NOTES for Eze 37:26

The great prophets of Israel, beginning with Jeremiah, spoke much about the renewal of relationship with God and about a new messianic union-covenant that would become reality with the coming of the Messiah and would be concluded with His direct participation. This union is often called a "covenant of peace."

Of course, in this case the concept of peace includes the end of all wars, including those that for so many centuries gave the people of God no rest. But in the prophetic tradition, peace is inseparable from that presence of God which, properly speaking, makes the Jewish people the people of God in the strict sense of the word. And the measure of the fullness of this presence, in turn, distinguishes the messianic age from the history that preceded it.

In fact, already to Isaiah of Jerusalem the messianic Kingdom was revealed as a special, new era in the history not only of the people of God, but of all humanity. And the newness lay not so much in the fact that the Messiah was revealed to the prophets as the ideal of a righteous ruler (the early prophets already thought and dreamed of a righteous ruler who strictly followed the Torah and took measures so that it would be unfailingly observed in his state), but precisely in this fullness of divine presence, which makes both the era of the Messiah's reign and even His very person something completely special. The Messiah becomes that instrument of God through which He makes His people a community of the faithful in the full sense of the word, and thereby gives the other nations an example of righteousness and holiness in all their fullness.

Of course, such a renewal of the people-community also required a renewal of the covenant with God, without which there could be no question of a new spiritual quality of the people. And the expectations of the prophets did not prove vain: with the coming of Christ, God's relationship with His people was indeed completely renewed. Only this renewal turned out not quite as the pre-exilic prophets imagined it. They still expected a Kingdom that was perfect, but earthly. The Kingdom, however, turned out to be "not of this world." But the prophets were not mistaken that the new covenant would become the covenant of the Kingdom.

How comforting it is to hear the words of the prophet Ezekiel, especially when you realize that your heart is full of evil thoughts and your life of evil deeds. Through the prophet, the Lord says that the people will have one King, and therefore one will uniting a multitude of people. Finding a place in every heart, this will shall renew it, heal it, and cleanse it of sin. That heart will no longer defile itself with idols, abominations, and every kind of vice. The Lord also says that He will gather His people from everywhere, while in the Gospel of John we read that the sacrifice is offered not only for God's people, that is, for the Jews, but also for all of us, the scattered children of God. Jesus dies on the cross and rises again in order to gather into one all who live on earth and to widen the bounds of the "people of God." Moreover, the Lord promises to be our God forever; all that remains for us is to desire to become His sons, to cross the threshold into the "people of God," and to remain there forever.

All the messianic prophecies of the exile speak of the coming return of the people to the land of their fathers. Ezekiel is no exception: he also prophesies about a swift return, that God will gather His people on the land He gave them, fulfilling what He promised Abraham. But this return was never a return to the past. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, knew: the people of God have no road into the past; they have one road - forward, into the future.

Without God, however, the people's future would have become the same past, only at a new stage. The territory would become larger, the people more numerous, the country richer, and in general there would be more of everything than before the exile, including honor and respect from neighbors. God, however, had His own, somewhat different plan. He knew that after the exile, having passed through every trial and preserved the faith, His people would become more numerous and stronger than before. But God does not return His people to the land of their fathers for that reason. He wants His people to acquire a new spiritual quality. It is inseparable from the Messiah and the messianic Kingdom, but in God's plans the role of the people was never purely instrumental.

The point was not that, after playing its role in the messianic perspective, the Jewish people would leave the historical stage. In a certain sense, that did indeed happen, if one has in mind the catastrophe of A.D. 70, but it happened not because God had planned it that way, but because the people proved not fully adequate in what concerned the Messiah and His ministry. Even from this point of view it is hardly possible to speak of punishment: missed opportunities, including (when a people is in question) historical opportunities, always later turn into failure, and sometimes catastrophe.

So it happened with the Jewish people. And it happened precisely because for many in gospel times the messianic Kingdom appeared not as the prophets, including Ezekiel, saw it, but as those who reduced spiritual life to religious life wanted to see it. They needed a triumphant conqueror of the Gentiles who would restore a strong Jewish state and make it even stronger than it had been under David and Solomon, in the golden age of ancient Israel.

Jesus of Nazareth did not fit that role. He died and rose again, and instead of Him others were found who seemed more suitable. He did not dare challenge the Romans; they dared. Thus Judea perished and Jerusalem was destroyed. The Messiah came, the Kingdom appeared, and the people passed by. They followed a mirage, a path that turned out not to be the way of life, but the way of death.

The vision of dead bones returning to life becomes a symbol of the spiritual rebirth and renewal that await the Jewish people after the captivity. At the center of this process are the Messiah, allegorically called David here, and the new—or more precisely, renewed—covenant with God, which Ezekiel calls a “covenant of peace.” This does not speak only of universal reconciliation and the absence of wars and hostility, although these too are implied. In this case the absence of hostility is only a consequence. The biblical concept of peace is much broader. It concerns above all the inner state of a person who abides in constant communion with God—constant rather than occasional, as is characteristic of most of us today.

Such inner peace is actually attained simply by consistently observing the fourth commandment, the commandment of the Sabbath. This commandment is not only about refraining from everyday business for at least one day a week, but also about forgetting it altogether, if only for one day. It means stopping the ceaseless whirl within us and coming to a stop ourselves, because otherwise we cannot hear God. Otherwise we cannot sense God's breath, the breath of life given by the Creator to each of us at creation. Yet it is essential to sense it, because without this, communion with God is impossible. That communion takes place in the heart, in the very spiritual “I” that is the center of the human person. But we can hear the voice of our own “I,” hear ourselves, only when the noise coming from outside grows quiet in the soul. This is why the rest of the Sabbath is needed—a rest expressed by the same Hebrew word that also means “peace.” It is on this very peace, or rest, that the new covenant binding God to His people and to everyone belonging to that people is founded.

The inner peace that for us is most often only episodic must become our usual state. Then the new covenant, a new quality of relationship with God and a new level of communion with Him, will also become real for us. Without this no spiritual renewal is possible, for it presupposes not only grace poured out in full measure, but also a person's capacity to receive that grace, likewise in full measure. Then the covenant with God will become truly new: a covenant of peace and a covenant of the Kingdom.

The words about the dry bones coming to life are traditionally interpreted as a prophecy of the future Resurrection of the dead and victory over death. This is why the passage is read at Matins on Holy Saturday, on the eve of Christ's Resurrection. But is this interpretation strained? Did the compilers of Orthodox worship arbitrarily apply to another event words that, as the text suggests, are an allegory of the restoration of a people crushed by conquerors?

It seems there is no strain, because the historical path of the chosen people is in many respects a prefiguration of the spiritual path of all humanity. The opposite formulation is therefore more accurate: the prophecy likens the restoration of the people to the Resurrection, and so it is entirely natural that this very path is revealed through images of the Resurrection. In turn, the paths of ancient Israel help us understand the meaning of the historical paths of other peoples.

The prophecy of the joining of the two sticks, which reveals the coming reunification of the divided people, must not only point to that event but also give us hope. The world is full of hostility and divisions: with a strange rapture we cling to differences and assert ourselves through them, treating these quarrels and divisions as the norm. Yet sooner or later the Lord will gather us all into one.