieced together and clothed with flesh, that the scattered dust of corpses is to be gathered from the four quarters of the earth, that the very same animal organism that once lived and died and decayed or was devoured by worms shall be built up again, is a coarse, degrading idea. It gives no suggestion of a future exalted, spiritual life. It is beset with monstrous difficulties when we look at it in the light or" the facts of nature. If this old conception of the resurrection be set forth as the only Christian idea, men will not accept it, and the glorious hope of any resurrection or future life at all will be endangered. But this idea is quite contrary to the profound teaching of St. Paul, who says expressly, "Thou sowest not that body that shall be," and "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven". (1Co_15:50) The Bible teaches the resurrection of the dead, but not the resurrection of flesh. The old, coarse, impossible notion has no support in the passage before us. We have here a symbolical vision, and it is no more to be taken literally than the illustration of the two sticks that follows (ver. 16). Still, as a figure and an image it is strikingly suggestive of the future resurrection. He who restores nations and souls by quickening grace will also awaken them that sleep in Jesus, and raise them up, a glorious army redeemed from death.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Vers. 1-3. The valley of death.
The picture so impressively presented in these verses is a picture of the Israelitish people in their Eastern captivity. The national life is for a period suspended. The people are dead and dry as bones scattered upon the surface of an open valley which has been the scene of carnage in battle. Yet the description is always and justly held to portray the moral condition of our sinful humanity apart from the quickening interposition of the Lord and Giver of life.
I SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT REVEALS WHAT IS REAL BENEATH WHAT IS APPARENT. To other eyes no such vision as that which broke upon the sight of the inspired prophet was accorded. On the contrary, men might have looked upon Israel part of the people in captivity, and part still occupying the land of their fathers and have seen nothing but such misfortune and calamity as are incident to human history. To the prophetic, quickened, illumined mind of Ezekiel the real state of the nation was manifest. In like manner, a superficial observer might direct his attention to the human race without apprehending its spiritual condition as one of deprivation, of gloom, of death; he might be dazzled by external splendor and prosperity, and it might not occur to him that beneath the fair and glittering outside there was concealed from his eyes what, after all, is the most important characteristic of humanity, regarded spiritually.
II THE REALITY TO BE RECOGNIZED IS THE PRESENCE AND THE POWER OF SPIRITUAL DEATH.
1. The cause of this is sin. Life flows from communion with him who is the ever-living Fountain of life. Severed from God, the soul cannot live.
2. The effects and signs of this death are numerous and evident. Insensibility to Divine truth, to virtue, to immortality, may be mentioned as most impressively brought before us in the vision which Ezekiel saw. The dry bones lay scattered about the plain, insensible to everything, to every presence about them, neither affected by any occurrence nor initiating any movement. Such is the state of the spiritually dead the "dead in trespasses and sins.
III HOPELESSNESS DISTINGUISHES THE STATE OF THE SPIRITUALLY DEAD. "Son of man, can these bones live?" If the answer depended upon human sagacity, if the means to awaken life were such as are available to human wisdom alone, such as are known by human experience, there can be but one answer "Life is impossible! " Who that locked upon pro-Christian society could cherish the hope that from that necropolis there could start into vitality and activity a host of living, consecrated beings, filled with the life of God, eager to do the work of God? Could the Church have grown out of the world? The supposition is an absurdity. The prophet"s reply to the inquiry was the only reply that was reasonable. All depended upon God; man was powerless and hopeless for revival. "O Lord God, thou knowest! T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Vers. 1-14The vision of dry bones.
As an architect, before erecting a mansion, sketches accurately all his plan on paper a guide to himself and to his co-workers so, prior to God"s resuscitation of Israel, he sketches out his plan before the mental eye of Ezekiel. By a mighty influence from God, the prophet is borne away in spirit to a great valley in Chaldea, devoted to the burial of Israel"s dead. The spot possibly was sadly familiar to the prophet"s eye. The loose sand had been swept aside by some violent tornado. The bones of the buried were exposed, and were dry and bleached by the tropical sun. It was a pitiable and repulsive spectacle. That such vestiges of human beings could be reclothed in flesh and raised again to life seemed, to human view, impossible; and Ezekiel did wisely to refer the matter back to God. The man of God is commanded to address these silent remnants of human nature, and to announce to them God"s high design; and while he spake, lo! a noise, a movement, bone sought its fellow-bone. Flesh silently grew upon these skeletons, and a fair covering of skin veiled the rugged flesh. Still, it was a valley of death a spectacle more revolting than before. Again Ezekiel is summoned to prophesy, and this time to prophesy to the winds. Then the breath of life passed into those ghastly forms; the dead stood erect and strong an army of living men, a nation. Such was the vision a vivid picture imprinted on the mind.
I MARK ISRAEL"S DESPERATE CONDITION. Whatever may have been the fortunes of some individuals, as a nation their fortunes were deplorable. All that was distinctive about Israel had vanished. Tithings, temple ritual, priesthood, Passover, distinction in meats, all had disappeared. They were fast becoming amalgamated, in language, habits, and occupation, with their conquerors. As a body, they were utterly dislocated. Their several orders had vanished. The organism was broken up. Their national life was destroyed. Their condition was deplorable, fitly symbolized by dry and dissevered bones. Prospect of restoration there was none. The faithful few were sinking into despair. Vivid picture this of human nature severed from the living God. Compared with the purity and nobleness that might be, the condition is aptly figured by death. Filial love and trust are dead. Conscience, the sense of right, is dead. Heavenly aspirations are dead. The hope of immortality is dead. Departing from God, men become "earthly, sensual, devilish." The captivity of the grave aptly symbolizes their estate. The high design of their being is frustrated. Severance from God is followed by the rupture of social ties, mutual discords, and mutual hate.
II ISRAEL"S PROSPECT OF NEW ORGANIZATION. The prospect is due solely to the interposition of God. He proposes a tremendous question to his servant, "Can these bones live?" Devoutly the prophet refers the question back to God. By proposing difficult questions to his servants, God stimulates them to reflection, concentrates their attention upon salient points, teaches them a modest estimate of their powers.
1. In elevating mankind there is need for the prophets mission. As the greatest enemy of mankind is man, so man can be a real friend and helper to his race. The world is deeply indebted to its teachers. All the ages are indebted to Moses, to Solon, to Socrates, and to St. Paul. The man who can lay his finger upon a plague-spot and. announce a remedy, the man who can lead a nation up to a higher level of life, is a benefactor to the face. Most of all, the man who can reveal to us God, who can unveil to us his character, his designs concerning us, our duty to him, he is of all men the most influential, the most kingly.
2. No real improvement in human nature can be achieved without Gods power. Although the man of God was charged to prophesy, his message simply declared what God was about to do. "I will lay sinews upon you; I will bring up flesh upon you; I will cover you with skin," saith the Lord God. No amelioration is abiding that does not come from God. All political organization that is to produce benefit to a nation must be full of God. Every step in the process of moral elevation must have God in it. We can only act successfully while we act in the line of his Law, and have all the channels we create filled with a Divine force. God deigns to take a practical interest in the minutest affairs of men.
III ORGANIZATION IS IMPOTENT WITHOUT LIFE. To the prophet"s ecstatic vision the human organism was now complete. Every limb and member was articulated was in its allotted place. But the great want was yet unmet. The highest endowment was lacking. Everything waited, in silent yearning, for life. Then the prophet is summoned to another duty. Having spoken to men, he must speak to God. He must invoke the vital breath of Heaven. For this great undertaking there is required all the fullness and force of the Divine Spirit. "Come from all quarters, O breath of life! Wind of the north, come and rouse men from their long slumber! Wind of the east, come and brace men"s energies for new exertions. Wind of the west, come and bring fertilizing showers, that shall penetrate and soften the heart! Wind of the south, come, quicken the plants of grace and ripen the fruits of piety!" If only God be with us, the most difficult undertaking will succeed. If God did, at the first, create human nature out of nothing, the work of reconstruction cannot be more difficult. To God nothing is impossible. Omnipotence covers every task.
IV A MAGNIFICENT RESULT. The prophet was not disobedient to the heavenly voice. As the echo responds to the speaker, so promptly did Divine influence attend the prophetic word. Under the direction and inspiration of God, human labor and prayer can produce prodigious effects. The scenes of death become scenes of life. A nation rises up as if out of its grave. By the manifested power of God"s grace the highest personal life appears; the Church"s life is created; national life is purged and elevated; and the resurrection to an imperishable life is assured. If God be on our side, no height of excellence is inaccessible; and if he has pledged his word, he will perform it in no stinted fashion. To have real childlike faith in God"s word and in God"s faithfulness brings the highest joy. To be in actual touch with God transfigures character and enriches human life. Heaven is begun on earth if we know God by personal and familiar experience. A grand climax of blessing is involved in the words, "Then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it. D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Vers. 1-12From death to life.
The primary reference Of this prophecy is placed beyond all doubt by the passage itself (see ver. 12).
1. Israel was in a forlorn and hopeless condition in her dispersion and captivity; she seemed to be irrecoverably lost; as a nation she was as one dead, if not buried.
2. But God had a gracious purpose concerning her. He intended to exercise his Divine power on her behalf; the dead should be revived; the lost should be found; the scattered should be restored and united.
3. That which seemed so hopeless is seen to be accomplished; instead of "a valley full of bones" (ver. 1) is "an exceeding great army" (ver. 10); instead of a "lost hope" (ver. 4) is a revived, and recovered nation (ver. 12). The true analogue to this vision of the prophet is the revival of the lost and dead human soul under the renewing and inspiring power of the Spirit of God. What is suggested here on this vital theme is
I THE FATAL AND HOPELESS CONDITION TO WHICH SIN REDUCES US. Could we see our sin-stricken humanity as it appears in the sight of God, then where now we look upon fair scenes and shows of beauty or activity, we should see a "valley full of dry bones a valley of death. Let "the dead bury their dead," said the Master. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," said his apostle. To be separated from God in thought and sympathy; to be living in selfishness, in vanity, in sin; to be forfeiting our fair heritage of righteousness and holy service, and to lose our life in human gratifications or earthly acquisitions; this is to be lost to God and wisdom; it is to have entered at least the outer shadows of the valley of death; and when sin has (tone its worst, when it has led the man or the community down to its nethermost abyss, then is he (or it) in such a state of spiritual deathfulness and hopelessness that all recovery seems impossible, as impossible as for a great mass of dry and disparted bones scattered on some broad valley to be readjusted and to be reanimated with life. "Can these bones live? No," human intelligence replies, "they are dead beyond all recovery." Yet is it well to remember that "the things which are impossible to man are possible with God;" and it is well to make reply, as in the text, "O Lord God, thou knowest." For God"s reply is not in the negative. He summons to activity; and we have
II THE THREEFOLD AGENCY CALLED INTO EXERCISE.
1. The human teacher. He said unto me, Prophesy," etc. (ver. 4). "So I prophesied as I was commanded" (ver. 7). It is the bounden duty, the sacred privilege, of the human teacher in the house, in the sanctuary, in the school, in the street, anywhere and everywhere that men will listen to summon the lost ones to return, the fallen to rise, the slumbering to awake and to return unto the Lord their God.
2. The sinful souls themselves. "As I prophesied there was a noise, and behold a shaking," etc. (ver. 7). Men may seem as dead, and in a sadly serious sense they may be "dead in sin;" yet they are not so absolutely lifeless that there is no possible response in them when the word of Divine truth is spoken. On the contrary, they will respond; there is the spiritual movement which begins in being aroused, and which ends in the actual return of the heart unto its Divine Father, and its entrance into eternal life.
3. The Divine Spirit. "Prophesy unto the wind, breathe upon these slain, that they may live" (ver. 9). What the breathing wind in the prophet"s image wrought, that now works the Holy Spirit of God. Vain the words of the teacher, the movement of the fallen and lost spirit, without the renewing and reviving energy that comes from God. But that does come. God waits to work with us and for us; and when there is honest effort accompanied" with earnest prayer, the breath of the Divine Spirit is not wanting; then comes
III THE BLESSED ISSUE IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. "They lived, and stood up... an exceeding great army or "force (ver. 10). The glorious issue of this agency, human and Divine, is
(1) life, life in God"s view, life in God, life unto God, life now and evermore with God; it is
(2) largely extended life, an exceeding great army, innumerable, stretching over all lands and through all the centuries; it is
(3) powerful life, the word translated army might be rendered force. The multitude of them that believe," and that have life by faith in Jesus Christ, should be a great force or power for good. If it did but realize its resources, and knew how strong it was in Christian truth and the power of God which is at command, it would do far "greater works" than any it has yet accomplished for its Master and for mankind. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 8, 9 Son of man, can these bones live?
Eze_37:1-14
Son of man, can these bones live?
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The vision of a true revival
I. Such a revival often seems utterly hopeless. The condition of a nation in some of its eras of misfortune; the condition of the human race in their graves; the condition of men who have lapsed into low spiritual life;--are all conditions whose striking emblem would be a valley full of dry bones. There seems nothing to promise better things. There is no effort, no struggle upwards. Hope is lost.
II. Such a revival is deeply interesting to good men. By a dialogue Ezekiel is interested in the present condition, the possible future, of these bones, is taught his own weakness, and has revealed to him the source of strength and the methods of renewal. So always some Divine influence comes to interest good men in the recovery to higher life of those with whom He has to do. By His Spirit too, and by the, discipline of life, and by the Scriptures, God, as in a dialogue with such a mans soul, teaches him all he needs to know about such a renewal as He sees is deeply needed.
III. Such a revival is partly wrought by creature agency. For political regeneration there are appointed heroes of the State; for the resurrection of the body there is appointed the angel with the trumpet, that shall sound when the dead are to be raised; for revival of the Church of God, earnest-souled men are appointed.
IV. Such a revival is gradual in its progress. There were several stages in the accomplishment of the revival in this valley of vision. So in every revival. First, a noise. This is the least important of all, yet often seems to be a needful accompaniment, an indication of awakening life. Then a shaking. This politically finds its fulfilment in revolution, and often in war. In spiritual things it finds its fulfilment in throes of spirit, sometimes the agonies of doubt. Then the bones came together, bone to his bone. This surely points to right organisation and consolidation, whether of the nation or of the individual character. Then the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them from above. Here is the accomplishing of all that can be accomplished of merely external order and beauty. But how poor are all! For there was no breath in them.
V. Such a revival requires Gods special operation. From the four winds the breath came, that is the symbol of the Divine Spirit. So only righteousness exalts a nation, and without the Spirit of God there will not be righteousness: so the dead at the last day will be raised by God.
VI. Such a revival produces sublime results. Instead of a valley of dry bones, there is an army, living, united, loyal, mighty. So, by their true regeneration, nations rise from being abject, poor, immoral, to kingdoms of liberty, prosperity, virtue. So human characters shall be elevated: the man no longer dead in sin, shall have a heart united to fear God, a nature that reveals the Divine in spiritual harmony, strength, and glory. (Urijah R. Thomas.)
Can these bones live
Ezekiel differs from the other prophets in this: that he stands before us as half prophet and half priest. He has been described by a great authority as a priest in a prophets mantle. In him the two streams met and parted. In this passage, however, Ezekiel is not a priest, but a pure prophet, and he is in the direct prophetic line. We are perhaps in a position to trace the growth of this famous allegory and to reconstruct the process by which it took shape in the prophets thought. It had taken fire from a spark, and that spark was a phrase he had heard from his fellow exiles in Babylon--Our bones are dried and our hope is lost. The metaphor swelled in his imagination to a vision and became one of the great dreams of the world--so much more a dream because its explanation is the sleepless purpose of Almighty God with man. Ezekiel stands up among the prevailing lassitude and indifference, and he is a prophet because he is a man of hope, because he has faith in God. What we have here is an allegory; it is an allegory of resurrection, but not the resurrection of the body, nor perhaps of the dead as individuals, but of the nation. The resurrection of the individual dead was perhaps no part as yet of the Hebrew faith.
I. As to the scene, it was the scene of so many visions--the valley by the river Chebar. Now it wore a hideous aspect, and to the prophet its face was a scene of desolation; it was ghastly with dry ruin, with the chronic leprosy of death. And it was death grown grey and sere, death that was hopeless of any life to come; death settled down into possession; death that was privileged, enthroned and secure. That was Israel--defeated, destroyed, and dismembered, crumbling into paganism, some not hoping, not wishing to revive. The bones were many and they were very dry. Death always has the majority on its side. The dryness and death of a dead multitude is something more than the death of the same number scattered up and down the community. The dead city is always worse than so many dead people scattered about the country; therefore pull down the infested places; erase the slums, destroy the hotbeds of vice, however difficult, and get rid of the ferment of corruption.
II. As to the prophets acting. He passed by them round about; he did not tread upon them as the lout upon the cemetery graves. The Spirit moving among them was God; He is God of these bones also, and, therefore, Ezekiel is reverent to them. May the Spirit of God make us reverent towards all human wrecks--whether black or white. The Christian preacher has no right to be anything else. Can he be otherwise than respectful towards those whose hope and joy are gone? Who acts otherwise does it from a low heart. Can these dry bones live? Well, they are relics, things with memories, things once wedded to life although now in such tragic divorce from it. A mere mummy of a man, living under the wrath and curse of God, may not be the object of Gods neglect. Gods anger is not out of all relation to His love; not beyond His pity; not foreign to His grace. To have the anger of God, I venture to say, is at least some melancholy dignity. Son of man, can these bones live? This question is put every time we review the past. Is there not often in the dead past life for the present? Can these bones live? It is the question God is asking us by the mouth of history today. Why, these Gospels which have done so much are comparatively meagre--they are His bones--when you compare them with the fulness of the whole historic Christ, who takes ever a saving relation to Him as a historic revelation of God. The faith of Pentecost makes a great difference in the meaning of the historical creed. Then the Christ within us can take full measure of the Christ without. His evidence is Himself, and the history of the Risen One, with the experience of the Church during these two thousand years, must interpret and supplement the historic evidence of His Resurrection. Experience verifies the Gospels. The living evidence is not confined to the first, second, and third centuries. It is vital and mighty in every century, and not least in the century in which we live. The Spirit which quickens is as essential as the vision which sees. The faith which felt what these bones could be was as real as the eyesight which saw them on the plain. There can be, indeed, no new revelation of the Father: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the future may reveal more of the revelation which is fixed in the history of the past, and elicit its infinite resources. By way of history will come the extraction of the resources of that revelation. The circumstances of history must work ever with the relics of history--personal history and public history--that is the way of Gods Spirit. And the coming revival which is to move no mere sect or coterie, which is to change the whole of our national life--that revival will show its genius also in this: it may recast here and there the history of the Church, but it will enlarge by new races the Christianity of the future. From age to age God confounds the pessimists. He takes the man of little faith, carries him back through history to the dark ages and asks him, Can these bones live? God puts you into the valley of the fifteenth century when paganism was even settling in the Church itself, when the faithful had almost ceased to believe. Could these bones live? You see not how, but Gods answer was the wonderful sixteenth century with the rediscovery of Paul and the coronation of faith, with all that followed. Once more He plants you in the Church early in the eighteenth century. Can that thing live? Gods answer is Wesley, the Oxford Club, and the Evangelical Revival. Do you doubt if any such answer can be given to the question now? We have the answer before our eyes, and the world has it, and it is often like smoke in the worlds eyes. But the men who first faced the missionary problem had it not before their eyes, they had it before their faith only. They were prophets, truly, and they had the answer more surely by faith than many of us have it even by sight. They saw men trooping from their living graves, they saw the races around them rescued and civilised by the Gospel. They saw the Church reconverted because they had within them the spirit that makes it to be so and they felt the first flutterings of its breath. What preacher does not sometimes despair when he looks at the spiritual skeletons around him? Or, perhaps, the preacher himself preaches only because it is a duty and prophesies in obedience rather than in belief. What of these? Well, preach hope until you have it, and then preach it because you have it--you have heard something of that sort before. Today the preacher is a man of parts and affairs. Often the congregation looks well and comfortable, but there is something lacking. It lacks life. It is a congregation and not a church. It may be cultured, but it is not kindled. There is more religion than regeneration. It has been clothed but not quickened. It knows about sacred things but little about the Holy Ghost. Oh, prophesy once more, prophesy till the Spirit of life comes. Preach, but still more pray. And how can you do that if your appeal to man be not inspired by your residing with God? Pray to the Spirit of God and preach to the spirit in men. Never mind current literature, but preach the deep things of God and remember that it is possible to lose your souls by mistaken efforts to gain others. Preach character by all means--more than has been done--but preach it through the Gospel that makes it. It is the demands of life that make men of us. Ask of them great sacrifices. Leave them not at ease. There are those who have not got beyond,, human, nature and its kindnesses, who care more for culture and to have something going on than for the Gospel. Rouse them to conflict, call on the Spirit to seize them and do with them what you never could do. Does not the Spirit do for us what no man can ever do?
III. As to the result. Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves. The true insight and knowledge comes by way of resurrection. We know what must rule others by knowing what has changed and ruled us. This is the source of true conquest and dominion in the world. The power of the final lordship is one of which we know nothing until we have saved men. And we cannot use the power until we ourselves have experienced it. The world is to be ruled at last only by those men and that society that knows the laws and powers of the new soul. We cannot know Gods way with the mighty world unless we give our own manhood as the pledge and lay ourselves down before Him. Spiritual power makes its own procedure, and human society must finally take its shape from the light of the redeemed soul. I suppose there never was a time when--for good or ill--organisation meant so much as today. It has been called into being until it threatens to oust the home and submerge the Church. But is there no danger in this passionate desire for an organised state of existence? As we perfect the form, what is to become of the spirit? Can we organise ourselves into eternal life? Where are we to find that life which is to save our organisation from becoming our grave? Ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have brought you out of your graves. The efficiency of the world can only be secured by the sufficiency of the Spirit. It is Christs power and courage and resource we need to face the perils around us, and the trouble is that these do not occur to our common thoughts, our common Press, and our common Parliament. What we need is to know ourselves for what we are, for the moral laggards and traitors and rebels we are. We want a power that will enable us to go on when robust assurance fails and disillusionment comes and we find ourselves out. If we have no such discovery, no Redeemer, no Quickener, then there is no God, no future. It is in His redemption we must find our power and our methods to rule the world. The life of a people depends not merely on magnanimity or devotion, but on the righteousness whose source is Christ. Our ethics are suffering today because we think of love and sacrifice for their own sake. We hear so much about them that they have become self-conscious. They fancy themselves, as we say, and dress themselves for the public gaze. They should be lost in moral inspiration. Before I admire any sacrifice or ardour I wish to know how it has been inspired. It is not idealism but sanctity that saves a nation. The greatest power we know is holiness. It was the first care of Christ not to sacrifice Himself for an ideal; it was that He might glorify the holiness of God. He died to bless man, but still more to glorify God. The first charge on us must be not the happiness of men, but the holiness of God. Then people will be called from their graves. There is no future for Godless commerce or Godless ardour of any sort. The missionary spirit is the spirit that brings nations out of their graves and resurrects them to Godliness. If you ask me whether all the human wrecks of this world can live, I am sure of it; first, because God has made something out of my shipwreck, and secondly, because I know that when He died He died for the whole world. And God knows, if I do not know, the worlds future and the worlds possibilities; it is He who still commands and has told me to act and pray till every man is saved, and therefore every man shall be saved. It would not be so hard to believe in the black races if we were sound in our belief about the white races. We are straitened within ourselves, and when there is lack of power what can we do but pray? We are bound in our passions and our sins: our bones are dried up, we are weary and too easily weighted down. These things lie upon us like the weight of earth. We can live only in Thee, O Lord of life. Clothe our bones, quicken our flesh, and the valley of Death shall be one of hope, because though we have fallen we rise to holier love and a nobler life. (T. P. Forsyth, D. D.)
Lessons from the valley of vision
The primary object of this chapter was to encourage the Jews to expect their restoration from the Babylonish captivity. At the time of the utterance of this prophecy they were scattered among the cities of the Babylonish dominions without any existence as an independent nation. But as the bones in the valley of Ezekiels vision only needed the quickening process described in the narrative to become a living army, so the Jews only needed the interposition of God on their behalf to become again an independent nation. The meaning of the vision is explained in verses 11 to 14. But there are three other meanings that it is regarded as conveying. Applying the vision to the nominal Christian Church, it teaches that if any of Gods people have lost their spiritual life, and so their capacity for usefulness, the Holy Spirit can quicken them, and so restore to them their power for efficiency, making them an army for Immanuel. Applying the vision to the human race, it shows us Gods method of awakening into spiritual life the dead in trespasses and sins. A third view looks upon the vision as teaching the resurrection of the body at the last day, especial reference being had to the bodies of believers.
I. The text presents us with a picture of the spiritual state of our race; dead in trespasses and sins. The scene presented to Ezekiels sight in vision was a valley full of bones. They were very dry. For a long time they had lain under the scorching heat of an eastern sun, until they were ready to crumble into dust. Here we have symbolised the condition of our race. Men are dead in trespasses and sins. Spiritual life is departed. Sad as the picture may appear, it is not overdrawn. Scripture testimony is true. All flesh is corrupt, Man is born in sin and shapen in iniquity. There is none righteous, naturally, no, not one. It is all-important for us to maintain this doctrine now. For there are those who would persuade us that man is not wholly corrupt; that the race is improving; that there are germs of good in us; that by the cultivation of his faculties, a man may subdue vicious propensities and become virtuous and holy. Why did Christ come to this world? Not simply to leave us an example of perfect holiness, but to atone for sin. He died to save us from a death from which we could not save ourselves. But take away any necessity for the atonement of Christ, and the love of God does not appear so great as the doctrine of mans depravity makes it appear. This doctrine of original sin is one too humbling to mans pride to be received without remonstrance, and the deep-rooted opposition to it is one proof of its truth. Who likes to be told that by nature he is wholly corrupt, and void of spiritual life? Christianity is the great civilising power in the world today, but in the most Christianised countries there is ample evidence of the universal prevalence of sin. There is no hope for the world from itself. As Ezekiel looked forth upon the valley of desolation, God said to him, Son of man, can these bones live? and he answered, O Lord God, Thou knowest. We ask, Is it possible for the millions of our race now in ignorance of the Gospel, in darkness about a future state, never having heard of the only way of salvation, to be enlightened and all brought at last to worship the same Lord and trust in the same Saviour as ourselves? We look around us: we see that in a Christian land, like our own, the masses of our fellow creatures, with all the spiritual advantages they possess, are careless about salvation and treat the Gospel as if it were some cunningly devised fable. Can these dry bones live? They cannot save themselves; they are powerless to procure themselves spiritual life. Looked at from a human standpoint, the work is an impossibility. To Him who created a world out of nothing, there is no impossibility in restoring to life, whether the dead in sins or the dead in body. Be it ours to follow the directions of Divine Providence, and patiently to wait for the exertion of Gods almighty power.
II. The text presents us with an illustration of the human instrumentality God generally employs in the work of quickening the dead in sins; the preaching of the Gospel. Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy unto the bones, and say, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus it appears that the dry bones were fit subjects for prophecy. They could hear the Word of God and understand it. Remembering that the dry bones primarily represented the Jewish nation, we see the propriety of the command. And taking the dry bones as representing the human family, we see an equal propriety in the vision. Our business is with the command, not the results. We are to use the means, and leave it to God to prosper them. Ezekiels was a message of life (verses 5, 6). The Gospel is a message of life. We are told to go and preach to every creature. This preaching has been the human instrumentality chiefly employed. Yet Christianity triumphed over the religions of heathen Greece and Rome; it superseded the subtle philosophies and hoary idolatries of the East; it destroyed the worship of the barbarous Gauls and Germans, and rough savages of Northern and Eastern Europe, and has ever since maintained its hold. Yet the world still speaks of the foolishness of preaching, and wonders that such simple means should accomplish such great results. Let people say what they will, the power of the pulpit is the greatest of human instrumentalities employed to bring about the conversion of the world. The press cannot supersede it, and never will; for in the living voice of a man in sympathy with his mission and burning to save souls, there is a power that the lifeless page can never exercise. It is a divinely appointed institution. God honours it. In this valley of vision, there was one prophet commissioned to declare Gods will. Now it is different. One was enough then for the work to be done. But the command to preach Christs Gospel was given to all His disciples. Ezekiel was prepared to deliver his message, and it would have been grievous sin in him to refuse to do so. So now the disciples of Christ, who are called to preach His Gospel, are prepared for their work. God gives physical, mental, and spiritual gifts to His servants. Ezekiel had the message which he was to deliver, given him, and he dared not announce any other. Had he done so, punishment from God would have been richly deserved, and speedily inflicted, and there would have been no resurrection of the army. And if a preacher preaches any other Gospel than that of Christ crucified, not only does he expose himself to the punishment of unfaithfulness in a matter of such transcendent importance, but also he will be of no use in saving souls. Many are the ways in which Gods servants, divinely commissioned to preach the Gospel, perform their task. Each man for himself must give up his account to God of the way in which he has fulfilled his commission, and ought to do his duty unmoved by the frowns or favour of men. All are not learned as Apollos, or zealous as Paul, or loving and persuasive as John in later life. Like the diversity in the plumage of the feathered tribes; like the variety in the hues of flowers; like the perpetual variation in the shapes of the fleeting clouds, so is the variety endless in the gifts and manner of the divinely commissioned preachers of the Gospel. So long as God owns His servants labours, let us stand by, and murmur not against His ambassadors.
III. The text presents us with a view of the Divine agency employed in the work of quickening the dead in trespasses and sins: the power of the Holy Spirit. What was the result of Ezekiels prophecy (verses 7, 8)? Ezekiel might prophesy, but all his prophesying could not give them life. The change which had been accomplished was not done by Ezekiels prophesying, but by the power of God. Thus it was the Holy Spirits power that made that army of slain men to live. Similarly, when Gods servants preach the Gospel message to the spiritually dead around them, they feel their utter helplessness to quicken them into spiritual life. As the bodies of Ezekiels vision had the form of living beings before the breath entered into them, so men may be like Christians in their outward behaviour, but lack their spiritual life. To give this is the work of the Spirit. Oh, recognise the power of the Spirit, Third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity. All the preaching in the world will he useless to give spiritual life to a single soul unless He put forth His power. Trust not in the preacher whoever he may be, but in the Spirit. Already in answer to faithful prayer the Spirit has descended, and dead souls have been quickened, and are an army for Christ doing His work For the vision of Ezekiel showed that the dead when raised became a living army. Their life was given them that they might fight against and subdue Gods enemies: they were not simply to enjoy life themselves. And when by the Holy Spirits working, sinners are led to trust in Jesus and gain spiritual life; they are at once effective soldiers for Christ, and able to lead others to serve under the same gracious King. (T. D. Anderson, B. A.)
The valley of dry bones
In the galleries of Versailles the history of France is written in colour. Passing from corridor to corridor, the observer reads from those pictured pages of the centuries, the fortune of ideas, institutions, and dynasties. It is an impressive method of teaching. Many passages of Scripture are marvellous specimens of colour writing. The truth is not taught in dry formulas, but is flashed upon the mind, from parable or symbol or picture. Inspiration is the highest art. Who paints truth like God? Burning bush, pillar of fire and cloud, visions of patriarchs and prophets, splendours of the Transfiguration mount, flaming canvas of the Apocalypse,--what is there that equals these limnings of the Divine pencil? The passage before us is one of these colour sketches of inspiration. It is clear that God designed to teach desolate Israel, by this vision, three things.
1. That there was hope for them. In the judgment of men, they were past help. They were utterly destroyed, their land ravaged, their capital overthrown, themselves captives in Babylonia. Where on the horizon was there a morning ray of promise? God still lived. God had not been carried away into captivity, and in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength.
2. The lesson of self-distrust. They could not deliver themselves. The wisest heads among them might scheme, the boldest conspirators might plot, but it would avail nothing. Those bleaching bones in the valley were the symbol of utter impotence.
3. Entire dependence upon God. It was the Word of the Lord, at whose utterance bones knit themselves to bones, and covered themselves with flesh. It was the Word of the Lord, at whose bidding the inspiration of life came into the motionless bodies, and transformed the valley of sepulture into an amphitheatre crowded with a host of stalwart men. Israels hope was Israels God. The history of Israel was a microcosm, the worlds history in type and miniature. The principles on which God governed that people, are the principles on which He governs the race. His arguments and appeals and instructions to them are for all men and all time. This is a lost world. By many that statement is branded as unwarrantable. How wonderful is the march of our modern civilisation! How it hunts out and subsidises the hidden forces of earth and sea and sky, how it annihilates distance, and accelerates the transit of human thought! What beneficent changes it has wrought in ideas and institutions! But there is another side to the matter. It is a universally confessed fact that there is a vast amount of moral and spiritual inertia, which the so-called progress of the race does not overcome, nor sensibly abate. Humanity grows bigger, rather than better. There is not a well-balanced correspondence between the growing intelligence, and the increasing righteousness, of the race. The intellectual outstrips the moral advance. The discoveries of curiosity outnumber and outweigh the accretions of character.
1. That human expedients will prove ineffectual. There has been no stinting of effort to reclaim the world, on the part of good men. The utmost that human effort can compass in this matter is reform, and what a lost world needs is a remaking. Reform alters the shape, but not the nature of things. Mans wisdom has as yet found no way of renewing mankind.
2. The instrumentality to be used is the preaching of the Gospel. As a matter of history, the preaching of the Gospel has proved the most efficient method of reaching a lost world. The little company of the apostles, by the simple proclamation of Christ and the resurrection, dealt the deathblow to Greek and Roman superstition, entrenched in the stronghold of centuries. Cyril and Chrysostom moved two continents with their message. The earth shakes with the tread of the millions who are mustering at the Gospel call. In the jungles of India, under the shadow of the great wall of China, in thronged and eager Japan.
3. The efficient agent is the Spirit of God. The bleaching relics became the bodies of men, but there was no breath in them. There is a certain measure of influence in the simple utterance and acknowledgment of the claims of Divine truth. Christian governments, Christian institutions, Christian ethics are the result of the confessed sovereignty of the Gospel teachings. But this is not the last power of the Gospel of Christ. It is only when, and only as, the Spirit of God takes of the things of God, and shows them unto men, that wonderful transformations are wrought in nature, and character. No masterly eloquence, no exhaustive learning, can supply His place. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase. The consolidation of all human agencies is comparatively inoperative in the work of mans renewal, and uplift to spiritual life. It is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord. We are to concern ourselves less about our intellectual greatness, and more about our fitness to be instruments, through which and with which the Divine power can work.
Certain inferential teachings of this passage are worth noting.
1. Some of the methods by which churches and Sabbath schools endeavour to enlarge their influence are weak and wicked. Eternal well-being is at stake, and the fair, the sociable, the concert, the drama cannot lift men dead in trespasses and sin, into newness of life in Christ Jesus.
2. The passage is full of encouragement to Christian workers. The spiritually dead are not beyond their reach. The same power that peopled that silent valley with hosts of stalwart men, that transformed blaspheming Saul into fervent Paul, is at their command.
3. The general and concentrated outcome of this portion of Scripture is to urge all who work for God to rely entirely upon God. The invincible Spirit, if He be for us, who can be against us? (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
Ezekiels vision
I. A striking description of the religious state of the heathen world.
1. The persons made the subject of this prophetic vision are represented as dead. To be dead is to be in a state which excites reset and sympathy. To lose the image of God is to die; because as death destroys the human form, sin destroys truth, holiness, and love, in which the image of God in man consists. This is the unhappy case of the heathen. The heathen world is judicially dead, under the wrath and curse of Almighty God. To counteract generous feelings, and to stop the stream of pity in its very fountain, we are aware that the doctrine of the safety of the heathen has been confidently affirmed. The true question is among such persons often mistaken. It is not, whether it is possible for heathens to be saved,--that we grant: but that circumstance proves the actual state of the heathen world to be more dangerous than if no such possibility could be proved; for the possibility of their salvation indisputably shows them to be the subjects of moral government, and therefore liable to an aggravated punishment in case of disobedience. The true question is, Are the heathens, immoral and idolatrous as they are, actually safe?
2. The number of the dead forms another part of the picture,--the valley was full of bones. The slain of sin are innumerable. The valley as we trace it seems to sweep to an unlimited extent, and yet everywhere it is full! The whole earth is that valley. Where is the country where transgression stalks not with daring and destructive activity? where it has not covered and polluted the soil with its victims? If we turn to the east, there the peopled valleys of Asia stretch before us; but peopled with whom? With the dead! That quarter of the earth alone presents five hundred millions of souls, with but few exceptions, without a God, save gods that sanction vice; without a sacrifice, save sacrifices of folly and blood.
3. To the number of the dead the prophet adds another circumstance,--they were unburied: the destructive effects of sin, the sad ravages of death, lay exposed and open to the sun. So open and exposed have been the unbelief and blasphemies of the Jews, and the idolatry and vices of the Gentiles.
4. The prophet closes his description by adding, that the bones were very dry. Under this strong figure the hopelessness of their condition is represented. Thus the Jews, introduced in verse II, are made to say, Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; and the state of the heathen must, at least, be equally hopeless. As far as mere human means and human probabilities go, there is no hope. From themselves it is certain there is none.
II. The means by which its mystical resurrection is to be effected: Prophesy upon these bones, etc.
1. This direction intimates that the ministry of the Word is the grand means appointed by God for the salvation of the world. Others have looked for the amelioration of the human race from the progress of science. Another class of speculatists would wait until wars and revolutions have broken up old systems of despotism, and introduced political liberty, before any means are taken to spread the Gospel. Here is another attempt to build the pyramid upon its point. In vain do men expect liberty without virtue.
2. The words may be considered as an injunction on the ministers of the Gospel. But to whom is the message directed? To missionaries only? Nay; but to all who are called to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
3. The injunction, Prophesy, respects not only ministers, but you also who have a private station in the Church. In the society of Christians the particular work of every member is his own salvation; but he owes a duty to the whole body, which is to promote, by all the means in his power, the common end of the association. That common object is to bring the wickedness of the wicked to an end, and to establish the just.
III. The prophecy expresses the certain success which should follow the application of the appointed means. We are engaged in no doubtful cause: the kingdom of Christ must prevail; and the Word which has given Him the heathen for His inheritance is forever settled in heaven. Our confidence rests--
1. On the power of the Gospel. We are not to consider the Gospel as a mere system of doctrines, and duties, and hopes, offered coldly to the reason of mankind. It is this system, but it is more; it is the source of a Divine influence which exerts itself upon the faculties of those who hear it. The Word is never sent without its Author. Go, and preach My Gospel, and lo, I am with you. The same union subsists between the Spirit and the Word.
2. Our confidence in the certain success of the Gospel rests also upon experience. Christianity is not a novelty; and its efficacy is not now to be put, for the first time, to the test of experiment. It is that powerful and Divine instrument which has for ages been wielded with glorious success in the cause of God and truth.
3. Prophecy confirms the certainty of success. (R. Watson.)
The valley of dry bones and the true preacher
I. This preacher had a fine church to preach in. It is in the midst of the valley. The true preacher of Christ has open nature for his temple. He need not be confined to the buildings of mans hands, or tied to the conventionalities of society. Wherever men are, on the valley, the hilltops, the seashore, the high road, or in the market place, he can open his mission, he can deliver his message. Thus Christ and His Apostles preached.
II. This preacher had an affecting congregation to address. The valley was full of bones, very many and very dry. Unregenerate souls are like dead bodies in many respects.
1. They are the creatures of the outward. While there is life in the human body it has a power to appropriate the external to its own use; but when life has departed, the external elements make it their sport. It is so with unregenerate souls. They are the creatures of circumstances.
2. They are loathsome to the eye. The human frame that is beautiful in life becomes so offensive in death, that love seeks a place to bury it out of sight. Unregenerate souls are loathsome to the eyes of all who are truly and spiritually alive.
III. This preacher had a Divine sermon to deliver.
1. He appealed to his dead auditory. This showed his strong faith in God. His own reason would suggest to him the absurdity of his work, but he trusted God.
2. He appealed to Heaven. Come from the four winds, O breath, etc. From Heaven the power came, and that power he invoked with all the earnestness of his nature. Thus with the true preacher of Christ. His words will be powerless unless made powerful by the mighty Spirit.
IV. This preacher had marvellous results to witness.
1. The results were what he worked for. The efforts he exerted were for resuscitation, and resuscitation came. Every true preacher will get, to some extent, that for which he earnestly labours.
2. The results were gradually developed. Here is--
(1) Motion--bones moving.
(2) Organisation--bones knitted together and covered with flesh.
(3) Vitality--the organisation animated.
(4) Exertion--stood on their feet a great army.
Under every true preacher the work in a congregation goes on something in this way. (Homilist.)
The vision of dry bones
I. The representation given us in this vision of the moral condition of our world. Bones--dry bones--unburied bones--very many of them--what a crowd of suggestive thoughts seem to be called up by this picture! A bone--who likes to look on this dishonoured relic of life? What a recoil do youth and beauty feel at being told that to this complexion they must come at last! But the bones the prophet saw were, on our spiritual interpretation, yet more painful to contemplate; they represented the bones, not of a dead body, but, so to speak, of a dead soul, scattered members of the immortal part--Gods image defaced, corrupted, broken into dust and fragments. Furthermore, to complete the picture of death and desolateness, the prophet adds, and they were very dry. They had not only remained a long time in this state, they were bleached and crumbled in the sun, and all vestige of the human thing was gone. The application of this lies upon the surface. God made us men, but sin has changed us into skeletons. Observe, further, the vision seems to point to the utter shamelessness of the unconverted state. The bones were in an open valley, or champaign. There may be those who sin in secret, those who defraud and plunder by means of locked up and secret ledgers, who concoct their mendacious schemes in chambers dark as the unsunned and unfrequented sepulchre; but the many hardly care to hide their iniquity, they leave the pestiferous breath of corruption to go up from the valley, and seem to glory in their shame. And how unblushingly does vice walk our streets, and lying enter into our commerce, and sinful and foolish jesting dishonour our entertainments, and the offer of cheap excursions affront the sanctities of Gods holy day! And whey justify themselves who do such things. Even concealment--that homage which bad men pay to the divinity of virtue--is deemed uncalled for. They are dead in trespasses and sins, and desire that none should bury them out of our sight. Another mournful spectacle which the vision exhibits of spiritual death reigning around us is its universality. It is not in the midst of the valley only, in the crowd of cities, and in the feverish stir of courts, the haunts of dissipation, or amidst the thickly nestling families of the outcasts that we meet with these relics of spiritual corruption. Wherever we pass, with the prophet, round about, in the retirement of the village, in the seclusion of the cloister, in the calm privacies of family and domestic intercourse--sweet Auburn, mighty London--it is all one--there is not a house in which there is not one dead.
II. The means to be employed for the recovery of the world from its spiritually dead condition. Can these dry bones live? Can your faith grasp the great fact of these bones becoming men? And the answer which the downcast man of God would return, would be in substance Ezekiels answer--O Lord God, Thou knowest. Judging by past results, judging by present evidences, judging by any standards of human likelihood, I should say these bones will continue bones. I see not hope or sign of life among them. Every form of moral inducement fails. Mark here, the ministry of the Word is Gods great agency for the worlds conversion. The days we live in are fertile of expedient and project and bold thought. Every sun that rises finds a thousand busy minds planning and devising something for the good of mankind, The philanthropists calling is absolutely overdone; and by education, by cultivation of e taste for the arts, by shortened labours for the sons of toil, and open doors for the repentant criminal, by reformatories, dormitories, penitentiaries, and industrial schools, everybody has his scheme for mending the worlds present condition. Amidst this multitudinous assemblage of human remedies, all good in their way however, it is a great repose to the mind just to see what is Gods remedy. He interferes not with our social machinery, our commerce, our science, our philanthropy, or our laws--these may all go on as before; but He has His own cure for the moral disorders of mankind; and where that cure is left out of sight, God will bless no other. And that is, to prophesy upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord! And at this part of the vision the minister of God finds his lesson, He has a pardonable preference for the great promising fields of labour. True, he must go where he is sent, but he would not choose a valley of bones if he could get an auditory of living things. But the tenor of his commission runs--Preach to the most ignorant, and dark, and hopeless; speak to the dead; even in the place of tombs and at the very mouth of graves; prophesy upon these bones. Neither are we to be tellers of smooth things when we prophesy, to shrink from calling people by their right names and addressing many among them as spiritually dead; for you see there Gods own instructions to the preacher--Say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord. And this is our confidence when we speak--that it is the word of the Lord.
III. The success which shall attend the use of all heavenly-appointed means for the conversion of souls. We may not omit to observe here, how, under every dispensation the dead and the hopeless are the objects of the Almightys care. They are the tempted among disciples, the heavy laden among sinners, the weeping among the prodigals; it is among the reeds the sorest bruised, and among bones the very dry, that mercy finds occasion for its most tender and bright displays. Let us see this principle acted out in the vision. There was a noise and a shaking. To two out of the three proposed interpretations of the vision suggested at the outset these effects seem applicable enough. Thus we can have no difficulty in imagining that a great political commotion should be stirred up on the first proclamation of Cyrus for the return of the Jews to their own land; whilst for the other interpretation, or that which applies the vision to the resurrection of the body, we have the later New Testament confirmation, that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. But what fitness have these terms for our spiritual rendering? Much every way. There is no resurrection to spiritual life, whether in a nation, in a family, or in an individual soul, without both a noise and a shaking. Yes, the chariots of the Redeemer never have been noiseless chariots. There was a noise in Judea when John preached the baptism of repentance; there was a noise at Athens when Paul preached the doctrines of the resurrection; there was a noise at Ephesus when the craftsmen saw the danger which threatened their silver shrines. And is there not often a noise in families when the prophesying is just beginning to take effect, when some solitary member of a household comes out from the rest, and with a lofty disregard of the results, resolves to cast in his lot with the people of God? Ask yourselves, have you ever been shaken from these sandy and unstable foundations on which so many are building their immortal house? Have you over been shaken from those unscriptural and hollow creeds which are the only answer many have to make to the fears of death, the terrors of the grave, and the heavy indictment to be preferred against them at the last day? Or, lastly, have you ever felt a shaking in yourselves? Have you ever known what it is to have the heart to sink, and the knees to smite, and the tongue to falter through an oppressive sense of your souls danger and urgent need? If so, be of good cheer; at this time there was a shaking in you, the bones were beginning to move, and flesh was beginning to come up, and over the face of your regenerate soul the Spirit of God was moving and imparting to you the first breathings of spiritual life.
IV. The last scene of this imposing spectacle. See in this feature of the prophets vision, a type of that halting stage in the Christian life, in which all external forms of godliness are kept up without any growing experience of its power; living, indeed, in shape, but having no breath in them. Seeing there was no breath in these risen forms, the voice said unto Ezekiel, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. We want more breath in our body, more of that which distinguishes the skeleton from the man and the religious automaton from the thing of life--and this is to be obtained only by our prophesying to the wind; by one and all in the church and in their closet offering that fervent petition, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The vision of the dry bones
Like many other visions before and since, it is partly shaped by the circumstances of the times. The horrors of the Chaldean invasion, which had resulted, in carrying away the Jewish people into Babylon, were still fresh in the memories of men. In many a valley, on many a hillside in Southern Palestine, the track of the invading army as it advanced and retired would have been marked by the bones of the unoffending but slaughtered peasantry. In a work written some years ago, Mr. Layard has described such a scene in Armenia, an upland valley, covered by the bones of the Christian population who had been plundered and murdered by Kurds. Ezekiel, wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy, was set down in a valley that was full of bones. But what are we to understand by the dry bones of the vision of Ezekiel? This is plainly a picture of a resurrection, not, indeed, of the general resurrection, because what Ezekiel saw was clearly limited and local, but at the same time it is a sample of what will occur at the general resurrection. It may be urged that this representation is presently explained to refer to something quite distinct--namely, the restoration of the Jewish people from Babylon, and therefore that what passed before the prophets eye need not have been regarded by him as more than an imaginary or even impossible occurrence intended to symbolise a coming event. But if this were the case, the vision, it must be said, was very ill adapted for its proposed purpose. The fact is that the form of Ezekiels vision, and the popular use which Ezekiel made of it, shows that at this date the idea of the resurrection of the body could not have been a strange one to religious views. Had it been so Ezekiels vision would have been turned against him. The restoration from the captivity would have been thought more improbable than ever if the measure of its improbability was to be found in a doctrine unbelieved in as yet by the people of revelation. We know, in fact, from their own scriptures, that the Jews had had for many a century glimpses more or less distinct of this truth. Long ago the mother of Samuel could sing that the Lord bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up, and Job could be sure that though worms destroy his body yet in his flesh he would see God; and David, speaking for a Higher Being than himself, yet knows that God will not leave His soul in hell nor suffer His Holy One to see corruption; and Daniel, Ezekiels contemporary or nearly so, foresees that many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt, and later on the courageous mother of the seven Maccabean Martyrs cries to her dying sons that the Creator of the world, who formed the generations of men, and thought out the beginning of all things, will also of His mercy give you life and breath again if you regard not yourselves for His sake. Undoubtedly there was among the Jews a certain belief in the resurrection of the body, a belief which this very vision must have at once represented and confirmed. Ezekiels vision, then, may remind us of what Christ our Lord has taught us again and again in His own words of the resurrection of the body. But its teaching by no means ends with this. For the dry bones of Ezekiels vision may well represent the conditions of societies of men at particular times in their history, the condition of nations, of Churches, of less important institutions. Indeed, Ezekiel was left in no kind of doubt about the Divinely intended meaning of his vision. The dry bones were pictures of what the Jewish nation believed itself to be, as a consequence of the captivity in Babylon. All that was left of it could be best compared to the bones of the Jews which had been massacred by the Chaldean invader, and which bleached the hillsides of Palestine. He said unto me, These bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off. Certainly in the captivity little was left of Israel beyond the skeleton of its former self. There were the sacred books, there were Royal descendants of the race of Jacob, there were priests, there were prophets, there was the old Hebrew and sacred language not yet wholly corrupted into Chaldean, there were precious traditions of the past days of Jerusalem, these were the dry bones of what had been earlier. There was nothing to animate them, they lay on the soil of heathenism, they lay apart from each other as if quite unconnected. To the captive people Babylon was not merely a valley of dry bones, but socially and politically it was fatal to the corporate life of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O My people, I will open your graves. And this is what actually did happen at the restoration of the Jews from Babylon. Each of the promises in Ezekiels vision was fulfilled. The remains of the past history, its sacred books, its priests, its prophets, its laws, its great traditions, its splendid hopes, these once more moved in the soul of the nation as if with the motion of reviving life. It was a wonderful restoration, almost if not altogether unique in history. We see it in progress in the 119th Psalm, which doubtless belongs to this period, which exhibits the upward struggle of a sincere and beautiful soul at the first dawn of the national resurrection, and we read of its completion in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah; it was completed when the Temple, the centre of the spiritual and national life, was fully rebuilt, and when the whole life of the people in its completeness was thus renewed in the spot which had been the home of their fathers from generation to generation. And something of the same kind had been seen in portions of the Christian Church. As a whole, we know the Church of Christ cannot fail, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; but particular Churches may fail in their different degrees,--national churches, provincial churches, local churches. These, like the seven churches in Asia, which stand as a warning for all the ages of Christendom, these may experience their varying degrees of corruption and ruin and the moral insensibility which precedes death. And some of us may have noted a like resurrection in some institution, neither as defined as a church nor yet so broad or inclusive as a nation, in a school, a college, a hospital, a charitable building, a company. It is the creation, it is the relic of a distant age, it is magnificent in its picturesqueness, it lacks alone nothing but life. It persists in statutes that are no longer observed, it observes ceremonies and customs which have lost their meaning, it constantly holds to a phraseology which tells of a past time and of which the object has been forgotten. But certain it is in each year its members meet, they go through the accustomed usages, they signalise their meeting, it may be by splendid banquets, by commanding oratory, but in their heart of hearts they know they are meeting in a valley of dry bones. The old rules, usages, phrases, dresses, these are scattered around them like the bones of Ezekiels vision, a life which once animated and clothed has long since perished away. Lastly, the dry bones of Ezekiels vision may be discovered, and that not seldom, within the human soul. When the soul has lost its hold of truth or grace, when it has ceased to believe or ceased to love all the traces of what it once has been, do not forthwith despair. There are survivals of the old believing life, fragments and skeletons of the old affection, bits of stray logic which once created phrases which express the feeling which once won to prayers, there may remain amid the arid desolation of every valley full of dry bones the aspirations which have no goal, the actions which have no real basis, no practical consequences, the friendships which we feel to be holy and which are still kept up, the habits which have lost all meaning, we meet with writers, with talkers, with historians, with poets whose language shows that they have once known what it is to believe, but for whom all living faith has perished utterly and left behind it only these dried-up relics of its former life. Can these bones live? Can these phrases, these forms, these habits, and these associations which once were part of the spirit life, can they ever again become what they were? A man may have ceased to mean his prayers, his prayers may now be but the dry bones of that warm and loving communion which he once held with his God, but do not let him on that account give them up, do not let him break with the little that remains of what once was life. It is easy enough to decry habit, but habit may be the scaffolding which saves us from a great fall, habit may be the arch which bridges over a chasm which yawns between one height and another on our upward road; habit without motive is sufficiently unsatisfactory, but habit is better, better far, than nothing. Some of us it may be surveying the shrivelled elements of our religious life cannot avoid the question which comes in upon us from heaven, Can these bones live? They seem to us, even in our best moments, so hopelessly dislocated, so dry, so dead, but to this question the answer always must be, O Lord God, Thou knowest. Yes, He does know; He sees, as He saw of old into the grave of Lazarus; He sees as He saw into the tomb of the Lord Jesus, so He sees into the crypt of a soul of whose faith and love only these dry bones remain, and He knows that life is again possible. (Canon Liddon.)
The restoration and conversion of the Jews
I. There is to be a political restoration of the Jews. Israel is now blotted out from the map of nations; her sons are scattered far and wide; her daughters mourn beside all the rivers of the earth. But she is to be restored; she is to be restored as from the dead. She is to be reorganised; her scattered bones are to be brought together. There will be a native government again; there will again be the form of a body politic; a state shall be incorporated, and a king shall reign. I will place you in your own land, is Gods promise to them, They shall again walk upon her mountains, shall once more sit under her vines and rejoice under her fig trees. And they are also to be reunited. There shall not be two, nor ten, nor twelve, but one--one Israel praising one God, serving one king, and that one king the Son of David, the descended Messiah. They are to have a national prosperity which shall make them famous; nay, so glorious shall they be that Egypt, and Tyre, and Greece, and Rome shall all forget their glory in the greater splendour of the throne of David.
II. Israel is to have a spiritual restoration or a conversion. Both the text and the context teach this. The promise is that they shall renounce their idols, and, behold, they have already done so. Weaned forever from the worship of all images, of whatever sort, the Jewish nation has now become infatuated with traditions or duped by philosophy. She is to have, however, instead of these delusions, a spiritual religion: she is to love her God. They shall be My people, and I will be their God. The unseen but omnipotent Jehovah is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth by His ancient people; they are to come before Him in His own appointed way, accepting the Mediator whom their sires rejected; coming into covenant relation with God, for so our text tells us, I will make a covenant of peace with them, and Jesus is our peace, therefore we gather that Jehovah shall enter into the covenant of grace with them, that covenant of which Christ is the federal head, the substance, and the surety. They are to walk in Gods ordinances and statutes, and so exhibit the practical effects of being united to Christ who hath given them peace.
III. The means of that restoration. Observe that there are two kinds of prophesying spoken of here. First, the prophet prophesies to the bones--here is preaching; and next, he prophesies to the four winds--here is praying.
1. It is the duty and the privilege of the Christian Church to preach the Gospel to the Jew, and to every creature, and in so doing she may safely take the vision before us as her guide.
(1) She may take it as her guide, first, as to matter. What are we to preach? The text says we are to prophesy, and assuredly every missionary to the Jews should especially keep Gods prophecies very prominently before the public eye. Every man has a tender side and a warm heart towards his own nation, and if you tell him that in your standard book there is a revelation made that that nation is to act a grand part in human history, and is, indeed, to take the very highest place in the parliament of nations, then the mans prejudice is on your side, and he listens to you with the greater attention. But still the main thing which we have to preach about is Christ. Preach His hallowed life, the righteousness of His people; declare His painful death, the putting away of all their sins. Vindicate His glorious resurrection, the justification of His people; tell of His ascent on high, their triumph over the world and sin; declare His second advent, His glorious coming, to make His people glorious in the glory which He hath won for them, and Christ Jesus, as He is thus preached, shall surely be the means of making these bones live. Let this preaching resound with sovereign mercy; let it always have in it the clear and distinct ring of free grace. Man has a will, and God never ignores that will, but by His almighty grace He blessedly leads it in silken fetters. Preach, preach, preach, then, but let it be the preaching of Christ, and the proclamation of free grace. The Church, I say, has a model here as to the matter of preaching.
(2) And I am certain that she has also a model here as to her manner of preaching. The manner of our preaching is to be by way of command, as well as by way of teaching. Repent and be converted, every one of you. Lay hold on eternal life. Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
(3) We have a model here, moreover, as to our audience. We are not to select our congregation, but we are to go where God sends us; and if He should send us into the open valley, where the bones are Very dry, we are to preach there. Do not say, Such-and-such a man is too bigoted; the case rests not with him, nor with his bigotry, but with God. These bones were very dry, but yet they lived. Let not, therefore, the greater viciousness of a people, or their greater hardness of heart, ever stand in our way, but let us say to them, dry as they are, Ye dry bones, live.
(4) And here, again, we have another lesson as to the preachers authority. If you will observe, you will see the prophet says, Hear the Word of the Lord. Always put to your fellowman the truth which you hold dear, not as a thing which he may play with or may do what he likes with, which is at his option to choose or to neglect as he sees fit; but put it to him as it is in truth, the Word of God; and be not satisfied unless you warn him that it is at his own peril that he rejects the invitation, and that on his own head must be his blood if he turns aside from the good word of the command of God.
(5) I cannot leave this point without noticing how the prophet describes the effect of his preaching--there was a voice, and there was a noise. Is this stir, then, the stir of opposition, or is it the stir of inquiry? Anything is better than stagnation: of a persecutor I have quite as much hope as of a quiet despiser.
2. After the prophet had prophesied to the bones, he was to prophesy to the winds. He was to say to the blessed Spirit, the Life-giver, the God of all grace, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. Preaching alone doth little; it may make the stir, it may bring the people together, but there is no life-giving power in the Gospel of itself apart from the Holy Spirit. The breath must first blow, and then these bones shall live. Let us betake ourselves much to this form of prophesying. Observe that this second prophesying of Ezekiel is just as bold and as full of faith as the first. He seems to have no doubt, but speaks as though he could command the wind. Come, saith he, and the wind cometh. Little faith, Mender harvests; much faith, plenteous sheaves. Let your prayer, then, be with a sense of how much you need it, but yet with a firm conviction that the Holy Spirit will most surely come in answer to your prayers. And then let it be earnest prayer. That Come from the four winds, O breath, reads to me like the cry, not of One in despair, but of one who is full of a vehement desire, gratified with what he sees, since the bones have come together, and have been mysteriously clothed with flesh, but now crying passionately for the Immediate completion of the miracle--Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The prospects of Christianity when brought to bear on the lower races
I propose to concentrate our attention on the prospects of Christianity when brought to bear on the lower races and more grovelling religions that form so large a section of our Empire, and to endeavour to answer the commonly alleged objection to missionary effort, namely, that the dry bones cannot live. It is a waste of power, they say, alike in money and in men; a waste of power which might be so much more usefully employed in elevating and Christianising our virtual heathen at home. Those who assert this maintain
(1) on a priori grounds, that ethnological inferiority makes them unreceptive of the highest civilisation, and incapable of appreciating Christian truth or recognising Christian obligation; and
(2) a posteriori, they assert that missionary effort among them has, as a matter of fact, proved a failure. Let us consider first whether the a priori argument is conclusive. We may frankly in the outset recognise the reality of race differences; we are fully alive to all that is denoted by the expression, national idiosyncrasy; nor can we question the relative inferiority of race as compared with race. God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. That is to say, that all who bear on them the stamp of man--all who, by that unaccountable intuition which leads the mastiff, the greyhound, the terrier, the Newfoundland, despite their utter dissimilarity of contour, pursuits, and habits, to recognise each other as alike dogs, feel and cannot divest themselves of the feeling that they have a common humanity--do, as a matter of fact, and in right of that feeling, stand in a fraternal relation one to the other. Once recognise this common humanity, and the Christian, who believes in the Incarnation, must also recognise that every human unit is potentially redeemed in Christ, whose glorious title is not the King of the Jews but the Son of Man; so that according to the Christian idea race distinctions, however characteristic, fade away, and are merged in the glorified humanity of the second Adam, in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all. And on this hypothesis there is nothing to startle us in Christs words taken in their literal significance, make disciples of all nations; preach the Gospel to every creature. I say in their literal significance, though we well know that to do this often sacrifices the spirit to the letter. But once concede the postulate of universal redemption, once accept the truth, Christ tasted death for every man, and the systematic evangelisation of all men becomes a necessary corollary. We pass on to the a posteriori argument that missionary work among the heathen is a recognised failure. Is it so? This is a question of evidence. Whom shall we first summon into the witness box? We will cite our own selves. We English people of today are a standing reply to the supposed uselessness of missionary effort. It is true our Christianity is of long standing; but let our minds dart back to the origines of Christianity in these islands. What manner of persons were they to whom the first Christian missionaries came? Were they, think you, a promising field for Gospel labour? Were our skin-clad and tatooed Keltic predecessors hopeful material for the first mission priests from Gaul to work on; or, a few centuries later on, were our rude Saxon forefathers, debased in drunkenness and gluttony, patently and obviously receptive of a religion which inculcated righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? But the Kelt and Saxon, it is replied, in spite of their savagery and rudeness, belonged to better breeds; were they not members of the great Aryan family? Granted, yet have we any right to assert that when they first passed under the mild yoke of Christianity they were on any higher level, morally or spiritually, than the New Zealand Maori or the West Indian Charaib? And may we not with justice assume that hereditary, i.e. transmitted Christianity, has been a perceptible factor in their moral and spiritual elevation? At least, is it possible so to eliminate this factor as to be safe in pronouncing that they were originally better breeds, and naturally more receptive of Christian influences? But we may go a step further, and boldly assert that it has not been a failure even with the savage, that is to say with races of a confessedly low organisation, given two necessary conditions,--sufficient time and favourable surroundings. If you wish to know what the Gospel can do for the savage pure and simple, study the Moravian mission records. The darkest and dreariest corners of heathendom are the field of labour of their choice. Thibet, Greenland, the Mosquito Coast, Surinam, Aboriginal Australia--these are their principal mission stations. Their records and reports are worth reading; they have in them the ring of veracity; they faithfully chronicle ill-success and disappointment; but they can point to tangible results of all this patient effort; they have confessedly achieved what had been deemed impossible--the elevation of the Australian native, where they have been able to bring him within the range of continuous Christian influence, from his depth of degradation, through the power of the Gospel, and through the magic which resides unimpaired in that name which is above every name, the saving name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the power of His Cross. Or read the life and letters of John Coleridge Patteson, first missionary Bishop of Melanesia. In his first cruise among those islands, which were destined afterwards to be his scattered diocese, and subsequently the scene of his martyrdom, he thus describes his visit to Bauro: The house of Iri was long, low, and open at the ends; along the ridge pole were ranged twenty-seven skulls not yet blackened with smoke; and bones were scattered outside, for a fight had recently taken place near at hand. Yet, later on, he writes thus of his youngsters that he had gathered round him from this very Golgotha: I have quite learned to believe that there are no savages anywhere, at least among black or coloured people; Id like to see anyone call my Bauro boys savages. From the savage pure and simple we pass to those races which are admittedly inferior to the higher types of humanity, but which, either through contact more or less continuous with those higher races, or because they do not naturally fall very low in the scale, have manifested some receptivity of Christian teaching and Christian influences. Of these the West Indian negro furnishes a good example; an example, too, the more instructive, because it is possible to compare the negro who has lived thus under Christianity with his heathen congener in Africa. It so chances that this comparison can be made in more places than one; and the juxtaposition is startling from the force of contrast. On the West Coast of Africa, about a hundred miles from Sierra Leone, is a little missionary settlement near the mouth of the river Pongas. It was started mainly through the zeal and energy of Bishop Rowle, of Trinidad, while principal of Codrington College, in Barbadoes, with the object of repaying spiritually the vast debt of material wrong inflicted mainly on that portion of the Dark Continent by the West Indian slave trade. It is a mission mainly supported by the West Indian Church, with the assistance of a committee in England, and manned now for some time exclusively by West Indians of colour trained at Codrington, or by native West Africans from Sierra Leone. It is, indeed, a striking contrast between the degraded Susus, grovelling in abject superstition, and these patient, loving, self-denying priests--men of their own race and complexion--who have come to live among them, and to elevate them, not merely by Christian teaching, but by Christian example. Just such another negro mission exists and flourishes under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society in the Niger Valley, governed and directed by the saintly Bishop Crowther, himself a negro of pure African descent, born and bred on the soil whereon he now labours. Well might he exclaim, as on a memorable occasion he did, with proud humility, to the Church Missionary Society gathered together in Exeter Hall, I am your result; you are asked what comes of all your expenditure and all your effort; I am your result. And he was right. But what has been the effect of Christianity upon the rank and file of the negro population? for we have confessedly been dealing hitherto with only its best representatives. We must in all frankness reply very great, and yet very little. If we were asked what has been the practical result of Christianity upon the civilised European nations, we should have, I fear, to make a similar reply, Watchman, what of the night? The morning cometh, the night cometh also. But in the case of negro Christianity, at least of West India negro Christianity, the uneradicated faults and vices are much more palpable and apparent, and perhaps more generally diffused than those of European Christianity. They are the vices that either have come down to them from the days of their African heathenism or were incident to their condition in the West Indies previous to emancipation and Christianity. Besides being enslaved by iniquitous superstitions, the negro Christian has too often a very limited practical belief in the sanctity of truth and honesty; many a habitual church-goer is prone to lying, cheating, and petty pilfering. He fails too often to bridle his tongue, and to the sins of evil-speaking and lying many and many a one adds slandering. And yet, while he allows himself in this unlovely catalogue of unchristian sin, the Christianised negro values his religion. In the West Indies religious services, when hearty, and accompanied by plain outspoken preaching from a man who is patiently trying to live up to what he preaches, are always thronged. The ordinances of religion are eagerly sought. They read and know and love their Bibles. Above all, they give the best test of sincerity; they are willing to deny themselves considerably to secure to themselves the means of grace. Out of their deep poverty they contribute freely to Church support. If we would learn the cause of the imperfection of negro Christianity in the isles of the West, let us remind ourselves of the two necessary conditions for Christianity to take effect, sufficient time and favourable surroundings. I doubt whether those who deny or question the reality or possibility of mission work among inferior races have ever reflected how much of their own Christianity, or at least their receptivity of Christian principles, is an inherited peculiarity, a transmitted idiosyncrasy, as entirely as many of those other moral qualities on which as a race we pride ourselves; and whether they realise how much of it is due to the presence everywhere among us of patterns, imperfect it may be, but none the less valuable, of a high ideal of Christian conduct, and to the restraining force from childhood upwards of a generally sound public opinion in respect of Christian obligation. Can these dry bones then live? The answer still must be, O Lord God, Thou knowest. The bones are exceeding many and very dry; centuries of superstition and oppression and degradation have driven all the vital moisture from them. They must reform themselves gradually. Gradually each bone must adjust itself to his bone; gradually the flesh must clothe them and the skin cover them above. Gradually (that is to say) must the outward decencies and proprieties of Christianity be developed among them. And even then till the wind of God has been wafted to them, and in His capacity as the Life-giver has inspired the as yet inanimate forms, there can be no vital religion; there can be no general bringing forth of the fruits of the spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. (Bp. Mitchinson.)
The valley of the dead
I. The natural deadness of humanity. It goes without saying that there are some people in the world whom you would describe as morally and spiritually dead. If you go down, for example, men and women so lost to all to the lowest dregs of society, you will always find nobleness, and purity, and goodness that they are dead--dead to God, dead to humanity, dead even to their own better self. Now, if the Gospel of Christ confined this word dead to such wrecks of humanity, I suppose no one would be surprised; certainly no one would have a word to say in objection to the term. But here is the remarkable thing; this Book steadily refuses to limit this term dead to these moral outcasts; it takes it in all its dark and terrible meaning, and it declares it is true of all men without exception, and that whatever else conversion may be, before all things else it is this--passing from death unto life. Take, for example, one illustrated fact. It was not without the profoundest significance that the one man selected by Christ to hear the discourse on the supreme necessity of the new birth was not an abandoned profligate, nor the publican smiting on his breast and crying, God be merciful to me, a sinner, but Nicodemus, the respectable and apparently blameless Pharisee. There is a tendency in some of the theological thinking to paint a picture of human nature with the darkest lines all left out. Do you tell me that the kindlier view of human nature which is taken today is not only in itself a truer view, but is a healthy reaction from the exaggerated statements of the Calvinistic theology of a past age? I am not careful to deny there is some truth in what you say. Be it so; but do not forget the pendulum of human thought is always swinging from one extreme to the other, and if there was once danger from an unscriptural severity, there may be equal danger today from an unscriptural charity of statement. Too little shadow will spoil a picture quite as much as too little light. Or do you again remind me that there is something good to be found even in the worst of men; that the hardest heart has a tender spot somewhere if only we knew where to find it; that, in a word, there are some movements of moral life in all men, and that so far they are certainly not dead, I will not dispute the fact. If there was no conscience in man, there would be nothing left to which Christ could appeal; but do not forget the occasional movements of this conscience towards virtue may be associated with the profoundest indifference to God. Beneath the muttering of the lips of the sleeper the soul may lie in the sleep of death. It is not immorality that is the universal sin, it is a deeper, darker, deadlier sin--it is ungodliness! You may be alive to man, but dead to God. Just as the moon has that part of her surface which is turned to the earth all radiant with light, whilst the opposite hemisphere turned towards the distant heavens is dark as midnight, and is wrapped in the silence of eternal death, so the heart of man is lighted up with gleams of human goodness, whilst it is utterly dark and dead to God. At the surface of the sea there may be some dim, imperfect light penetrating the water; but as you go deeper down the light grows fainter and fainter, until in the depths it is quenched in the darkness of an everlasting night. It is a great, it is a fatal mistake to imagine you will commend the Gospel by concealing any part of its message. Speak, I say, all you find in your heart to say of the honour and glory of man, but when you have said all do not end there. Add another word. Say--say it with tears in your eyes: This glorious temple is all in ruins. This child of the Eternal is a lost child, a dead son.
II. The process of quickening. The prophet is commanded by God to prophesy unto these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, and then follows that word. The first act--that is, of any prophet--in the quickening of the dead is the utterance of a Divine message that is intrusted to him. The Gospel is called in the New Testament the Message, and a message only asks to be delivered. We are not discoverers of truth, we are only witnesses to a truth given to us to declare. It is the Word of the Lord, not the word of the man, which we have to speak. And on this fact depend two things--first, the authority of the messenger, and next the power of his message. You are an ambassador for Christ, with all the responsibility, but with all the authority of an ambassador. And as this truth confers authority on the messenger of Christ, so it creates all the power of His message. For some thirty years, wrote the late Dr. Pusey in the preface to his learned and laborious work on Daniel, this has been a deep conviction of my soul, that no book can be written on behalf of the Bible like the Bible itself; and what Pusey said of the Book we may say of the message the Book contains, and which is given us to speak. The power of the Word is more in the message than in the messenger who delivers it. I do not forget because I say this how much, how very much, depends on the man; how just as an instrument out of tune may mar the noblest music, so an unworthy or unfit messenger may spoil all the sweetness of the message. But for all this, the message is the first thing, the great thing, and the messenger is only of value as he speaks the message. Who then is Paul, or who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? Here, then, I repeat, is the secret of our power so far as our word to man is concerned--we have to speak the Word of the Lord. There is nothing else to speak. You may, if you please, try to substitute other things for it; you may give to your people ingenious speculations on science, lectures on art. There is no power in them to reach the deepest needs of the sin and sorrow of the world. There is only one theme for the Christian preacher, but it is an infinite theme; it is Christ Himself--Christ, Son of God and Son of man, Christ in all the immeasurable meaning of that glorious Name--
Well worth all languages on earth or heaven.
Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended to the eternal throne, Christ Friend, Brother, Saviour, Lord, Judge of men, and only as that mighty Name is on our lips will the music, of the message touch the heart of man.
III. Fruitless preaching. The prophet has prophesied over the bones, and now mark the result: Them was a noise, and behold an earthquake, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And I beheld, and lo! there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above, but--but there was no breath in them. How often is this experience repeated in our own work. We preach the Word of the Lord--preach it, perhaps, fervently and earnestly--and then what follows? There is some excitement in the congregation, there is movement, there is interest; some eyes am filled with tears; here and there there are impressions created--there is what looks like the first stirrings of the Divine life. Alas! alas! it is not so. The congregation disperses, the eyes are soon dry again, the heart has not been touched, the depths have never been moved, God has not yet come to those dead souls, there is no breath in them. It was the semblance--not the reality of life we had produced. It takes some of us a long time to learn this humbling, but most salutary lesson. We can do so much, or what seems so much; we have the Word of God on our lips, we can preach it faithfully, we can toil hard, very hard, all the night, and it seems impossible all this toil should end in nothing. Yet it does. When we have done all, we have failed, utterly failed, to quicken the dead. It is only when He comes who is the Lord and Giver of Life that in a moment our unfruitful toil is crowned with abundant and overflowing success. Do you ask me how we are to gain this power? how this Divine breath may come breathing on the slam? I answer in the words of the vision, Prophesy unto the wind, and prophecy, which spoken to man is preaching, uttered to God is prayer. It is prayer, only prayer, that holds in its upstretched hands the secret of the power of God. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)
A moral resurrection
I. The multitude of its dead.
II. The apparent hopelessness of the dead.
III. A startling command.
1. It is the Lord who speaks.
2. In His words, are--
(1) Life.
(2) Power.
IV. A glorious promise.
V. The resurrection.
1. A noise.
2. A reunion.
3. Harmony in this reunion.
4. Elastic strength for action.
5. A human form.
6. Life.
(1) God, the Source.
(2) The Spirit, the Agent.
(3) His Word, the instrument.
(4) Man, the medium. (J. Gill.)
Faith refers all possibility to God
Then comes the Divine challenge to the man who is willing honestly, and without any disguise, to contemplate the facts: And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? God will have the sympathy and the hope and the eager anticipation of His servant for His enterprise before He will openly pledge Himself to it. Ponder the situation--God and His servant all alone, and together gazing at that valley very full of very dry bones! Thus do begin the things which thrill earth and heaven! No life, no promise, no hope, anywhere but in Him who searches us with His challenge. There can be no mighty commerce between earth and heaven except through the faith which believeth Him who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. It is a chief peril of our creaturehood to make ourselves--not the living God--the law and measure and explanation of all things. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight--wailed the unbelieving spies! And what could grasshoppers achieve against giants? Yet the Word of Jehovah had pledged victory. Two dominions are ever open to us--self or God, our creature thoughts or our Creators Word. In that momentous testing hour it was not in self and its thinkings that Ezekiel took his stand, but in God and His greatness: O Lord God, Thou! Let us follow his example, and so become men of God the highest dignity open to us--men who ever account the living God the first and chief factor in every problem of thought and conduct. The miserable alternative is the grasshopper manner--grasshopper fears, grasshopper thinkings, grasshopper doings! And of what avail is a grasshopper in a valley of dry bones? (C. G. Macgregor.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Ezekiel 37
LIFE FROM THE DEAD
Ezekiel 37
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The most formidable obstacle to faith on the part of the exiles in the possibility of a national redemption was the complete disintegration of the ancient people of Israel. Hard as it was to realise that Jehovah still lived and reigned in spite of the cessation of His worship, and hard to hope for a recovery of the land of Canaan from the dominion of the heathen, these things were still conceivable. What almost surpassed conception was the restoration of national life to the feeble and demoralised remnant who had survived the fall of the state. It was no mere figure of speech that these exiles employed when they thought of their nation as dead. Cast off by its God, driven from its land, dismembered and deprived of its political organisation, Israel as a people had ceased to exist. Not only were the outward symbols of national unity destroyed, but the national spirit was extinct. Just as the destruction of the bodily organism implies the death of each separate member and organ and cell, so the individual Israelites felt themselves to be as dead men, dragging out an aimless existence without hope in the world. While Israel was alive they had lived in her and for her; all the best part of their life, religion, duty, liberty, and loyalty had been bound up with the consciousness of belonging to a nation with a proud history behind them and a brilliant future for their posterity. Now that Israel had perished all spiritual and ideal significance had gone out of their lives; there remained but a selfish and sordid struggle for existence, and this they felt was not life, but death in life. And thus a promise of deliverance which appealed to them as members of a nation seemed to them a mockery, because they felt in themselves that the bond of national life was irrevocably broken.
The hardest part of Ezekiels task at this time was therefore to revive the national sentiment, so as to meet the obvious objection that even if Jehovah were able to drive the heathen from His land there was still no people of Israel to whom He could give it. If only the exiles could be brought to believe that Israel had a future, that although now dead it could be raised from the dead, the spiritual meaning of their life would be given back to them in the form of hope, and faith in God would be possible. Accordingly the prophets thoughts are now directed to the idea of the nation as the third factor of the Messianic hope. He has spoken of the kingdom and the land, and each of these ideas has led him on to the contemplation of the final condition of the world, in which Jehovahs purpose is fully manifested. So in this chapter he finds in the idea of the nation a new point of departure, from which he proceeds to delineate once more the Messianic salvation in its completeness.
The vision of the valley of dry bones described in the first part of the chapter contains the answer to the desponding thoughts of the exiles, and seems indeed to be directly suggested by the figure in which the popular feeling was currently expressed: "Our bones are dried; our hope is lost: we feel ourselves cut off" (Eze_37:11). The fact that the answer came to the prophet in a state of trance may perhaps indicate that his mind had brooded over these words of the people for some time before the moment of inspiration. Recognising how faithfully they represented the actual situation, he was yet unable to suggest an adequate solution of the difficulty by means of the prophetic conceptions hitherto revealed to him. Such a vision as this seems to presuppose a period of intense mental activity on the part of Ezekiel, during which the despairing utterance of his compatriots sounded in his ears; and the image of the dried bones of the house of Israel so fixed itself in his mind that he could not escape its gloomy associations except by a direct communication from above. When at last the hand of the Lord came upon him, the revelation clothed itself in a form corresponding to his previous meditations; the emblem of death and despair is transformed into a symbol of assured hope through the astounding vision which unfolds itself before his inner eye.
In the ecstasy he feels himself led out in spirit to the plain which had been the scene of former appearances of God to His prophet. But on this occasion he sees it covered with bones-"very many on the surface of the valley, and very dry." He is made to pass round about them, in order that the full impression of this spectacle of desolation might sink into his mind. His attention is engrossed by two facts-their exceeding great number, and their parched appearance, as if they had lain there long. In other circumstances the question might have suggested itself, How came these bones there? What countless host has perished here, leaving its unburied bones to bleach and wither on the open plain? But the prophet has no need to think of this. They are the bones which had been familiar to his waking thoughts, the dry bones of the house of Israel. The question he hears addressed to him is not, Whence are these bones? but, Can these bones live? It is the problem which had exercised his faith in thinking of a national restoration which thus comes back to him in vision, to receive its final solution from Him who alone can give it.
The prophets hesitating answer probably reveals the struggle between faith and sight, between hope and fear, which was latent in his mind. He dare not say no, for that would be to limit the power of Him whom he knows to be omnipotent, and also to shut out the last gleam of hope from his own mind. Yet in presence of that appalling scene of hopeless decay and death he cannot of his own initiative assert the possibility of resurrection. In the abstract all things are possible with God; but whether this particular thing, so inconceivable to men, is within the active purpose of God, is a question which none can answer save God Himself. Ezekiel does what man must always do in such a case-he throws himself back on God, and reverently awaits the disclosure of His will, saying, "O Jehovah God, Thou Knowest."
It is instructive to notice that the divine answer comes through the consciousness of a duty. Ezekiel is commanded first of all to prophesy over these dry bones; and in the words given him to utter the solution of his own inward perplexity is wrapped up. "Say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live" (Eze_37:4-5). In this way he is not only taught that the agency by which Jehovah will effect His purpose is the prophetic word, but he is also reminded that the truth now revealed to him is to be the guide of his practical ministry, and that only in the steadfast discharge of his prophetic duty can he hold fast the hope of Israels resurrection. The problem that has exercised him is not one that can be settled in retirement and inaction. What he receives is not a mere answer, but a message, and the delivery of the message is the only way in which he can realise the truth of it: his activity as a prophet being indeed a necessary element in the fulfilment of his words. Let him preach the word of God to these dry bones, and he will know that they can live; but if he fails to do this, he will sink back into the unbelief to which all things are impossible. Faith comes in the act of prophesying.
Ezekiel did as he was commanded; he prophesied over the dry bones, and immediately he was sensible of the effect of his words. He heard a rustling, and looking he saw that the bones were coming together, bone to his bone. He does not need to tell us how his heart rejoiced at this first sign of life returning to these dead bones, and as he watched the whole process by which they were built up into the semblance of men. It is described in minute detail, so that no feature of the impression produced by the stupendous miracle may be lost. It is divided into two stages, the restoration of the bodily frame and the imparting of the principle of life.
This division cannot have any special significance when applied to the actual nation, such as that the outward order of the state must be first established, and then the national consciousness renewed. It belongs to the imagery of the vision and follows the order observed in the original creation of man as described in the second chapter of Genesis. God first formed man of the dust of the ground, and afterwards breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living soul. So here we have first a description of the process by which the bodies were built up, the skeletons being formed from the scattered bones, and then clothed successively with sinews and flesh and skin. The reanimation of these still lifeless bodies is a separate act of creative energy, in which, however, the agency is still the word of God in the mouth of the prophet. He is bidden call for the breath to "come from the four winds of heaven, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." In Hebrew the words for wind, breath, and spirit are identical; and thus the wind becomes a symbol of the universal divine Spirit which is the source of all life, while the breath is a symbol of that Spirit as, so to speak, specialised in the individual man, or in other words of his personal life. In the case of the first man Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the idea here is precisely the same. The wind from the four quarters of heaven which becomes the breath of this vast assemblage of men is conceived as the breath of God, and symbolises the life-giving Spirit which makes each of them a living person. The resurrection is complete. The men live, and stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
This is the simplest, as well as the most suggestive, of Ezekiels visions, and carries its interpretation on the face of it. The single idea which it expresses is the restoration of the Hebrew nationality through the quickening influence of the Spirit of Jehovah on the surviving members of the old house of Israel. It is not a prophecy of the resurrection of individual Israelites who have perished. The bones are "the whole house of Israel" now in exile; they are alive as individuals, but as members of a nation they are dead and hopeless of revival. This is made clear by the explanation of the vision given in Eze_37:11-14. It is addressed to those who think of themselves as cut off from the higher interests and activities of the national life. By a slight change of figure they are conceived as dead and buried; and the resurrection is represented as an opening of their graves. But the grave is no more to be understood literally than the dry bones of the vision itself; both are symbols of the gloomy and despairing view which the exiles take of their own condition. The substance of the prophets message is that the God who raises the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were is able to bring together the scattered members of the house of Israel and form them into a new people through the operation of His life-giving Spirit.
It has often been supposed that, although the passage may not directly teach the resurrection of the body, it nevertheless implies a certain familiarity with that doctrine on the part of Ezekiel, if not of his hearers likewise. If the raising of dead men to life could be used as an analogy of a national restoration, the former conception must have been at least more obvious than the latter, otherwise the prophet would be explaining obscurum per obscurius. This argument, however, has only a superficial plausibility. It confounds two things which are distinct-the mere conception of resurrection, which is all that was necessary to make the vision intelligible, and settled faith in it as an element of the Messianic expectation. That God by a miracle could restore the dead to life no devout Israelite ever doubted. (Cf. 1 Kings 17; 2Ki_4:13 ff; 2Ki_13:21.) But it is to be noted that the recorded instances of such miracles are all of those recently dead; and there is no evidence of a general belief in the possibility of resurrection for those whose bones were scattered and dry. It is this very impossibility, indeed, that gives point to the metaphor under which the people here express their sense of hopelessness. Moreover, if the prophet had presupposed the doctrine of individual resurrection, he could hardly have used it as an illustration in the way he does. The mere prospect of a resuscitation of the multitudes of Israelites who had perished would of itself have been a sufficient answer to the despondency of the exiles; and it would have been an anti-climax to use it as an argument for something much less wonderful. We must also bear in mind that while the resurrection of a nation may be to us little more than a figure of speech, to the Hebrew mind it was an object of thought more real and tangible than the idea of personal immortality.
It would appear therefore that in the order of revelation the hope of the resurrection is first presented in the promise of a resurrection of the dead nation of Israel, and only in the second instance as the resurrection of individual Israelites who should have passed away without sharing in the glory of the latter days. Like the early converts to Christianity, the Old Testament believers sorrowed for those who fell asleep when the Messiahs kingdom was supposed to be just at hand, until they found consolation in the blessed hope of a resurrection with which Paul comforted the Church at Thessalonica. {1Th_4:13 ff} In Ezekiel we find that doctrine as yet only in its more general form of a national resurrection; but it can hardly be doubted that the form in which he expressed it prepared the way for the fuller revelation of a resurrection of the individual. In two later passages of the prophetic Scriptures we seem to find clear indications of progress in this direction. One is a difficult verse in the twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah-part of a prophecy usually assigned to a period later than Ezekiel-where the writer, after a lamentation over the disappointments and wasted efforts of the present, suddenly breaks into a rapture of hope as he thinks of a time when departed Israelites shall be restored to life to join the ranks of the ransomed people of God: "Let thy dead live again! Let my dead bodies arise! Awake and rejoice, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is a dew of light, and the earth shall yield up [her] shades." {Isa_26:19} There does not seem to be any doubt that what is here predicted is the actual resurrection of individual members of the people of Israel to share in the blessings of the kingdom of God. The other passage referred to is in the book of Daniel, where we have the first explicit prediction of a resurrection both of the just and the unjust. In the time of trouble, when the people is delivered "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." {Dan_12:2}
These remarks are made merely to show in what sense Ezekiels vision may be regarded as a contribution to the Old Testament doctrine of personal immortality. It is so not by its direct teaching, nor yet by its presuppositions, but by the suggestiveness of its imagery; opening out a line of thought which under the guidance of the Spirit of truth led to a fuller disclosure of the care of God for the individual life, and His purpose to redeem from the power of the grave those who had departed this life in His faith and fear.
But this line of inquiry lies somewhat apart from the main teaching of the passage before us as a message for the Church in all ages. The passage teaches with striking clearness the continuity of Gods redeeming work in the world, in spite of hindrances which to human eyes seem insurmountable. The gravest hindrance, both in appearance and in reality, is the decay of faith and vital religion in the Church itself. There are times when earnest men are tempted to say that the Churchs hope is lost and her bones are dried-when laxity of life and lukewarmness in devotion pervade all her members, and she ceases to influence the world for good. And yet when we consider that the whole history of Gods cause is one long process of raising dead souls to spiritual life and building up a kingdom of God out of fallen humanity, we see that the true hope of the Church can never be lost. It lies in the life-giving, regenerating power of the divine Spirit, and the promise that the word of God does not return to Him void but prospers in the thing whereto He sends it. That is the great lesson of Ezekiels vision, and although its immediate application may be limited to the occasion that called it forth, yet the analogy on which it is founded is taken up by our Lord Himself and extended to the proclamation of His truth to the world at large: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." (Joh 25; Cf. Joh_20:28-29). We perhaps too readily empty these strong terms of their meaning. The Spirit of God is apt to become a mere expression for the religious and moral influences lodged in a Christian society, and we come to rely on these agencies for the dissemination of Christian principles and the formation of Christian character. We forget that behind all this there is something which is compared to the imparting of life where there was none, something which is the work of the Spirit of which we cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. But in times of low spirituality, when the love of many waxes cold, and there are few signs of zeal and activity in the service of Christ, men learn to fall back in faith on the invisible power of God to make His word effectual for the revival of His cause among men. And this happens constantly in narrow spheres which may never attract the notice of the world. There are positions in the Church still where Christs servants are called to labour in the faith of Ezekiel, with appearances all against them, and nothing to inspire them but the conviction that the word they preach is the power of God and able even to bring life to the dead.
II.
The second half of the chapter speaks of a special feature of the national restoration, the reunion of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel under one sceptre. This is represented first of all by a symbolic action. The prophet is directed to take two pieces of wood, apparently in the form of sceptres, and to write upon them inscriptions dedicating them respectively to Judah and Joseph, the heads of the two confederacies out of which the rival monarchies were formed. The "companions" (Eze_37:16)-i.e., allies-of Judah are the two tribes of Benjamin and Simeon; those of Joseph are all the other tribes, who stood under the hegemony of Ephraim. If the second inscription is rather more complicated than the first, it is because of the fact that there was no actual tribe of Joseph. It therefore runs thus: "For Joseph, the staff of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his confederates." These two staves then he is to put together so that they become one sceptre in his hand. It is a little difficult to decide whether this was a sign that was actually performed before the people, or one that is only imagined. It depends partly on what we take to be meant by the joining of the two pieces. If Ezekiel merely took two sticks, put them end to end, and made them look like one, then no doubt he did this in public, for otherwise there would be no use in mentioning the circumstance at all. But if the meaning is, as seems more probable, that when the rods are put together they miraculously grow into one, then we see that such a sign has a value for the prophets own mind as a symbol of the truth revealed to him, and it is no longer necessary to assume that the action was really performed. The purpose of the sign is not merely to suggest the idea of political unity, which is too simple to require any such illustration, but rather to indicate the completeness of the union and the divine force needed to bring it about. The difficulty of conceiving a perfect fusion of the two parts of the nation was really very great, the cleavage between Judah and the North being much older than the monarchy, and having been accentuated by centuries of political separation and rivalry.
To us the most noteworthy fact is the steadfastness with which the prophets of this period cling to the hope of a restoration of the northern tribes, although nearly a century and a half had now elapsed since "Ephraim was broken from being a people." {Isa_7:8} Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is unable to think of an Israel which does not include the representatives of the ten northern tribes. Whether any communication was kept up with the colonies of Israelites that had been transported from Samaria to Assyria we do not know, but they are regarded as still existing, and still remembered by Jehovah. The resurrection of the nation which Ezekiel has just predicted is expressly said to apply to the whole house of Israel, and now he goes on to announce that this "exceeding great army" shall march to its land not under two banners, but under one.
We have touched already, in speaking of the Messianic idea, on the reasons which led the prophets to put so much emphasis on this union. They felt as strongly on the point as a High Churchman does about the sin of schism, and it would not be difficult for the latter to show that his point of view and his ideals closely resemble those of the prophets. The rending of the body of Christ which is supposed to be involved in a breach of external unity is paralleled by the disruption of the Hebrew state, which violates the unity of the one people of Jehovah. The idea of the Church as the bride of Christ is the same idea under which Hosea expresses the relations between Jehovah and Israel, and it necessarily carries with it the unity of the people of Israel in the one case and of the Church in the other. It must be admitted also that the evils resulting from the division between Judah and Israel have been reproduced, with consequences a thousand times more disastrous to religion, in the strife and uncharitableness, the party spirit and jealousies and animosities, which different denominations of Christians have invariably exhibited towards each other when they were close enough for mutual interest. But granting all this, and granting that what is called schism is essentially the same thing that the prophets desired to see removed, it does not at once follow that dissent is in itself sinful, and still less that the sin is necessarily on the side of the Dissenter. The question is whether the national standpoint of the prophets is altogether applicable to the communion of saints in Christ, whether the body of Christ is really torn asunder by differences in organisation and opinion, whether, in short, anything is necessary to avoid the guilt of schism beyond keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The Old Testament dealt with men in the mass, as members of a nation, and its standards can hardly be adequate to the polity of a religion which has to provide for the freedom of the individual conscience before God. At the worst the Dissenter may point out that the Old Testament schism was necessary as a protest against tyranny and despotism, that in this aspect it was sanctioned by the inspired prophets of the age, that its undoubted evils were partly compensated by a freer expansion of religious life, and finally that even the prophets did not expect it to be healed before the millennium.
From the idea of the reunited nation Ezekiel returns easily to the promise of the Davidic king and the blessings of the Messianic dispensation. The one people implies one shepherd, and also one land, and one spirit to walk in Jehovahs judgments and to observe His statutes to do them. The various elements which enter into the conception of national salvation are thus gathered up and combined in one picture of the peoples everlasting felicity. And the whole is crowned by the promise of Jehovahs presence with the people, sanctifying and protecting them from His sanctuary. This final condition of things is permanent and eternal. The sources of internal dispeace are removed by the washing away of Israels iniquities, and the impossibility of any disturbance from without is illustrated by the onslaught of the heathen nations described in the following chapters.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 THE VISION OF THE DRY BONES REVIVIFIED A SYMBOL…
THE VISION OF THE DRY BONES REVIVIFIED A SYMBOL OF THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF ISRAEL. (Chap. 37.)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_37:1. “The hand of the Lord was upon me.” “The abrupt commencement without and, points out that the fact here related is extraordinary and out of connection with the usual prophetic activity. The hand of the Lord denotes the overruling Divine influence.”—Hengstenberg. “The valley”—“the plain or valley near Tel Abib, familiar to Ezekiel as the scene of the vision of the cherubim. Now, however, to his horror, he found it full of dry, withering bones—the wreck of a vast host slain by the sword. Wandering over the wide expanse, the multitude of these ghastly relics of mortality and their bleached dryness, the very embodiment of death, filled him with awe.”—Geikie.
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Eze_37:3. “Can these bones live?” “Implying that, humanly speaking, they could not; but faith leaves the question of possibility to rest with God, with whom nothing is impossible (Deu_32:39). An image of Christian faith which believes in the coming resurrection of the dead, in spite of all appearances against it, because God has said it (Joh_5:21; Rom_4:17; 2Co_1:9).”—Fausset.
Eze_37:4. “Prophesy upon these bones”—prophesy over them; proclaim God’s quickening word to them.
Eze_37:6. “Ye shall know that I am the Lord”—“by the actual proof of My Divinity which I will give in reviving Israel.”—Fausset.
Eze_37:7. “And as I prophesied there was a noise.” God’s voice of power is followed by a rustling caused by the bones coming rustling up from the surface of the valley.”—Lange.
Eze_37:8. “The sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.” “So far, they were only co-hering in order as unsightly skeletons. The next step, that of covering them successively with sinews, skin, and flesh, gives them beauty; but still no breath of life in them. This may imply that Israel hereafter, as at the restoration from Babylon was the case in part, shall return to Judea unconverted at first (Zec_13:8-9). Spiritually a man may assume all the semblances of spiritual life, yet have none, and so be dead before God.”—Fausset. “There is reference to the first creation of man. There also the lower element comes first into being, then the higher. The prophet is penetrated with the thought that the real misery of the people is the moral ruin. The remedy, therefore, cannot stop at the restoration of the civic state. The main thing is a renewed outpouring of the Spirit and the restoration of union with God thereby effected, which was originally accomplished by God breathing into man the breath of life.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_37:9. “Prophesy unto the wind”—the spirit of life, or life-breath. For it is distinct from “the four winds” from which it is summoned. Lange says what is here spoken of is—the universal spirituality which pervades all creation. The Spirit is evidently here referred to under the symbol of the wind. His influence is supreme and operates in all parts of the earth.
Eze_37:10. “So I prophesied, and the breath came into them”—such honour God gives to the Divine word even in the mouth of a man: how much more when in the mouth of the Son of God! (Joh_5:25-29). Though this chapter does not directly prove the resurrection of the dead, it does so indirectly, for it takes for granted the future fact as one recognised by believing Jews, and so made the image of their national restoration (Isa_25:8; Isa_26:10; Dan_12:2; Hos_6:2; Hos_13:14).
Eze_37:11. “Our bones are dried.” “We are undone”—Gesenius. “Reduced to ourselves”—Hitzig. “It is over with us”—Delitzsch. “We are cut off for us. The for us points out how grievous the sad fact is for those concerned, how painfully they were affected by it”—Hengstenberg. There is nothing in us to give hope, like a withered branch cut off from a tree, or a limb from the body. The national state was as hopeless of revival as marrowless bones of reanimation. “Cut off,” separated, shut out from God’s help.
Eze_37:12. “I will open your graves”—the abodes of the exile, since the Jews who were in exile considered themselves like dead men.
Eze_37:14. “And shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live.” “The inspiriting and quickening for a home system which is to have permanence, and especially in the case of a people like Israel, will of necessity be spiritual and religious (Isa_14:1; chap. Eze_17:24; Eze_22:14; Eze_36:36).”—Lange. “Wherever within the Christian Church a new state of death arises, there this prophecy always comes again into force, until at the end of days death be fully overcome.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_37:16. “Take thee one stick.”—alluding to Num_17:2, the tribal rod. The union of the two rods was a prophecy in action of the brotherly union which is to reunite the ten tribes and Judah. As their severance under Jeroboam was fraught with the greatest evil to the covenant people, so the first result of both being joined by the Spirit of life to God is, they become joined together under the one Covenant King, Messiah—David.—“Write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions”—his associates: i.e., For Judah and, besides Benjamin and Levi, those who had joined themselves to him of Ephraim, Manasseh, Simeon, Ashur, Zebulun, Issachar, as having the temple and lawful priesthood in his borders (2Ch_11:12-13; 2Ch_11:16; 2Ch_15:9; 2Ch_30:11; 2Ch_30:18). The latter became identified with Judah after the carrying away of the ten tribes, and returned with Judah from Babylon, and so shall be associated with that tribe at the future restoration. “Then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions.” “Ephraim’s posterity took the lead, not only of the other descendants of Joseph, but of the ten tribes of Israel. For 400 years, during the period of the Judges, with Manasseh and Benjamin, its dependent tribes, it had formerly taken the lead: Shiloh was its religious capital, Shechem its civil capital. God had transferred the birthright from Reuben, for dishonouring his father’s bed, to Joseph, whose representative his son Ephraim, though younger than his brother Manasseh, was made by his grandfather Jacob (Gen_48:19; 1Ch_5:1). From the pre-eminence of Ephraim, Israel is attached to him as companions. The ‘all’ in this case, not in that of Judah, which has attached as companions only some of the children of Israel, implies that the bulk of the ten tribes did not return at the restoration from Babylon, but is and shall continue distinct from Judah until the coming union at the restoration.”—Fausset.
Eze_37:19. “And they shall be one in mine hand.” “The interpretation keeps firm hold of the symbolic action—the union by and in God, as opposed to the separation by and in Ephraim.”—Lange.
Eze_37:22. “I will make them one nation.” The now plainly expressed signification of the stick: the one nation will be one kingdom. “And one king shall be king to them all.” “Not Zerubbabel, who was not a king either in fact or name, and who ruled over but a few Jews, and that only for a few years, whereas the king here reigns for ever. Messiah is meant (chap. Eze_34:23-24). The union of Judah and Israel under King Messiah symbolises the union of Jews and Gentiles under Him, partly now, perfectly hereafter (Eze_37:24; Joh_10:16).”—Fausset.
Eze_37:23. “Neither shall they defile themselves with idols.” “Since sin, and especially idolatry, had contributed to the separation spoken of, the discourse turns to that. The worship of idols is localised transgression.”—Lange.
Eze_37:24. “David My servant shall be king over them.” See note on Eze_37:22.
Eze_37:25. “They shall dwell therein for ever” (Isa_60:21; Joe_3:20; Amo_9:15).
Eze_37:26. “I will make a covenant of peace”—better than the old legal covenant, because an unchangeable covenant of grace (chap. Eze_34:25; Isa_55:3; Jer_32:40). Will guarantee them security from all hostile enemies. “And I will place them.” “God now Himself orders and determines everything concerning them—sets them, in opposition to their former fluctuating, because self-ordered, condition.”—Fairbairn. “I will set My sanctuary in the midst of them.” The essence of the sanctuary is the presence of God among them.
Eze_37:28. “The heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel.” “This separation and preference, this marking-off from the profane world, which constitutes the idea of sanctification, follows from this, that God’s sanctuary is in Israel, that He dwells among them with all the fulness of His blessings and gifts. The natural consequence of this recognition compelled by facts is, that the heathen seek for admittance among this people.”—Hengstenberg.
HOMILETICS
THE RESUSCITATION OF AN EFFETE NATION
(Eze_37:1-14.)
In this paragraph we have another example of the bold and startling imagery familiar to the genius of Ezekiel, and of his vivid insight into the possibilities of Divine power. To his realising faith, the bleached and desiccated skeletons of the valley are a formidable army of living and moving forces. The conception of the resurrection of the dead on so vast a scale indicates a remarkable advance in that age of the revelation of what God can do for His people. Observe—
I. That the resuscitation of an effete nation seems a physical impossibility.
1. The nation is lifeless and hopeless (Eze_37:1-2). The skeletons are dislocated and scattered; the bones are very dry and crumbling into dust. Though not actually buried, they are slowly burying themselves in their progressive decay. The evidence of death is complete. It is beyond the power of any known physical law to breathe the ghastly fragments into life. A nation, or an individual, so utterly defunct seems beyond the possibility of recovery. Saith the proverb, “From privation to possession there is no return.” Well might Israel say, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off from our parts” (Eze_37:11).
2. Its resurrection not impossible to God (Eze_37:3). If Ezekiel had been asked the question by any other than Jehovah, “Can these bones live?” he would have promptly answered, “No; it is impossible.” It is beyond the reach of human philosophy to put life into dry bones, and it passes the wit of human politics to restore a captive and scattered nation. But the prophet had already learned not to limit the power of God, and he reverently and falteringly answered, “Lord, Thou knowest:” if it can be done and is to be done, Thou alone must do it. All things are possible to God. His power is limited only by His will.
II. That the resuscitation of an effete nation is accomplished only by Divine power.
1. By Divine power working through authorised human agency (Eze_37:4-8). The prophet was directed to prophesy over the bones; the terms of the message were put into his lips, and the results of his preaching were Divinely indicated to him. He obeyed the Divine mandate; he preached; the silent valley rustled and rattled with the noise of bone fitting into bone, and while he gazed there grew as from the soil an innumerable mass of perfected human forms. But here the limitation of human agency, even when acting under Divine supervision, is plainly indicated. The bodies were prone and lifeless: “there was no breath in them.” While startled and terrified at the effect of his words, as if an army of Frankensteins had been summoned from the dust, the prophet felt his own utter helplessness. He was powerless to advance the development a single step further. It was an experience that is often familiar to the earnest preacher. He may sway his audience with his impassioned eloquence till they are roused into boisterous enthusiasm or dissolved in tears; but there his power ends. To create a moral and spiritual change is beyond his province. It is said that on one occasion, when Chrysostom was greeted by his congregation with a storm of delighted applause because of his overwhelming eloquence, he besought them with tears to forget the preacher and look to God, who alone can renew the heart and reform the life.
2. By the direct inspiration of the Divine breath (Eze_37:9-10). Life is the breath of God. Still, under Divine direction, the prophet invokes the help of the life-giving Spirit. A mysterious breath passes over the prostrate forms; they move and leap to their feet, “an exceeding great army.” The Spirit that renews the face of the earth, robing it with velvet verdure and decorating it with nodding flowers, can alone raise the dead to life and adorn the soul with spiritual beauty. A lady who recently visited the Fijian Archipelago writes:—“As I lived for two years in the midst of this kindly, courteous people, and marked the reverent devoutness of their lives and the simple earnestness of their bearing at the never-failing morning and evening family worship and frequent church services, I found it hard to believe the facts related to me by reliable eye-witnesses of the appalling scenes of carnage, fighting, human sacrifices, debasing idolatry, and loathsome cannibal feasts which five, ten, or fifteen years previously formed the incidents of daily life in districts where now English ladies and their children may travel or settle in perfect security.” What had wrought this change? The breath of the Divine Spirit had blown through those lovely islands and transformed the moral wastes.
III. That the resuscitation of an effete nation is a suggestive revelation of the Divine character (Eze_37:11-14).
1. That God alone has absolute power over life and death. It is the vanity of man to set too high a value upon his own works. He imagines he can work out his own regeneration; but when he touches the mysterious edge of life and death he is baffled and compelled to confess his helplessness. It is the solitary and incommunicable prerogative of the Godhead to educe life out of death. The supreme greatness of God is evidenced in the exercise of His resurrection power.
2. That the nations should learn to acknowledge and adore the true God. “Ye shall know that I am the Lord: that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it” (Eze_37:13-14). The deities of the heathen could do nothing for their votaries, either to prevent their ruin or to rescue them from it. There is but one living and true God, and the only hope of moral revival and salvation for humanity is in Him. “Thou hast made us for Thyself,” wrote Augustine, “and our hearts can have no rest until they rest in Thee.”
LESSONS.—
1. The nation that ignores God must perish.
2. One nation is Divinely favoured that other nations may be blessed.
3. God will be glorified either in the rise or fall of nations.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_37:1-14. “Seized by the hand of the Spirit, Ezekiel is borne aloft. He is carried away through mid-air and set down in a lonely valley among the hills of a distant land. At some former period it appears to have been the scene of a great battle. There hosts had sustained the charge of hosts, and crowns perhaps were staked and won. The peace of these solitudes had been rudely broken by the shrieks of the wounded, the wild shouts of the victors, the clash of arms, and the savage roar of war. It was silent, calm now. The storm was down; but the tempest that swept over it had left it strewn with wrecks. The dead had been left unburied. They mouldered where they fell, the skull rattled in the cloven helmet, the sword of the warrior lay rusting beside his skeleton, and the handle was still in the relaxed grasp of the bony fingers. On these unsepulchred corpses the birds of the air had summered and the wild beasts of the field had wintered. The rain had washed and the sun had bleached the bones which the ravens had picked bare—they were white and dry. In these grim and ghastly skeletons a doleful picture of death was spread out before the prophet. In all the scene which he surveyed there was neither sign nor sound of life, but, it may be, the croak of the raven, the howl of the famished wolf, or the echo of his own solitary footfall. Here Ezekiel was standing, a lonely man, amid the mouldering dead, when a voice made him start. It came from the skies, charged with the strange question—‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ So soon as, after addressing the bones, the prophet addresses his God, there came from heaven a living, life-giving breath. It blows down the valley, and as, in passing, it kisses the icy lips of the dead, and stirs their hair and fans their cheek, man after man springs to his feet, until the field which Ezekiel found covered with ghastly skeletons is crowded with a mighty army, all armed for battle and war—the marshalled host of God.”—Guthrie.
—“There can be no reasonable doubt as to the leading scope and purpose of this remarkable vision. It is intended to counteract the feeling of despair which had succeeded to the opposite one of carnal security and presumptuous confidence which at an earlier period had wrought so disastrously among the people. Now that they were reduced to so hapless and shattered a condition, the glowing delineations the prophet had been drawing of a happy future seemed as visionary to their minds as formerly had appeared his dark forebodings of impending distress and ruin. They felt as if they had become like bones dried and scattered at the grave’s mouth, and destitute of everything on which they could build any reasonable prospect of restored felicity. The prophet therefore meets them on their own ground. He admits that, as compared with the elevated prospects he had been unfolding, they were in themselves no better than lifeless skeletons, but at the same time shows that even this could raise no barrier against the realisation of the better future, since they had to do with the word of Him who is equally able to make alive as to kill. And it must have been impossible for any thoughtful and pious Israelite to enter into the application made of this vision to the temporal resuscitation of Israel’s prostrate condition, without perceiving how it also involved, for all true believers, the future resurrection of their bodies from the power of death.”—Fairbairn.
—“Besides the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon, this vision is a lively representation of a threefold resurrection.
1. Of the resurrection of souls from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and Divine life by the power of Divine grace accompanying the word of Christ (Joh_5:24-25).
2. The resurrection of the Gospel Church, or any part of it, from an afflicted state to liberty and peace.
3. The resurrection of the body at the great day, especially the bodies of believers, to life eternal.”—Benson.
Eze_37:1-10. Lessons from the Valley of Vision. “
1. The text presents us with a picture of the spiritual slate of our race—‘dead in trespasses and sins.’
2. With an illustration of the human instrumentality God generally employs in the work of quickening the dead in sin—the preaching of the Gospel.
3. With a view of the Divine agency employed in the work of quickening the dead in trespasses and sins—the power of the Holy Spirit.”—T. D. Anderson, B.A.
—The Secret of Successful Preaching and True Revival. “
1. The first thing necessary is a Divinely appointed sphere. The prophet had to speak his message in a particular place. One reason why men are not successful to-day is because they are not where God designed them to be. Not ministers simply, but Christian men in business, for secular professions are as much in God’s hands as religious ones.
2. A second requirement is contact with the misery to be removed. The prophet was not commanded to stand a great distance off and proclaim his message. ‘The Spirit of the Lord set him down in the midst of the valley and caused him to pass by them round about,’ and thus he was brought into close contact with his work. We must not say, ‘The people must come up to us;’ we must go down to them, sympathise with them, identify ourselves with them.
3. The next requirement is confidence in God (Eze_37:3).
4. A fourth requirement is an inspired message (Eze_37:4-6). We ought always to listen for what God says; and if the vision tarry we should agonise in prayer—‘Lord, tell us what to say and how to say it.’
5. There must be a willingness to declare the message given. ‘So I prophesied as I was commanded.’
6. When all these requirements are met, the result must be a manifestation of Divine power. We have, in the mode in which this power was manifested, the indication of a true revival. It is gradual. There was
(1.) an effect produced. ‘There was a noise.’
(2.) The effect became visible. ‘Behold a shaking.’
(3.) The visible effect took a particular form. ‘The bones came together,’ &c.
(4.) The Holy Ghost came down and life is given. ‘The breath came into them, and they lived and stood up on their feet.’ ”—The Lay Preacher.
—Spiritual Resurrection. “
1. The condition of the world.
(1.) Spiritually dead—‘Bones.’
(2.) Hopelessly so—‘Dry bones.’
(3.) Universally so—‘A valley full.’
2. The means for its recovery.
(1.) A Divine appointment—preaching.
(2.) The claim of attention.
(3.) The offer of salvation.
3. The wonderful result.
(1.) The Gospel is accompanied by Divine power.
(2.) The Spirit is essential to complete success.
(3.) In the use of the means success is certain.”—Pulpit Analyst.
Eze_37:1-2. In the Presence of Death.
1. A humbling spectacle.
2. A solemn reminder of our own mortality.
3. An occasion of sorrow.
4. We see the superficiality of all things earthly.
5. We are taught the necessity of a moral and spiritual preparedness.
6. Find our true consolation in the loving and eternal God.
Eze_37:1. “This valley is found indeed everywhere. In other words, Is there not plenty of dead bones? The best thing is, that God still cares even for such.”—Lange.
Eze_37:2. “As Christ often improved His miracles by a spiritual turn of thought, so we may improve this astonishing restoration of the Jews to illustrate the conversion of sinners. Man in his fallen state is dead in trespasses and sins; he has lost the life of God. He is dry and parched, for in his flesh dwelleth no good thing. He has lain a long time in that most piteous situation, so that he is not only dry, but with man there is no hope of his conversion. The calamity is not solitary but universal—‘Behold there were very many in the open valley.’ To raise and recover fallen man, ministers must not only be impelled with the spirit of faith and love, but they must mix among the wicked, as the physicians with the sick. We may stay in our closets learning our Master’s wisdom till we neglect to do our Master’s work. We must mix among the dry bones, watch their passions, trace their habits, and learn their evasions of conscience and of the Gospel. Ministers must not despair, though the cases may seem hopeless.”—Sutcliffe.
Eze_37:3. “O Lord, Thou knowest.” Human Perplexity—
1. Finds refuge in the Divine omniscience.
2. Reverently acknowledges the illimitableness of the Divine power.
3. Teaches the soul to render unquestioning obedience to the Divine command.
—“The Russians in a difficult question are accustomed to answer—‘God and our great Duke know all this.’ ”—Trapp.
—“Since God is omniscient and omnipotent, the resurrection of the dead is possible; but since He has also promised it and cannot break His word, it is also certain (Joh_5:25).”—Starke.
Eze_37:4. “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” An Urgent Message. Addressed—
1. To a dead nationality.
2. To a dead Church. 3. To a dead faith.
4. To dead souls.
Eze_37:5. “Neither need the resurrection of the dead be held a thing incredible concerning God’s power and truth (Act_26:8). The keeping green of Noah’s olive-tree in the time of the flood, the blossoming of Aaron’s dry rod, the flesh and sinews coming to these dry bones and the breath entering into them, what were they all but so many lively emblems of the resurrection?”—Trapp.
Eze_37:6. “Sinews tie the bones together. Flesh fills up the hollownesses, and being full of muscles, helps motion. Skin, as the upper silken garment, covers all with a clear and blushing colour. Breath lastly must be added. All this God declares He will do.”—Pool.
Eze_37:7-10. The Successful Preacher—
1. Is Divinely commissioned.
2. Is careful to declare only the message God reveals to Him. “So I prophesied as I was commanded” (Eze_37:7; Eze_37:10).
3. Recognises the necessity of prayer for the inspiration of the Spirit. “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain” (Eze_37:9).
4. Is honoured in seeing the fruit of his labours. “The breath came into them, and they lived” (Eze_37:10).
—“Three degrees or processes have been remarked in this mystic vision. When the prophet was commanded to prophesy, to foretell, on the authority of God, that there should be a restoration to their own land—
1. There was a noise, which was followed by a general shaking, during which the bones became arranged and united.
2. The flesh and skin came upon them, so that the dry bones were no longer seen.
3. The spirit or soul came into them, and they stood up perfectly vivified. Perhaps these might be illustrated by three periods of time which marked the regeneration of the Jewish polity:—
1. The publication of the edict of Cyrus in behalf of the Jews, which caused a general shaking or stir among the people, so that the several families began to approach each other and prepare for their return to Judea (Ezr_1:2-3). But though partially restored, they were obliged to discontinue the rebuilding of the Temple.
2. The edict published by Darius in the second year of his reign (Ezr_4:23-24), which removed the impediments thrown in the way of the Jews (Ezr_6:6-7).
3. The mission of Nehemiah with orders from Artaxerxes to complete the building of the Temple and the city (Neh_2:7). Then the Jews became a great army, and found themselves in sufficient force to defend themselves and city from all their enemies.”—A. Clarke.
—“The vision secondarily sets forth the spiritual resurrection of the people of God now through the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost; and then hereafter their literal resurrection also, through the same Spirit (Rom_8:11; Php_3:20). It needs the same Almighty power to raise a sinner from his natural state of spiritual death as it does to raise a corpse to life. To man both alike are impossible. But faith believes in the power and will of God to quicken the dead where to sense the case would seem hopeless. The spiritual resurrection is not instantaneously complete, but is progressive. At first there is the outward and inward preparation for the reception of the Spirit of life, and then at last the breath of life enters the man, and he becomes truly born again of the Spirit. Let us never be satisfied with the outward semblances of spiritual life—the bones, sinews, flesh, and skin—which give the form of beauty and life, but which are not the life itself. None but living believers shall stand before the living God. Prayer is the means whereby to obtain the breath of spiritual life, both for ourselves and for others (Eze_37:9; Sol. Son_4:16).”—Fausset.
Eze_37:7. “If the voice of the Holy Ghost is heard in the heart, then there is a movement of the heart, and blessed is he who obeys the impulse.”—Starck.
Eze_37:8. “The spirit and not the uniform is that which truly unifies, and the consciences of men are not to be dealt with as the regimental tailor deals with soldiers.”—Lange.
Eze_37:9. “When ministers succeed in promoting a law-work on the mind, always in due time mixing comfort with terror, they must turn their eyes to heaven and become advocates and intercessors for the promised Comforter. Our sermons have too much of the didactic; we divide, explain, and teach. We dwell on words and truths already understood. But after setting good things before an audience, why may we not assist piety in uttering the wishes of their hearts to obtain them? The frequent prayers which St. Paul mixes with his discourses are the most pathetic and touching parts of his writings.”—Sutcliffe.
—“Vision of the Dry Bones—a theme for a missionary sermon.
1. A striking description of the religious state of the heathen world.
(1.) The persons made the subject of this prophetic vision are represented as dead.
(2.) The number of the dead forms another part of the picture—‘the valley was full of bones.’
(3.) They were unburied. The destructive effects of sin, the sad ravages of death, lay exposed and open to the sun.
(4.) The state of the dead—‘the bones were very dry.’ Under this strong figure the hopelessness of their condition is represented.
2. The means by which its mystical resurrection is to be effected.
(1.) The ministry of the Word is the grand means appointed by God for the salvation of the world.
(2.) The words may be considered as an injunction on the preachers of the Gospel—‘Prophesy unto these dry bones.’
(3.) The injunction ‘Prophesy’ respects not only ministers, but you also who have a private station in the Church. 3. The certain success which should follow the application of the appointed means.
(1.) Our confidence rests on the power of the Gospel.
(2) Our confidence in the certain success of the Gospel rests also on experience.
(3.) Prophecy confirms the certainty of success.”—R. Watson.
Eze_37:10. “ ‘An exceeding great army.’ A power, or army of strong, courageous, and well-ordered soldiers. The phrase in the Hebrew is very full—a power, or great host, very, very great. Thus they rise that the prophet and we might know how safe they would be in themselves, and how terrible to their enemies.”—Pool.
Eze_37:11-14. National Life—
1. Dependent on God for its worth and permanence.
2. Sinks into decay and oblivion when it ignores God.
3. Indebted for its revival to the goodness and power of God.
Eze_37:11. “ ‘Our hope is lost.’ Let them hope as hope can: we have hanged up all our hopes now that the city and Temple are destroyed. Thus carnal confidence, as it riseth up into a corky, frothy hope when it seeth sufficient help, so it sitteth down into a faithless, sullen discontent and despair when it can see no second causes.”—Trapp.
—The language of unbelief makes the calamity great, and God’s power to help little.
Eze_37:12-13. “Though your captivity be as death, your prisons and confinements close as the grave, yet I will open those graves. I will lift you out, lend you a hand to bring you out with life and strength. And I will be your guide, that you may know the way; be your support, that you may be able to go; and your guard and defence against dangers of the way, that you may certainly come into your own land. When your restitution to your own land and your prosperity in it, when your growth to strength and power shall be so miraculously effected, then you shall acknowledge and publish the glory of My power, faithfulness, goodness, and wisdom.”—Pool.
HOMILETICS
THE UNITY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
(Eze_37:15-28.)
I. Promoted by the blending of hostile nationalities into a universal brotherhood (Eze_37:15-22). We have here another example of the realism of Ezekiel’s method of teaching. By the bringing together of two separate rods, or sceptres, till they appeared as one in the hand of the prophet, he illustrated the approaching union of the rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The misfortunes of the past had been intensified by the rupture of the kingdom of David. Internecine wars had weakened both North and South and left the exhausted tribes an easy prey to the heathen invaders. The removal of the ten tribes into Assyrian exile more than a century and a half before toned down the bitterness of ancient animosities in the breasts of the two tribes still left in the land; and when they, in their turn, suffered the miseries of exile, a spirit of brotherhood was awakened among all the tribes, and they yearned for the time when they should again become a united nation. The prophets no less than the people looked forward to this desirable consummation. They saw that the fires of affliction were already fusing the broken and scattered elements into a strongly welded national unity. But in the wider scope of the prophetic vision, the union of Israel and Judah was regarded as a type of the future union of all nations in the universal kingdom of Messiah. In the march of the centuries and the advancement of knowledge the nations are being drawn closer to each other; war, hatred, and jealousy will ultimately disappear, and peace and righteousness everywhere prevail:—
“O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,
Scenes of accomplished bliss! Which who can see,
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?
Antipathies are none. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string,
But all is harmony and love.”—Cowper.
II. Acknowledges the supreme authority of the one Divine King. “I will make them one nation, and one king shall be king to them all. David My servant shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd. My servant David shall be their prince for ever” (Eze_37:22-25). It was plainly revealed that the coming Messiah-King was to be a descendant of David, the Jewish hero, and both prophets and people expected that he would restore the kingdom on the lines of its ancient constitution, for they knew nothing higher. The conception of a purely spiritual kingdom was altogether beyond the range of human thought, and was not dreamed of till proclaimed by the lips of our Lord. Even then the idea was but slowly comprehended by the best-instructed Jewish minds; and the rejection of the true Messiah by the bulk of the Jewish nation shows how unwilling or incapable they were to take in the sublime notion. It is only by the light of the New Testament that a later age has been able to realise the far-reaching significance of the prophetic vision. The true Israel is not a political but a spiritual community, gathered out of all nations under heaven, compacted and unified into a spiritual kingdom, acknowledging and serving one Divine Ruler, who is King of kings and Lord of lords.
III. Established by the Divinely imparted righteousness of its subjects (Eze_37:23-24). Sin disintegrates and scatters, as the chequered history of the Jewish nation proves. But the stability and permanent unity of the Messianic kingdom will be ensured in the fact that it is built up and established in righteousness. It is composed of sanctified natures from which the enfeebling defilement of iniquity will be cleansed, and the changed lives of its subjects will be evidenced in practical holiness. “They shall walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes and do them.” It is:—
“The kingdom of established peace,
Which can no more remove;
The perfect power of godliness,
The omnipotence of love.”
IV. Confirmed by a perpetual covenant (Eze_37:26-27). The terms of the covenant have a Divine origin and sanction—“I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Here is the guarantee of its inviolability. Had it rested on political or any human considerations, it would have been insecure. God is ever faithful to His part of the covenant, notwithstanding the infidelity and ingratitude of His people. It is, moreover, a covenant of peace—the moral breach occasioned by sin is healed by pardon and reconciliation through the intervention of Messiah, who by His offered and accepted sacrifice has made it possible to subdue the inveterate enmity of the human heart and bring man into spiritual union with God. The reality and perpetuity of the covenant are assured by the abiding presence of God with His people. “I will set up My sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.” The unity of the Divine kingdom will be maintained by incessant worship and the loftiest spiritual fellowship.
V. Demonstrates the Divine faithfulness (Eze_37:28). Israel had sinned and had defamed the reputation of Jehovah, and in their sufferings, which rendered them a spectacle of wonder and a theme of derision, their enemies entertained false and distorted views of the God of Israel. But in the moral reform of Israel and the unmistakable evidence of God’s presence and working amongst them, the heathen are compelled to own that He is the only true God, and unalterably faithful in word and deed. The growing unity of the kingdom of righteousness is an ever-present object-lesson to the universe, teaching the indefectible faithfulness of Jehovah.
LESSONS.—
1. The unity of the kingdom of God is founded in spiritual affinity to the Divine.
2. Is in process of organisation wherever Christ is embraced and worshipped.
3. Will one day be a grand reality.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_37:15-28. “The whole people of Israel had been represented as participating in the regenerating efficacy of the spirit of life which was to be given from above; and as the direct result of this was to unite them to God, so its secondary operation could not fail to be to unite them in brotherly concord with each other. For the true covenant-people must form but one body, as they can only have one Head; and hence, as the necessary shell for preserving this great truth, it was so strictly enjoined of old that they should have but one Temple, one high-priest, one king, and one commonwealth. The breaking-up of this united brotherhood by the revolt of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, however needful at the time as a salutary chastisement to the house of David, is constantly represented as a sad dismemberment of the household of God, and the source, to a large extent, of the more overwhelming tide of evils which thenceforth set in upon the land, and at last laid it desolate. As soon, therefore, as there might be produced a revived and healthful condition among the covenant-people, there must be a return to brotherly union, and that in connection with the house of David; for to this house had been committed the right to rule over the heritage of God, and to abide in separation from it was to continue in rebellion against Heaven. That there has been no adequate fulfilment of this prophecy in what may be called the literal sense of its terms is too plain to require any lengthened proof. The most characteristic part of the description—the cementing, strengthening, benignant rule of David—had not even the appearance of a literal fulfilment in the post-Babylonish history of Israel; and, with so strong and prominent a feature of an ideal sort as the eternal presidency of David, it seems amazing that any one should expect it to be realised after that manner in the ages to come.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_37:15-17. Joining the Sticks. “
1. Learn the sad condition of the people of Israel at the time the prophet wrote.
(1.) It was contrary to nature.
(2.) Displeasing to God.
(3.) Disastrous to themselves.
2. The happy condition to which the people of Israel were about to be restored. That of unity, harmony, oneness.
(1.) Union is of great importance to the Church itself.
(2.) It is an immense advantage to the surrounding community.
(3.) It is well-pleasing and highly honouring to God.
3. The agency by which this delightful change was to be effected.
(1.) God breathed into them a principle of spiritual life.
(2.) He sent them wise advisers and earnest intercessors.
(3.) He visited them with a sore trial—captivity.
(4.) He appointed them a common work—the rebuilding of the city and Temple of Jerusalem.
(5.) He makes His residence in their midst. Christ in the midst of a Church acts like a magnet in the midst of steel particles: He attracts all to Himself.”—Pulpit Analyst.
Eze_37:16. “A cleft stick is a poor business in itself, but if God please to make use of so slender a thing, it may serve for a very great purpose; as here by the uniting of two sorry sticks in the hands of the prophet is prefigured the uniting of Judah and Israel, yea, of Jews and Gentiles, in the hand of the Lord—that is, in Christ Jesus, who is the hand, the right hand and the arm of God the Father.”—Trapp.
Eze_37:17. “ ‘Join them one to another.’ Some would have this done miraculously; but I do not think God bade the prophet work a miracle. Were it so, God would rather have said, ‘I will make them one,’ for He can do miracles. It was enough if glued together, or but held in his hand, so that in his hand they were one.”—Pool.
Eze_37:18-20. The Unity of the People of God—
1. Has its basis in their united love of God.
2. Strengthened by Divinely ordered events. “I will make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand” (Eze_37:19).
3. Admits of great diversity of individual character. Each tribe had its distinctive peculiarity.
4. Shall be openly recognised. “The sticks shall be in thine hand before their eyes” (Eze_37:20).
Eze_37:19. “I will once more bring them all under one King and make them of one mind. Religion is the only best bond of affection. The very heathens honoured the primitive Christians for their unanimity. As the curtains of the Tabernacle were joined by loops, so were they by love; and as the stones of the Temple were so closely cemented together that they seemed to be but one stone, so was it among them. Neither need we wonder, since Christ’s Church is but one; neither is there any such oneness or entireness anywhere as among the saints. Other societies are but as the clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image: they may cleave together, but not incorporate one into another.”—Trapp.
Eze_37:20. “As the separation of Judah and Ephraim was the punishment of apostasy, and led to still further evils, religious and political, so hereafter, when both are one with God, through the spirit of life uniting them to the one Covenant-Head, Messiah-David, they shall be united to one another as no longer two but one people. In respect to the spiritual Israel, the Church, nothing has more impeded the progress of the Gospel than the mutual divisions of professing Christians. Let us pray for the blessed time when all Christians shall be one inwardly and outwardly, as the Lord Jesus prayed (Joh_17:21). Meanwhile, if in non-essentials we differ for a time, let us endeavour at least to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”—Fausset.
Eze_37:21-25. National Unity—
1. Conditioned by geographical environment “I will gather them on every side, and make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel” (Eze_37:21-22).
2. Confirmed by the suppression of tribal feuds and animosities. “They shall be no more two nations” (Eze_37:22).
3. Cemented by good government. “One king shall be king to them all. David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd” (Eze_37:22; Eze_37:24).
4. Has a solid foundation in practical piety. “Neither shall they defile themselves any more with idols: they shall walk in My judgments, and do them” (Eze_37:23-24).
5. Secures permanency of national life. “They shall dwell in the land, they and their children’s children for ever” (Eze_37:25).
Eze_37:22. “Politically speaking, they never had a king from that day to this, and the grand junction and government spoken of here must refer to another time—to that in which they shall be brought into the Christian Church with the fulness of the Gentiles, when Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, shall rule over them.”—A. Clarke.
Eze_37:23. “Idolatry is a very defiling sin, and the Jews in both kingdoms were exceedingly addicted to it, pertinacious in it, to the utter ruin of both kingdoms; but after the return from Babylonish captivity, we find nowhere that they fell into idolatry.”—Pool.
Eze_37:24. “No Christian is a bad man, unless he be a counterfeit.”—Athenagoras.
Eze_37:26-28. The Presence of God with His People—
1. Guaranteed by covenant relationship. “I will make a covenant of peace with them: I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Eze_37:26-27).
2. An assurance of stability and increase. “I will place them and multiply them” (Eze_37:26).
3. A motive fur loftiest worship. “I will set My sanctuary in the midst of them: My tabernacle shall be with them” (Eze_37:26-27).
4. A testimony to the Divine faithfulness. “The heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel” (Eze_37:28).
Eze_37:26. “ ‘It shall be an everlasting covenant with them,’ may be fitly explained of the Gospel, being such a covenant as shall never be abolished or give way to any new dispensation. It is certain that the expression, ‘a covenant of peace,’ could not at all agree with the ancient covenant; for when was there an age, half an age, or twenty years’ peace in Israel? The whole history of the Jewish nation is nothing more than a recital of wars and continual divisions. And if we understand it of peace between God and His people, where shall we find this people faithfully attached to the Lord during one century only? We have only to open the books of the prophets and the other sacred records to remark their infidelities and perpetual rebellions against God. This expression, therefore, can only respect the new covenant whereof Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, is the Mediator, and who gives us that true peace which surpasses all conceptions.”—Benson.
—“In closing this section, we present a brief outline of the view that has been taken of the prophecies contained in the three closely related chapters, 34, 35, 37, and which in substance applies equally to many other portions of the prophetical Scriptures.
1. They were originally given to revive and animate the hearts of God’s covenant-people, by holding out to them the assured prospect of a reversion from the present evil, and their still certain destination in God’s purpose to the highest and most honourable place on the earth.
2. It was the duty of those to whom such prophecies were delivered at once to believe the word spoken to them, and apply themselves in earnest to do what was needed to secure its accomplishment.
3. But there being manifestly ideal features introduced into the delineation, clearly betokens a kind and degree of blessing which could not have been completely fulfilled under the old covenant.
4. The new things thus to be looked for in the future could only meet with their full and adequate accomplishment in Christ, who is certainly the David of the promise.
5. Therefore, in forming one’s conceptions now of the real import of such prophecies, we must throw ourselves back upon the narrower and more imperfect relations amid which they were written, and thence judge of what is still to come. Those who would find a literal Israel and a non-literal David, or a literal restoration in Christian times, and a non-literal Tabernacle and ritual of worship, arbitrarily confound together things dissimilar and incongruous, and render certainty of interpretation absolutely impossible.
6. The view thus given is confirmed by the reproduction of some of these prophecies in the field of the New Testament Church, set free, as was expected, from the outward distinctions and limits of the Old.
7. The common interpretation which understands Christ by David, and takes all the rest literally, must inevitably tend to justify the Jew in his unbelief.”—Fairbairn.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. We may take Ezekiel’s vision as a pledge…
Eze 37:3
I. We may take Ezekiel’s vision as a pledge that God does not abandon a good cause, however dark may appear its prospects at any particular time. There are in the world evils so great that we are tempted to think their cure hopeless. God knows when and how the difficulties which beset holy enterprises will be cleared away. The Maker of mankind does not despise the work of His own hand; the day will come in His own good time when there will be a shaking, and the bones will come together, and a breath will pass into the lifeless forms, and they will live and stand upon their feet.
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II. Still more deep and impressive should be the comfort derived from this prophetic vision when we apply it not to any outward or professional work in which we are engaged, but to the personal work of bringing over our hearts and lives into conformity with Christ’s will. When we look within ourselves and consider our own state before God, we may well repeat the question, Can these bones live? Fallings away, humiliating defeats, abandonment or forgetfulness of holy purposes in the presence of temptation are no doubt sufficiently depressing; and the true remedy is to have faith in God, to believe that His Spirit will breathe a new life into our failing energies, and in that belief diligently to seek Him.
III. This great passage implies the current belief of the resurrection of the body, all the more as the application is figurative, and made to strengthen a disheartened people. Thus, though the passage was not intended to teach the Jewish captives the truth of the Resurrection, yet it is interesting as one of the signs that the hope of immortality was gradually unfolded and made clear to God’s people under the Old Testament. We may receive the vision as a Divine pledge that God’s blessing reaches beyond the grave, that His power will still surround us, and His Spirit be breathed into us, in that unknown world to which we all are hastening.
G. E. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 332.
Eze 37:3
I. All men are spiritually dead. (1) They are destitute of the principle of spiritual life. (2) They are insensible to the beauties and attractions of the spiritual world. (3) They are incompetent to discharge the functions of holy beings. (4) They are under the dominion of sinful propensities.
II. No created power can communicate spiritual life to men.
III. It is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit to quicken the spiritually dead. (1) His influence is obtained in answer to prayer. (2) It operates through the instrumentality of the word. (3) It produces faith in Christ. (4) The mode of His working is inscrutable.
G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 294.
References: Eze 37:1-10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 582; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 74; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 427. Eze 37:1-14.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 384. Eze 37:3.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 209; H. P. Liddon, Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Old Testament, p. 278; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 294. Eze 37:10.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 236. Eze 37:11-12, Eze 37:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1676. Eze 37:15-17.—Pulpit Analyst, vol. ii., p. 457. 37—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 103. Eze 40:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1578. Eze 43:12.—Ibid., No. 1618. Eze 43:15.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 185.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Eze 37:1 - Eze 37:14.
Ezekiel
THE DRY BONES AND THE SPIRIT OF LIFE
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Eze 37:1 - Eze 37:14.
This great vision apparently took its form from a despairing saying, which had become a proverb among the exiles, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost: we are clean cut off’ {Eze 37:11}. Ezekiel lays hold of the metaphor, which had been taken to express the hopeless destruction of Israel’s national existence, and even from it wrings a message of hope. Faith has the prerogative of seeing possibilities of life in what looks to sense hopeless death. We may look at the vision from three points of view, considering its bearing on Israel, on the world, and on the resurrection of the body.
I. The saying, already referred to, puts the hopelessness of the mass of the exiles in a forcible fashion. The only sense in which living men could say that their bones were dried up, and they cut off, is a figurative one, and obviously it is the national existence which they regarded as irretrievably ended. The saying gives us a glimpse into the despair which had settled down on the exiles, and against which Ezekiel had to contend, as he had also to contend against its apparently opposite and yet kindred feeling of presumptuous, misplaced hope. We observe that he begins by accepting fully the facts which bred despair, and even accentuating them. The true prophet never makes light of the miseries of which he knows the cure, and does not try to comfort by minimising the gravity of the evil. The bones are very many, and they are very dry. As far as outward resources are concerned, despair was rational, and hope as absurd as it would have been to expect that men, dead so long that their bones had been bleached by years of exposure to the weather, should live again.
But while Ezekiel saw the facts of Israel’s powerlessness as plainly as the most despondent, he did not therefore despair. The question which rose in his mind was God’s question, and the very raising it let a gleam of hope in. So he answered with that noble utterance of faith and submission, ‘O Lord God, Thou knowest.’ ‘With God all things are possible.’ Presumption would have said ‘Yes’; Unbelief would have said ‘No’; Faith says, ‘Thou knowest.’
The grand description of the process of resurrection follows the analogy of the order in the creation of man, giving, first, the shaping of the body, and afterwards the breathing into it of the breath which is life. Both stages are wholly God’s work. The prophet’s part was to prophesy to the bones first; and his word, in a sense, brought about the effect which it foretold, since his ministry was the most potent means of rekindling dying hopes, and bringing the disjecta membra of the nation together again. The vivid and gigantic imagination of the prophet gives a picture of the rushing together of the bones, which has no superior in any literature. He hears a noise, and sees a ‘shaking’ {by which is meant the motion of the bones to each other, rather than an ‘earthquake,’ as the Revised Version has it, which inserts a quite irrelevant detail}, and the result of all is that the skeletons are complete. Then follows the gradual clothing with flesh. There they lie, a host of corpses.
The second stage is the quickening of these bodies with life, and here again Ezekiel, as God’s messenger, has power to bring about what he announces; for, at his command, the breath, or wind, or spirit, comes, and the stiff corpses spring to their feet, a mighty army. The explanation in the last verses of the text somewhat departs from the tenor of the vision by speaking of Israel as buried, but keeps to its substance, and point the despairing exiles to God as the source of national resurrection. But we must not force deeper meaning on Ezekiel’s words than they properly bear. The spirit promised in them is simply the source of life,-literally, of physical life; metaphorically, of national life. However that national restoration was connected with holiness, that does not enter into the prophet’s vision. Israel’s restoration to its land is all that Ezekiel meant by it. True, that restoration was to lead to clearer recognition by Israel of the name of Jehovah, and of all that it implied in him and demanded from them. But the proper scope of the vision is to assure despairing Israelites that God would quicken the apparently slain national life, and replace them in the land.
II. We may extend the application of the vision to the condition of humanity and the divine intervention which communicates life to a dead world, but must remember that no such meaning was in Ezekiel’s thoughts. The valley full of dry bones is but too correct a description of the aspect which a world ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ bears, when seen from the mountain-top by pure and heavenly eyes. The activities of godless lives mask the real spiritual death, which is the condition of every soul that is separate from God. Galvanised corpses may have muscular movements, but they are dead, notwithstanding their twitching. They that live without God are dead while they live.
Again, we may learn from the vision the preparation needful for the prophet, who is to be the instrument of imparting divine life to a dead world. The sorrowful sense of the widespread deadness must enter into a man’s spirit, and be ever present to him, in order to fit him for his work. A dead world is not to be quickened on easy terms. We must see mankind in some measure as God sees them if we are to do God’s work among them. So-called Christian teachers, who do not believe that the race is dead in sin, or who, believing it, do not feel the tragedy of the fact, and the power lodged in their hands to bring the true life, may prophesy to the dry bones for ever, and there will be no shaking among them.
The great work of the gospel is to communicate divine life. The details of the process in the vision are not applicable in this respect. As we have pointed out, they are shaped after the pattern of the creation of Adam, but the essential point is that what the world needs is the impartation from God of His Spirit. We know more than Ezekiel did as to the way by which that Spirit is given to men, and as to the kind of life which it imparts, and as to the connection between that life and holiness. It is a diviner voice than Ezekiel’s which speaks to us in the name of God, and says to us with deeper meaning than the prophet of the Exile dreamed of, ‘I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live.’
But we may note that it is possible to have the outward form of a living body, and yet to have no life. Churches and individuals may be perfectly organised and perfectly dead. Creeds may be articulated most correctly, every bone in its place, and yet have no vitality in them. Forms of worship may be punctiliously proper, and have no breath of life in them. Religion must have a body, but often the body is not so much the organ as the sepulchre of the spirit. We have to take heed that the externals do not kill the inward life.
Again, we note that this great act of life-giving is God’s revelation of His name,-that is, of His character so far as men can know it. ‘Ye shall know that I am the Lord’ {Eze 37:13 - Eze 37:14}. God makes Himself known in His divinest glory when He quickens dead souls. The world may learn what He is therefrom, but they who have experienced the change, and have, as it were, been raised from the grave to new life, have personal experience of His power and faithfulness so sure and sweet that henceforward they cannot doubt Him nor forget His grace.
III. As to the bearing of the vision on the doctrine of the resurrection little need be said. It does not necessarily presuppose the people’s acquaintance with that doctrine, for it would be quite conceivable that the vision had revealed to the prophet the thought of a resurrection, which had not been in his beliefs before. The vision is so entirely figurative, that it cannot be employed as evidence that the idea of the resurrection of the dead was part of the Jewish beliefs at this date. It does, however, seem most natural to suppose that the exiles were familiar with the idea, though the vision cannot be taken as a revelation of a literal resurrection of dead men. For clear expectations of such a resurrection we must turn to such scriptures as Dan 12:2, Dan 12:13.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Revival and Reunion of Iseael
The Revival and Reunion of Iseael
From the future of the land Ezekiel now turns to that of the nation, long ago divided by the revolt of the Ten Tribes, and now seemingly extinct. The exiles feel themselves to be but its scattered bones (Eze_37:11). In a striking and beautiful vision, suggested no doubt by this current saying, Ezekiel predicts that the dead nation will come to life again (Eze_37:1-14), and by a symbolic action he represents the coming reunion of the rival kingdoms of Israel and Judah (Eze_37:15-28).
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(a) The Revival (Eze_37:1-14)
Ezekiel is transported into a valley full of dry bones. As he prophesies to them they come together into complete skeletons, which become covered with sinews, flesh, and skin. Then the wind blows upon the inanimate bodies and they stand up alive. The prophecy does not refer to a literal resurrection of the Israelites actually dead, but to a revival of the dead nation, of which the exiles seemed to be the scattered remains.
1. Ezekiel saw this vision in a prophetic trance, under the influence of God's inspiration. At the same time its details were no doubt due to the peculiar working of his imaginative mind on the thought expressed by the exiles in Eze_37:11.
7. A shaking] RV 'an earthquake.'
8, 9. Wind.. breath] The same Hebrew word means wind, breath, or spirit. The wind of the vision represents the Spirit of God in the actual process of the nation's revival: see Eze_37:14.
11. Cut off for our parts] RV 'clean cut off.'
12, 13. Graves] The figure here is somewhat changed. Still the reference is not to the graves of those actually dead, but to the heathen world as the grave of the dead nation of Israel, compared to which their own land was the land of the living.
14. My spirit] see on Eze_37:8, Eze_37:9.
(b) The Reunion (Eze_37:15-28)
Ezekiel is directed to take two pieces of wood, one having 'Judah' and the other 'Joseph' inscribed upon it, and to join them together (Eze_37:15-17). The explanation of the symbol is that the two divisions of the nation, so long separated, will be reunited in their former land, governed by one king of the house of David, under the same covenant with God, and worshipping at the same sanctuary (Eze_37:18-28).
16. Judah] the southern kingdom of the Two Tribes. Joseph.. Ephraim] the northern kingdom of the Ten Tribes; Ephraim, one of the two tribes descended from Joseph, being the principal one of the ten. Israel] used here and in Eze_37:19, as generally by Ezekiel, in the sense, not of the northern kingdom, but of the whole nation.
19. Him] RV 'it.' Mine hand] probably rather, 'his' (Judah's) 'hand,' to correspond with 'the hand of Ephraim' already mentioned in the v. The united stick is placed in Judah's hand because the king is to belong to Judah's royal house.
23. Dwellingplaces] RM 'backslidings.' So shall they be my people, etc.] another feature taken from Jeremiah's New Covenant (Jer_31:33): see also Eze_37:26, Eze_37:27.
24, 25. My servant David] in the same sense as in Eze_34:23, Eze_34:24.
26. A covenant of peace] as in Eze_34:25.
26, 27. My sanctuary.. my tabernacle] Jeroboam had set up rival sanctuaries to Jerusalem at Dan and Bethel (1Ki_12:28-32), but the reunited nation would have one centre of religious worship. God had forsaken the Temple at Jerusalem (Eze_11:23), but He would return, never to leave it again. The latter aspect of the promise is developed in Ezekiel 40-48.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 Having announced Eze 36:24-38 the restoration of the nation,…
bones
Having announced Eze 36:24-38 the restoration of the nation, Jehovah now gives in vision and symbol the method of its accomplishment. Eze 37:11 gives the clue. The "bones" are the whole house of Israel who shall then be living. The "graves" are the nations where they dwell. The order of procedure is:
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(1) the bringing of the people out Eze 37:12-14; Eze 37:19-27
(2) the bringing of them in (Eze 37:12);
(3) their conversion (Eze 37:13)
(4) the filling with the Spirit (Eze 37:14).
The symbol follows. The two sticks are Judah and the ten tribes; united, they are one nation (Eze 37:19-21). Then follows (Eze 37:21-27) the plain declaration as to Jehovah’s purpose, and Eze 37:28 implies that then Jehovah will become known to the Gentiles in a marked way. This is also the order of Act 15:16; Act 15:17 and the two passages strongly indicate the time of full Gentile conversion. See also Isa 11:10.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Future Blessings of Israel, the Nation Regathered,
CHAPTERS 37-48
The Future Blessings of Israel, the Nation Regathered,
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Their Enemies Overthrown, the Millennial Temple, and the Division of the Land
1. The vision of the dry bones and Judah and Israel reunited (Eze 37:1-28)
2. Gog and Magog and their destruction (Eze 38:1-23; Eze 39:1-29)
3. The millennial temple, its worship, and the division of the land (Eze 40:1-49; Eze 41:1-26; Eze 42:1-20; Eze 43:1-27; Eze 44:1-31; Eze 45:1-25; Eze 46:1-24; Eze 47:1-23; Eze 48:1-35)
Eze 37:1-28. The future restoration of Israel, both nationally and spiritually, is now shown to the prophet in a vision. What these dry bones represent and what their revival mean, is explained by the Lord Himself. It may be used in application in different ways, to illustrate certain truths, but the true and only interpretation is the one which is given by the Lord in Eze 37:11-14. But there is an erroneous interpretation of a serious nature which is widely taught and believed among many Christians. Because “graves” are mentioned, beside the dry bones and their resurrection, it is being taught that the vision means physical resurrection. Systems, like Millennial Dawnism, alias International Bible Student Association and others, which teach the so-called larger hope, a second chance for the impenitent dead, the restitution of the lost, teach that all the Israelites who have died in their sins will be brought out of their graves and then be saved. They use this vision to confirm this invention. An advocate of this theory declared that all the Christ-hating Pharisees and Sadducees who lived when our Lord was on earth would be raised up when He comes and then believe on Him.Mat 23:39 was used by him as an argument. These restitution teachers also teach that inasmuch as Israel will have a second chance when they are raised from the dead, the Gentile dead will share also in the same. It needs no argument to refute this. The Word of God teaches a twofold resurrection: A first resurrection and a second resurrection, a resurrection of the just and a resurrection of the unjust Joh 5:28-47. According to the above theory, there would have to be a third resurrection, a resurrection for a second chance and ultimate salvation of those who died in their sins. Of such a resurrection the Bible knows nothing.
In this vision of the dry bones, physical resurrection is used as a type of the national restoration of Israel. It is used in the same way in Dan 12:2. In that passage the sleep in the dust of the earth is symbolical of their national condition. And when their national sleep ends there will be an awakening. When we read here in Ezekiel of graves, it must not be taken to mean literal graves; the graves are symbolical of the nation as being buried among the Gentiles. If these dry bones meant the physical dead of the nation, how could it be explained that they speak and say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost?” The same figure of speech is used in the New Testament. Of the prodigal it is said, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again” Luk 15:24. Yet he was not physically dead, nor was he made alive physically. Therefore, this vision has nothing whatever to do with a physical resurrection. The late Dr. Bullinger, whose erroneous suggestions have led astray some, also taught that the vision of the dry bones includes resurrection as well as restoration.
Equally bad is that spiritualizing method which takes a vision like this, as well as the hundreds of promises of a coming restoration, and applies it all to the Church, ignoring totally the claims of Israel and their promised future of glory. This is the general trend of commentators.
Eze 37:15-28 predict the reunion of Judah and Israel with one king over them. That King is our Lord. Then the angelic message given to the Virgin when the coming incarnation was announced will be fulfilled: “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His Father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His Kingdom there shall be no end” Luk 1:32-80).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Vision of the Resurrection
The Vision of the Resurrection
v. 1. The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, in a state of ecstasy in which the prophet was inwardly transported from the things around him, and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was full of bones, one representing a huge grave, in which, however, the corpses had not been covered,
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v. 2. and caused me to pass by them round about, so that Ezekiel received a very close view of them, observed them most carefully; and, behold, there were very many in the open valley, not in heaps, but scattered over the ground, and, lo, they were very dry, bleached by long exposure to the elements, without sap and vitality.
v. 3. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? Did it seem possible to human eyes that these dry bones would be restored to life again? And I answered, properly leaving the answer of the question to the Lord’s almighty power, O Lord God, Thou knowest. With God nothing is impossible, and therefore the believers trust in Him to perform His mighty deeds at His own time.
v. 4. Again He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, that is, over or concerning them, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, which is the bearer of life, the mediator of the salvation of Jehovah.
v. 5. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, His creative divine power, as in the beginning, and ye shall live;
v. 6. and I will lay sinews upon you, literally, "binding matter," for the tendons and sinews hold the bones together and serve as a foundation for the flesh, and will bring up flesh upon you, causing it to fill out the human forms, and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and ye shall live, Cf Isa 26:19; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, by this proof of His almighty power.
v. 7. So I prophesied as I was commanded, without consulting with flesh and blood, simply at the command of the Lord; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, a voice, or sound, and behold a shaking, a louder rustling from the field of bones, and the bones came together, bone to his bone, those of the individual skeletons being assembled in their proper relation.
v. 8. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above, so that they were like corpses from which life had but recently fled; but there was no breath in them, there was no life in the members.
v. 9. Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, announcing to it the command of the Lord, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, the sovereign Ruler of the universe, Come from the four winds, O breath, the spirit or power of life, and breathe upon these slain, the victims of bloody warfare, that they may live.
v. 10. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, just as in the beginning of creation, Genesis 2; and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. The vision, therefore, evidently does not concern the resurrection of the dead in general, but only a restoration of the Lord’s people in the ideal sense. The Jews who returned from the four winds of the earth, in so far as they were believers, again formed the nucleus of the Church of God, which later included the believers from all over the world.
v. 11. Then He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel, those who were properly included in the Lord’s people, the spiritual Israel. Behold, they say, on account of the tribulations of the exile, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are put off for our parts, they were undone. The condition of Israel was such that the believers in its midst felt that there was as little hope of restoration as there was a chance for marrowless bones to regain their vigor and to be surrounded once more with flesh and blood.
v. 12. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, the countries in which they were, in a manner of speaking, buried, and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel, to the place where His people could once more enjoy the fullness of His spiritual blessings.
v. 13. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, be established and strengthened in their conviction that Jehovah was truly the God of the covenant, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your graves,
v. 14. and shall put My Spirit in you, the breath of life with the power of the Holy Ghost, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land, once more establishing them as His people; then shall ye know that I, the Lord, have spoken it, promised to do it, and performed it, saith the Lord. While this passage is not a direct proof-text teaching the resurrection of the dead, it furnishes a very vivid picture of the method in which God will call all men back to life on the Last Day.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9 General Information:
General Information:
Ezekiel is speaking.
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The hand of Yahweh was upon me
The word "hand" is often used to refer to someone's power or action. A person with his hand on another person has power over that other person. See how you translated a similar phrase in Ezekiel 1:3. AT: "Yahweh was controlling me" (See: Metonymy)
in the midst
"in the middle"
round and round
"in every direction"
Behold!
The word "Behold" here alerts us to pay attention to the surprising information that follows.
Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
translationWords
hand
Yahweh
send
Holy Spirit
Son of Man
life
Lord Yahweh
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9 37:1-14 From the promise of a vibrant city overflowing…
37:1-14 From the promise of a vibrant city overflowing with life (36:38), the prophet was transported into a valley of death, surrounded on all sides by bones. It was a symbolic restatement of the promise that the Spirit of the Lord gives life (36:16-38).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.