Ezekiel 37 Commentary (a running post)

So?

Lets look at the details of this vision.

The bones? 

They are in horrible shape. Ezekiel was made to take an exacting view of them. By prophetic impulse and a divine power he was carried out and set in the midst of a valley probably the one spoken of in Ezekiel 3:22 "The hand of the LORD was on me there, and he said to me, “Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.”. This is where God talks to him. This valley was full of bones. Dead peoples bones, not piled up in a heap, not contained in some Khmer Rouge type storage facility, but scatted all over the ground, just like the Jewish nation itself was in exile. It was like some bloody battle had been waged there, the slain left unburied, which was one of the greatest insults to people of this region at the time and still is today in many places. The flesh was all devoured or putrefied, nothing left but the bones, and these were disjointed and dispersed. Does it get any worse than this? basically. The prophet passes by them all around him, Ezekiel 37:2 "He 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." So not only were there many bones, because there are multitudes gone to the dead, (both actually deceased and those alive and not believing and therefore dead in the spirit) but they were also very dry having been long exposed to the sun and wind. Bones that have marrow, when they have been exposed a while, loose their moisture and are as dry as dust. The bones, representing the Jewish people, had been in captivity a long time, as likewise, people have been in sin, a long time. Job 21:24: "well nourished in body, bones rich with marrow." This? This is the opposite of that. Among other things, our bones protect our body from harm, Job 10:11: "clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews". These bones then are defenseless. The Jewish people were as these dead and dry bones. Hopeless, defenseless, scattered, away from home, no hope, etc, it simply can not get any worse. They were unlikely to ever come together to make a single skeleton, let alone a complete body, or a living one, or more than one, let alone all of them, put back together, assembled and completing the journey home right :-)? They lay unburied in an open valley. This? This gives hope as to their resurrection, much like that of the Two Witnesses. Revelation 11:8-9 "Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial." Guess what? The bones of Gog and Magog? They get buried. Ezekiel 39:12 " ‘For seven months the Israelites will be burying them in order to cleanse the land.", and Ezekiel 39:15 "As they go through the land, anyone who sees a human bone will leave a marker beside it until the gravediggers bury it in the Valley of Hamon Gog". Know why? Because their destruction is final. But the bones of Israel? They are in an open Valley, under the eye of Heaven, because their hope is in the end. How ironic is it then, that what was thought to be a horrible curse (left unburied) becomes a blessing? How many times do thing happen to us and at the time we despise it, then later when are far enough removed from the event come to see it as a blessing? Others have pointed out and rightly so, Christianity is a religion of opposites, by giving everything away we gain more than we could ever have, by dying we live forever, loosing this world gains you eternity etc. These bones? They fall right in line with those caveats.

Their deplorable state.

The second point to consider here is the case of these bones is just so absolutely deplorable they can not be helped by any power less than God almighty himself. Ever been there? Know anybody that's ever been there? It's a pretty common occurrence. Ezekiel 37:3 " He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Does it even seem likely? Can you think of a plan to make it so? Can your philosophy reach these bones and put them back to life? And this seems really appropriate given our current times, can your politics restore a captive nation? What does the prophet tell him? "No" he says, "I know not how it should be done, but you do." This Prophet is pretty wise right? He doesn't say, "No, they can not live" and then seem to limit Gods power, he said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” God almighty alone knows if they can and if they will and that if God himself doesn't put life back into them? Then certainly they will not live. God is pretty familiar with his own power and his purposes or reasons, and he wants us to look at them all to see and to own the fact that his wondrous works are such that they could not be effected by any counsel or power but his own. Don't think so? Look at the sky on a starry night. Go buy a telescope.

How would you have answered that question if God asked you? That is what I often think about when reading that passage. Would you have said no? Would you have said yes? Or would you have been like the prophet and deferred to God Almighty alone knowing the outcome?