Ezekiel 37:1–14

THE HAND OF THE LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ”

7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” 10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

11Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’ ”

Original Meaning

FROM AN ORACLE depicting flourishing garden-cities filled with vibrantly alive people (36:33–38), the prophet is transported into the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death in chapter 37. This is not the first time that the Spirit has led him out into “a valley” (37:1); this location also provided the backdrop for the prophet’s vision of God’s glory in 3:22. However, this time the sight that greets him is a scene of total desolation: The valley is full of bones, bones that are many in number and very dry in nature (37:2). But even “Death Valley” must be swallowed up in victory as Ezekiel sees the Lord fulfill in visionary form the promise of 36:27 to put his vivifying Spirit within his people.

The statement that “the hand of the LORD was upon me” (v. 1) links this vision together with the prophet’s other visions (1:3; 3:14; 8:1; 40:1), inviting us to view this scene in their light. In the light of 3:22–23, it becomes clear that the valley was not just a random geographical location but a valley in exile. Yet, viewing the vision in the light of chapters 40–48 suggests the significance of the fact that it is a valley: The valley in exile forms the ultimate contrast to the “very high mountain” within the land of Israel (40:2).1 It is the place of death, from which Israel must be delivered before they can be brought into the land of life. This contrast is underlined by the verbs of motion by which the prophet is transported: He is “brought out” (Hiphil of yāṣāʾ ) to the valley of death in 37:1 but “brought in” (Hiphil of bôʾ ) to the land of life in 40:2.2

First the prophet is confronted with a scene of total death. He is “led . . . back and forth” over the piles of bones (37:2); there must be no question of his having missed some flicker of life among the bones through having made merely a superficial inspection. Ezekiel’s examination is thorough, his conclusions irrefutable: The situation is inimical to life. The valley is filled not merely with slain corpses, but with skeletal remains, and dry skeletal remains at that.

The Lord’s question to the prophet, “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ezek. 37:3a), seems redundant. Certainly, by the power of God corpses have been resuscitated before this in Israel, but only shortly after death, before decomposition occurred (1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:18–37; 13:21).3 It seems as if the prophet’s earlier question, “Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?” (Ezek. 11:13), has now been answered in the affirmative. God’s people have been utterly destroyed for their sin. The covenant curses have been executed and the corpses of the slain left unburied. No life remains in the bones. End of story.

Recognizing the sovereign power of God, however, the prophet is unwilling to give a negative answer. Rather, he turns the question back to God: “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know” (37:3b). In view of the overwhelming outpouring of God’s wrath, he cannot answer, “Of course, Lord.” Since the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the just judgment on her sins, there can be no “of course.” God certainly has the power to bring the dry bones back to life; the question remains as to whether it is his will to do so. That question is swiftly answered in the affirmative: God wills that the dry bones shall indeed live.

The second question to be answered is then, “How shall these bones live?” The means by which that regeneration is brought about is through an infusion of the Spirit (rûaḥ) in response to the prophetic word. Thus, Ezekiel is told to prophesy to the bones and require them to listen to the word of the Lord; in response, the Lord will make breath (rûaḥ) enter them and bring them back to life, not as ghostly skeletons but as living flesh (37:5–6). Then the bones will know God’s lordship.

The prophet obediently speaks the word and sees the power of God instantly unleashed. While he is prophesying, the bones come together and are clothed in flesh and skin—but still without life; there was no breath (rûaḥ) in them. It seems as if God’s word has failed, as if the bones are after all too dry even for God. But almost before the thought has been framed, it is answered by a second command to prophesy. This time he is to prophesy to the wind (rûaḥ), which is invoked to come from afar, bringing life-giving breath to the people. Like the creation of the first ʾādām in Genesis 2, which was a two-stage process involving first his formation and then his filling with the breath of life, so the re-creation of this mighty army is a two-stage process of forming and filling. This underlines the difficulty of the re-creation process and the central role of the Spirit in bringing new life to the restored people.4

But if the Spirit gives the power through which regeneration takes place, Ezekiel himself is the channel through whom that power is brought to bear. He himself personally experienced a similar infusion of the Spirit at the outset of his ministry. Twice, confronted with the awesome majesty of God, he was reduced to prostration (Ezek. 1:28; 3:23); each time the Spirit entered (bôʾ ) him, raising him to his feet (2:2; 3:24). This is exactly what happens to the dry bones after they have been re-formed into bodies: The Spirit enters (bôʾ ) them, raising them to their feet (37:10). What had first happened in his own life now happens to the renewed Israel through the means of the powerful prophetic word.

Another parallel with the earlier visions helps to make the power of the word even clearer. In Ezekiel 11, the prophet was shown a scene and commanded to prophesy to those involved. On that occasion, it was a word of judgment against the twenty-five men at the east gate of the temple (11:4). In both cases, while Ezekiel “was prophesying” (11:13; 37:7), the words had immediate effect, demonstrated in the death of Pelatiah (11:13) and the coming together of the bones (37:7). Just as the death of Pelatiah served as a graphic demonstration of the certainty of the coming judgment on Jerusalem, so also here the re-creation and restoration of the bones serves as a guarantee of what it symbolizes, the ultimate restoration of Israel as a nation.5

The oracle that follows the vision (37:11–14) merely serves to make explicit what the vision has already recounted. The dry bones are the whole house of Israel, who have come to recognize the seriousness of their situation. They are helpless and hopeless, cut off from God’s life-giving presence (37:11). Without in the least contradicting this self-perception that their present situation is hopeless—indeed, reinforcing the accurateness of the idea—the Lord still affirms that there is nonetheless hope for the future.

There is a sure and certain future based not on what Israel can do but on God’s determination to save his people. Twice, the Lord addresses them as “my people” (37:12–13). Though they are indeed dead, God can and will tear open their graves (shifting the metaphor slightly) and bring them up from the dead, giving them life through his Spirit and resettling them in their land (37:14). The promises of a new spirit and a return to the land made in Ezekiel 36:27–36 will indeed be fulfilled. Then they will know that the Lord not only speaks but acts, thus disproving the proverb of the skeptic, quoted in 12:22: “The days go by and every vision comes to nothing.” Ezekiel’s visions will come about, and the people will be restored to their land and revitalized, through the internal work of God’s Spirit.

Bridging Contexts

FAMILIARITY LEADS TO misinterpretation. Of all of the prophecies of Ezekiel, this section is perhaps the most familiar to the average reader. This is not necessarily an advantage, however, because it means that common misconceptions may first have to be cleared away before the constructive work can be done.

At first sight, for example, Ezekiel 37 seems to be a proof text for the resurrection of the body, as many of the early church fathers (and early rabbinic interpreters) understood it to be.6 However, what the prophet is depicting is certainly not an expected universal resurrection. Otherwise, his answer to the question “Can these bones live?” would have been, “Most certainly,” or, in similar vein to Martha’s response to Jesus, “I know [they] will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24). The question posed by God to the prophet is not a universal philosophical one, “Will bones in general be resurrected?” In the context, it is the intensely particular question, “Will these bones live?”

The fact that this passage has been so widely misunderstood by interpreters from such a wide range of backgrounds raises a further point about the nature of visions. Visions, like parables, tend to be open-ended, full of imagery that is capable of diverse interpretations. The precision of logically constructed syllogisms is traded for the affective power of symbols. Some visions are deliberately open-ended, especially those dealing with the future. To avoid such misunderstanding, therefore, it is especially important to read visions within their context. If the vision itself is removed from the context of the biblical book in which it stands, as if it were a timeless statement of universal truths, misunderstanding is likely.

In a similar way, a single still photograph taken from a film might be open to many different interpretations, although, seen within the flow of the movie, its meaning may be univocal. In the case of Ezekiel 37, the context is twofold. The narrower context is the interpretation of the vision given by the Lord himself in 37:11–14. The broader context is the place of the vision within the book itself, as part of the message of restoration to a people who have experienced a full outpouring of the wrath of God.

Exactly what the Old Testament writers understood about life after death in general is still a much-debated topic.7 Certainly, there was no widespread expectation of bodily resurrection of the kind that appears in the New Testament. The shadowy underground land of Sheol was feared as a place of continued existence, though it can hardly be called life, from which the righteous hoped to be delivered by the Lord (Ps. 49:14–15). The righteous are never actually said to go there, however; though they may fear it as a possibility, it is ultimately the destination of those without God. But in general the Old Testament is vague about the future of the righteous.

In principle, the Old Testament is not opposed to the idea of a resurrection. Indeed, Jesus himself argued for the idea of resurrection from the fundamental Old Testament credo that the God who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not of the dead (Matt. 22:32). But the focus of the Old Testament is more centrally on the Lord’s power over death, whether by rescuing the saints from its clutches (Ps. 18:4–19) or by the miraculous resuscitation of the dead (1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:31–37; 13:20–21). The resurrection (or, more precisely, resuscitation) of the bones in Ezekiel 37 has much more in common with the latter incidents from the ministry of Elijah and Elisha than it does with later ideas of a general resurrection of the dead on the last day.8

Neither is there a simple line of connection between this passage and the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit in the last days, predicted in Joel 2:28–29 and fulfilled on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. That outpouring of the Spirit resulted in an extension of the gift of prophecy to all, as Moses had longed to see in Numbers 11:29. The infusion of the Spirit in Ezekiel results instead in renewed life and new power for right living, which is itself a promised prerequisite for life in the land (Ezek. 36:27–28).

Re-creating Israel. In summary, then, this passage is about the divine work of re-creating Israel through the prophetic word and Spirit. Though God’s people have been justly judged and handed over into the realm of death for their sins, so that, humanly speaking, there is now no hope for them, yet God can bring life out of death. Because of his wrath, their death is real; because of his grace and his sovereign will to have a people of his own, however, their future prospect of life may be equally real. It is this that the prophet is called to proclaim to them. What he has first experienced himself he now announces to others: life in the Spirit through the power of God. The new creation that was begun in him will assuredly be brought to fulfillment by God.

What precisely does re-creating Israel mean, however? Does it directly anticipate the formation of the present political state of Israel, as some have supposed? To argue in this way is to miss the spiritual significance of the prophecy. For what is in view here, as the connections back to Ezek. 36:24–38 make clear, is something more than political autonomy for the descendants of Abraham. It is nothing short of the fulfillment of all Old Testament anticipations of eschatological fullness, all of which are fulfilled in Christ. It is in him that the new Spirit-filled Israel of God takes shape, an identity that is no longer governed by ethnic origins and circumcision, as the old Israel was, but rather by faith in the cross of Christ (Gal. 6:12–16).

Contemporary Significance

IS “LIFE AFTER death” possible? What happens when you die? This topic has ignited a great deal of interest in recent years, especially through the publication of several books recounting “near-death” experiences, in which a person felt as if he or she had died briefly and then returned to tell the tale.

What Israel faced, however, was not a “near-death” experience, but a “total-death” experience. It was not simply that their heart had stopped beating for a few moments and their brain waves had ceased; they had died and decomposed; their flesh had disintegrated, leaving only bones behind; and then those bones themselves had been left out in the sun to bleach. They were as dead as it was possible to be—and that while physically still alive, for they themselves said, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off” (Ezek. 37:11). They knew themselves to be dead while they lived, for they were cut off from the life-giving presence of the living God and therefore without hope.

That is a spiritual condition that by nature we all share. Paul reminds the Ephesians, and along with them all of us, “You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Eph. 2:1–2). By nature, we are all cut off from God’s life-giving presence. Subjectively, we may or may not be aware of that fact. We may feel that we are on top of the world and that life couldn’t possibly be better, or we may despair of making any sense of the world in which we live. Objectively, however, we are equally dead, no matter how we feel.

Can such dead people live? Is it possible, not merely theoretically but actually, for people like us to be resuscitated and brought back to life toward God? That question cannot simply be answered, “Of course!” as if it were a trivial matter. Because of our sin we are under God’s wrath, so the question is not merely “Can God in general raise dead people to life?” but rather “Will he raise rebels like us to life?” Thanks be to God, the answer for us is positive, as it was for Israel. Thus Paul tells the Colossians, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ” (Col. 2:13). In Christ, there is life for the spiritually dead.

How, though, is this new life received? It is received through union with Christ. In the preceding verse (Col. 2:12), Paul talks about how as Christians we have been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. In other words, it is as we share an experience that Christ first experienced for us that we are brought from death to life. For Ezekiel, what happened to the bones had first happened to him. So it is with us: What God does for the Christian, he has first of all done for Jesus.

Jesus took on himself our death. The death that he died on the cross was no mere accident, nor even a means of demonstrating graphically the extent of his love for humanity. There on the cross, he took on himself the sins of his people and was cut off for them. The Lord of life was laid in the tomb; the body of the one who created the universe was laid alongside the bones of those whom he had made. Why? It is because God’s wrath against sin demanded that a just penalty be paid. God could not simply wave a magic wand and make sin disappear. Sin had to be paid for. In order to accomplish that, Jesus was, as it were, laid among the dry bones of the valley for my sake. So now my baptism is a burial with him in that death, an identification with his death in my place.

But just as the dry bones in Ezekiel did not remain dead, so also Christ did not remain in the tomb! He burst forth with resurrection power, raised from the dead by God! Just as surely, if we have been truly buried with him in baptism, receiving the reality as well as the sign, we also are made alive in Christ. Our sins are forgiven; the hold of the law over us is broken, nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). We are not dry bones any longer, but living, breathing, Spirit-infused children of God (Rom. 8:16). What Ezekiel saw in visionary form has now become a reality!

The consequences of life after death. What are the consequences of this fact? (1) There is no reason for Christians to despair. Once again, subjectively we may or may not be aware of that fact. We may feel inside every bit as despairing as Ezekiel’s hearers of making sense of our circumstances. Yet that inner confusion does not shake the objective fact to which Scripture points us: If we have died with Christ, we will certainly live with him (Rom. 6:8). To be sure, we do not yet see the full implications of this identification with our resurrected Lord. We still wait for the redemption of our bodies from this sin-tarnished world, where things fall apart and people become sick and die. We cry out in pain because of the tragedies we experience. Yet in the midst of our pain we are called to wait with confident hope (Rom. 8:23–24).

The objective fact of Christ’s resurrection is the source of our confidence. Indeed, the importance of the physical resurrection of Christ is not simply that it proves the survival of the soul in general, or that life goes on in some sense beyond the grave. Otherwise, the resurrection of Christ would have no more significance than other resurrections recorded in Scripture, such as that of Lazarus. On the contrary, the New Testament teaching is that the resurrection of Christ is something entirely new, something of pivotal importance for our faith as Christians (1 Cor. 15:12). C. S. Lewis puts it like this:

The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the “first fruits,” the “pioneer of life.” He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.9

Because Christ has been raised physically and gloriously to life, so also we will be raised physically and gloriously to life; the firstfruits provide the assurance of the full harvest (1 Cor. 15:20–23). Christian hope is therefore focused concretely on Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). Our sure and certain hope is that God’s energy is at work in us to present us perfect in Christ (Col. 1:28). Even now we are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ who is at work in us, changing us into what we ought to be (Rom. 8:11).

(2) Since we are indwelt by the Spirit, we should walk according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4, 12). Ezekiel was filled with the Spirit in Ezekiel 2–3 to equip him for his task; likewise, when the resuscitated bones came together, they became an army, not a debating club or a beach party. They were raised for a purpose. In a similar way, we as Christians have been regenerated and Spirit-filled in order that we too may serve, equipped by the gifts of the Spirit and dressed in the armor of God so that we may do his bidding in the world. We were re-created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10). In the appropriately martial imagery of Charles Wesley’s hymn, our commission is as follows:

Soldiers of Christ, arise and put your armor on,

Strong in the strength which God supplies, through his eternal Son.

Strong in the Lord of Hosts, and in his mighty power,

Who in the strength of Jesus trusts is more than conqueror.

Stand, then, in his great might, with all his strength endued;

And take to arm you for the fight, the panoply of God.

That, having all things done and all your conflicts past,

Ye may o’ercome through Christ alone and stand complete at last.

Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul;

Take every virtue, every grace and fortify the whole.

From strength to strength go on; wrestle and fight and pray;

Tread all the powers of darkness down and win the well-fought day.