THE VALLEY WHICH WAS FULL OF BONES

Following Ezekiel’s hearing that Jerusalem had finally fallen, Ezek. 33. 21, the whole tone of his ministry changed. Previously he had denounced the people for their sin and apostasy, foretell­ing gloom and doom for the nation. Now, in chapters 34 to 37, his messages announce hope and revival.

Chapter 37 divides into two equal sections. In both sections, Ezekiel foretells the regathering and restoration of the nation to its own land, together with the recognition by men that all this would be the Lord’s doing. The first section is concerned in particular with the resurrection and revitalizing of the nation, a point illustrated by the vision of the dry bones, vv. 1-14. The second section is concerned in particular with the re-unification of the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah) into ‘one nation’, a point illustrated by Ezekiel’s sym­bolic act of joining together two sticks on which were written the names of the two kingdoms, vv. 15-28.

The prophet is first given a vision of a valley filled with bones. As a priest, he was not permitted to come into contact with any dead bodies outside those of his immediate family, Lev. 21. 1-4. But the Lord instructed him to pass around these bones. Ezekiel was struck by (i) their number (‘very many’), (ii) their situation (‘in the open valley’, lying on the ground, unburied and scattered), and (iii) their condition (‘very dry’, the bones of slain men picked clean by scavengers and bleached by the sun). No picture of death could be more complete. And such was Israel, now dispersed and with no natural hope of ever recovering their national life. But God, who ‘quickens the dead’, Rom. 4. 17, instructed the prophet to follow a two-stage proce­dure, corresponding to His own work when He originally created man, Gen. 2. 7. First, by the utterance of the word of the Lord God to the scattered bones, Ezekiel caused them to reform into whole skeletons and then into full human corpses, and, second, by the utterance of the word of the Lord God to the wind (‘spirit’), imparted breath and new life to the corpses. Here was the assurance both to prophet and to people that God had the will and the power to wholly restore the nation one day.