Ezekiel - episode 6

Can these bones live?

Ezekiel, no more mute, announces Israel’s restoration by the Lord’s intervention. Will the people believe to those challenging promises, after the recent Jerusalem capture? Here is a vision that confirms the new hopes: «The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass by them all around: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and behold, they were very dry. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”» (Ezek 37,1-3). The prophet leaves the answer to the Lord’s omnipotence (with expectation, we can imagine). «I answered, “Lord GOD, you know.” Again he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and tell them, ‘You dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.’“ So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, an earthquake; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I saw, and, behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’“ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army» (Ezek 37,3-10). The vision describes a sort of two-steps resurrection, recalling the man creation in Genesis 2,7 where the Lord first kneads a ground simulacrum and then He breathes life into it. Therefore, Ezekiel is presenting the Lord’s intervention as a new creation.



Here is the vision’s meaning: «Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. You shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it,’ says the LORD.”» (Ezek 37,11-14). The Lord comforts the people from the state of intense prostration in which they are; that mood is well represented by the «dry bones» symbol: «A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones» (Prov 17,22). The Lord can even save from a desperate situation («we are completely cut off»), that seems as irreversible as death: «I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel».
The last great vision reported in the Book of Ezekiel describes with detail the extraordinary Temple of the future Jerusalem, in which there will return again the Lord’s Glory that left it (see Ezekiel - episode 2). From the Temple will issue a river of “holy” water, capable to fecundate even the Dead Sea (notoriously hostile to life due to its high salinity). «In the five and twentieth year of our captivity [573 BC], in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was struck, in the same day, the hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me there. In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, whereon was as it were the frame of a city on the south. He brought me there; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. The man said to me, “Son of man, see with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart on all that I shall show you; for, to the intent that I may show them to you, you are brought here: declare all that you see to the house of Israel.” [...] Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looks toward the east. Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory. It was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city [see Ezekiel - episode 2]; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar [see Ezekiel - episode 1]; and I fell on my face. The glory of the LORD came into the house [the Temple] by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. [...] He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward […]. Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me round by the way outside to the outer gate, by the way of the gate that looks toward the east; and behold, there ran out waters on the right side. [...] He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the bank of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then he said to me, “These waters issue forth toward the eastern region, and shall go down into the Arabah; and they shall go toward the sea; into the sea shall the waters go which were made to issue forth; and the waters shall be healed. It shall happen, that every living creature which swarms, in every place where the rivers come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters have come there, and the waters of the sea shall be healed, and everything shall live wherever the river comes. [...] By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, shall grow every tree for food, whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall its fruit fail: it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.”» (Ezek 40,1-4; 43,1-4; 47,1-2.6-9.12). The Evangelist John will recall the symbol of the «living water» to mean the Holy Spirit, which flows without end from Jesus and His disciples’ heart: they are the new Temple of God (see John 4,10-15; 7,37-39; 19,34).
The Book of Ezekiel ends with the name of the new Jerusalem, symbol of the new Covenant between the Lord and the people: «and the name of the city from that day shall be, ‘The LORD is there.’» (Ezek 48,35). In the next post we will begin to read Daniel.