Ezekiel 37: A Vision of Hope and Revival

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1–14

37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³ He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶ I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

⁷ So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸ I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. ⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

¹¹ Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴ I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Questions

1. Why Does God ask Ezekiel if the bones can live, what answer does God expect?
2. Why does God say he will open the graves of Israel?

Background

Related Scriptures: Genesis 2;Psalm 130, 137;  John 11:1–45; 1 Corinthians 13:1

Ezekiel 37 is a vision, and we should not try to identify all of the details as literal or having allegorical meaning.

Ezekiel was a priest and so he would have especially been forbidden to have contact with bones under normal circumstances.

God is doing the work of reviving the bones but wants Ezekiel to participate in the process that is why the prophet is told to speak to the bones.

Ruah means both breath and spirit, when Ezekiel speaks to the breath it is the animating spirits of the dead people.

Reflection

Psalm 130 opens with “out of the depths I cry”; the picture is the psalmist drowning in the abyss. What are the depths for him, exile in Babylon. For the psalmist simply living in Babylon was like trying to survive in the depths of the ocean. And other psalms like Psalm 137, present the same despair. The people of Judah felt that living in exile in Babylon was a truly bleak experience. It was against this backdrop and to these people that Ezekiel prophesied. Ezekiel spoke to his people when they needed hope in the midst of darkness. Ezekiel may have been excentric by our standards, but his visions offered concrete hope that God was with the people he spoke to. And hope is essential for life. When we lose hope, we are done. This is why Psalm 130 ends with the imperative “hope in the Lord”.

Hope needs to be tangible; it cannot simply be a vague feeling. God, through the prophet is trying to convey the reality that one day the dead nation will be revived. In Ezekiel’s time it was not taken for granted that God was able to communicate with anyone anywhere, so to have God speak to a priest would be something people noticed. But I can also understand how some people would have difficulty trusting Ezekiel’s words. I can imagine that people thought it might be true but, “God hasn’t said anything to me, so I don’t believe you.” Trusting others is one of the most difficult things God asks us to do. We need to learn how to be tender to the idea that God speaks through others while discerning to understand when God is not speaking. So, I can understand why some might have difficulty with the message Ezekiel brought.

I think God understands this reality also, because when Jesus was on earth, he did not simply talk about God’s restoration he demonstrated it. When Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after Lazarus’ death he comes to demonstrate that God can be trusted to bring resurrection because he brings life to Lazarus. Jesus’ sign of raising Lazarus is not simply a good deed done for a friend. Nor is it simply a miracle to show off Jesus’ power. Raising Lazarus is a marker of the hope we have in God. It is a sign that God can (and will) overcome death. While Ezekiel saw a vision of what was coming for God’s people, those who were with Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb received something different. Jesus Brought a glimpse at what God is going to do.

One aspect that I think both these stories share is that God wants us to help bring one another hope. In both stories it is God that is bringing the life-giving spirit—just as God did in Genesis 2. But in both God is responding to the petition of a person. Yes, Jesus is different from us with a unique connection to God, but Jesus is fully human. One of the purposes of Jesus’ ministry is to help us understand what we are meant to do as God’s people. Even if we do not have the power to do the same deeds, he did we can still work in similar ways. Just because you or I might not be able to raise a person from the dead does not mean that we are not able to offer people hope. I look at Ezekiel and see a person who took the time to connect with God and because of that has been able to leave behind him a message brimming with hope. Ezekiel’s example demonstrates that there are times (and now seems to be one of them) where people desperately need something to cling to and provide them with hope. Without hope people truly lose a desire to live. We know that God wants to bring life to the world, this puts us in the position of Ezekiel. We are the ones who have seen the vision of what God wants to do in creation. Because we have seen the hope that God has for the world it is our responsibility to spread the message of that hope to others. We become the voice of hope for those whose life has become shrouded by gloom. We have the ability to change the world by sharing the message we have been given. We have witnessed Jesus raise others from the dead and being raised, we know the future God has for the world and it is time for us to spread that message to those who need to hear it.