"He's Bringing It All Together" series
Most Israelites may have doubted God’s promise of restoration.
Their present condition militated against the possibility of that being fulfilled.
After the fall of Jerusalem the people would have been scattered and dispirited.
a period of resigned despair
Like unburied skeletons, the people were pining away and saw no end to their judgment: Our hope is gone; we are cut off. The surviving Israelites felt their national hopes had been dashed. Israel had “died” in the flames of Babylon’s attack, and had no hope of resurrection.
The bones represent the Israelites in exile. They have been there for more than ten years now, and what glimmerings of hope they had when first they arrived have now been altogether extinguished.
So God stressed the fact of His sovereign power and ability to carry out these remarkable promises. Their fulfillment depended on Him, not on circumstances.
God asks Ezekiel about what Ezekiel believes is possible.
The hand of Yahweh has come upon the prophet and has snatched him from the normal sphere of everyday life.
God asked the prophet a remarkable question: Son of man, can these bones live? Was there potential for life in these lifeless frames?
and asks him a monstrous, one is almost tempted to say ludicrous, question: “will (and that means ‘can’ here) these bones come to life again?”
the bones no longer appear as bearers of the life force, but, rather, it is their lifelessness that is strongly emphasized
God’s question about the reanimation of the bones highlights its improbability
The prophet avoids encroaching on God’s freedom in his deferentially evasive reply
Ezekiel knew that humanly speaking it was impossible, so his answer was somewhat guarded. O Sovereign LORD, You alone know. Only God can accomplish such a feat.
The prophet’s answer was restrained and filled with his awareness of human helplessness in the face of death (cf. 24:15–27, the death of his wife) but also respect for the mystery of God’s power.
This has two sides to it: the admission of the powerlessness of man, who, faced with such an irrefutable victory on death’s part, is incapable of saying anything about he possibility of life for these dead bones; at the same time, however, the knowledge that he is replying to the God whose abilities are not curtailed by man’s lack of abilities.
Thus with the prophet’s reply everything is transferred back from man’s impotence to God’s powerful decision.
Thus when God told him to preach to the dead, dry bones, he obeyed despite its apparent absurdity (cf. John 11:43).
God then directed Ezekiel to prophesy to these bones. The content of his message was God’s promised restoration: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
This decision is described in what follows, where the prophet is suddenly transformed from being the spokesman of human impotence into the spokesman of divine omnipotence. He receives the commission to proclaim over the dry bones the prophetic word, which, with the summons to attention, calls the dead to pay attention, and, as authorized messenger, delivers the divine message in which the “God of the spirits of life for all flesh” himself proclaims that he will bring his spirit of life and will make the dead bones come to life.
Ezekiel’s obedience produced immediate results.
Bringing the Pieces Together
full of bones. Not skeletons, but a sea of disjoined bones each separated from its mates—an extreme of deterioration.
the bones no longer appear as bearers of the life force, but, rather, it is their lifelessness that is strongly emphasized
Now, however, when the prophet prophesied, the bones clicked into place and became living beings: Israel came alive.
Ezekiel’s obedience produced immediate results. Even before he had finished (cf. Acts 10:44), he heard the “noise” of the fulfillment of God’s promise (Ezek 37:7). The bones came together
In the vision this happened in two stages.
In the first, Ezekiel is told to prophesy to these bones and to command them to hear the word of the Lord. This results in only a partial restoration: scattered skeletons are transformed into individual corpses, but they are still just as dead.
At the second stage, Ezekiel has to prophesy to the wind (the word is ṛûah, ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’) and appeal to it to come and breathe upon these slain, that they may live (9). This time the corpses come alive and stand on their feet, and the miracle is complete.
As Ezekiel was giving this prophecy, he saw a remarkable thing. The bones came together (Ezek. 37:7),
He does so, and while he is prophesying, the bones come together with a rattle.
He made me pass all around them. To impress on me their vast quantity and extreme dryness, indicating that a long time had passed since life had left them.
Restored
Revived
The bones came together and were clothed with flesh but they still were not alive (v. 8). So God again commanded the prophet to preach to the rûaḥ (“breath,” “wind,” or “spirit”) to fill these corpses (v. 9).
When he does so, breath enters them and they become alive—an immense army (9–10).
What He is out to prove (vv13-14)
Then you will know that I am the Lord (12–13), I will put my Spirit in you and settle you in your land. Then you will know that I am the Lord, I have said it and will do it’ (14)
The reviving of the dry bones signified Israel’s national restoration.
a simple message: that the dead nation of Israel would one day be revived and return to their own land.
The power of God can change even the most hopeless of lives and situations.
The vision showed that Israel’s new life depended on God’s power, not outward circumstances