NOTES for Eze 37:1-2

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.

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.

Today's reading returns us once again to the destiny of God's people and their spiritual renewal. In the prophet's vision, Israel is likened to dead, dried bones that God miraculously restores to life (vv. 1–11). This vision speaks not merely of spiritual renewal, but of the people's spiritual resurrection after all they have endured. The difference is substantial: for fallen humanity, renewal in itself does not yet mean a complete transformation of human nature, and therefore complete deliverance from sin. Resurrection, however, began quite early to be associated in the minds of believing Jews with a new quality not only of life, but of human nature itself. Images of a new creation, of a transformed nature living by laws inconceivable in an untransformed world, were linked to resurrection on the day of Judgment. In time, the day of Judgment also came to be associated with the coming of the Messiah promised by God, so that the day of Judgment and universal resurrection became the day of the messianic Kingdom's advent as well. It is no accident that Ezekiel speaks not merely of the people's return to the land of their fathers (vv. 12–14), but also of a new King, clearly associated with the Messiah, whom the prophet again calls ‘David’ (vv. 22, 24). Ezekiel also connects this King's reign with God's making a new covenant with His people, called a ‘covenant of peace’ (vv. 25–26). This might seem to mingle a strictly historical perspective with a messianic one. On the one hand, the subject is the end of the Babylonian Exile and the Jews' return to the land of their fathers; on the other, it concerns a far more distant time, when the Saviour came into the world. Yet this union of two different eras within a single prophecy should hardly be seen merely as a distortion of prophetic perception. Rather, it involves a different sequence of events, spiritual rather than strictly chronological. Both the end of the Exile and the coming of the Messiah-Christ would have been impossible without the spiritual renewal of which the prophet spoke. It was precisely in exile that God's people became the community He had wanted to make of them from the beginning, from the day He called Abraham. Of course, that community had many problems, which the coming of the Messiah-Christ brought into especially sharp relief. But there was no longer any place in it for the paganism that had permeated the people's entire life before the Exile, just as the prophet had foretold (v. 23). Without that first step, without a decisive break with everything pagan, all the other steps towards the Messiah would have been impossible. Of course, a long journey still lay ahead. But that first decisive step was taken then, during the Exile, and taken not by isolated individuals or separate communities, as before, but by the whole people: the first step on the road leading to the Kingdom.

For the prophet Ezekiel, God’s great promise that salvation will bring spiritual renewal to humanity, that God’s Spirit will be given to people, means above all a new, different life. His entire book had been devoted to how destructive Israel’s sin was. He said that the cruelty and idolatry from which God’s people could not turn away were the direct cause of their scattering and Jerusalem’s destruction. Now, however, renewed by the Spirit, people find well-being. The contrast between occupation and devastation on the one hand and well-being on the other expresses the incomparable difference between the old life and the new. But does the prophet himself understand his words literally? And, even more importantly, who will enjoy this well-being that God grants in the renewed life? Is it just that some sinned, others were carried off into captivity to form the basis of purification and renewal, and still others will live in the blessed land? Ezekiel’s neighbours and friends spoke of themselves and their people as a heap of dry bones abandoned in the wilderness, of no use to anyone but jackals. What is the promise of deliverance to them, when their lives have been shattered and they suffer under Babylonian oppression?

The answer to all these questions is the prophecy Ezekiel places in chapter 37. Here he recounts a vision God gave him. God commands Ezekiel to address precisely those people who have perished in suffering, destroyed by their own sin, with the words: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” At God’s command, the dry bones are clothed in flesh and become human bodies again. The prophet speaks a word from the Lord, and God’s Spirit enters these bodies and they come to life. What the prophet saw, we call the resurrection of the dead; belief in it and hope for it are an integral part of our faith. But then, in the prophet’s time, there was not even a term for it, so incredible was this promise of God.

Though the house of Israel has despaired and lost hope, God is faithful: he will raise them, and they will live. This, it turns out, is how far the meaning of the words “I do not desire death... but that he should turn and live” extends! God promises to triumph over humanity’s most terrible and implacable enemy, over death itself. The well-being Ezekiel spoke of in the previous chapter now proves to be without any limit, because even death has been defeated. Not some distant descendants, but we ourselves—all of us—will receive this new life, and the covenant of peace will bring us out of our graves.

In the first part of his book, the prophet spoke at length about people’s personal responsibility, and the prophecy of the resurrection of the dead adds substantially to his words. Since each person is responsible for himself, each also receives his own recompense. If the curse does not fall upon descendants, then the blessing too must be received by those who are faithful to God. It no longer matters that many of them have been overcome by death, for God overcomes death itself.

The prophet then speaks of another most important consequence of deliverance: the uniting of divided people. The two parts of God’s people, which have gone separate ways in history and become almost hostile to one another, will be gathered together; for the prophet, this symbolizes the reunion of all people.

At the end of the chapter, the prophet seems to repeat the most important things said earlier about the coming deliverance. He speaks of the Kingdom of God’s servant David (meaning, of course, the Messiah, David’s descendant), of his shepherding of all people, and of the everlasting covenant of peace. But this is no mere repetition. The establishment of the New Covenant, the covenant of peace, also includes those raised by God, those who could not otherwise take part in it. In this, Ezekiel’s prophecy differs radically from all others, for in it salvation is granted not only to those destined to live in the days of the Messiah’s coming, but to all who have lived and live for God. This gives meaning to the life, faith and hope of the suffering children of Israel scattered among the nations. The Lord himself will say of this: “The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (Jn 5:28–29).

Finally, as the crowning point of all God’s saving action, as the culmination of the promise, the Lord says of this new life in resurrection: “My sanctuary will be among them for ever.” This promise of the Creator’s everlasting presence among people, of the new Temple and its establishment—that is, in essence, of the Church of the New Covenant—will be the main theme of the concluding part of the Book of Ezekiel.