NOTES for Eze 37:12-14

We know that he is the Lord because we are alive. Because we are living. Our very life is the basis for believing that he is the Lord: the God in whom there is life; the God who gives us life; the God who refuses death so utterly that he died a terrible death on the Cross to destroy it; the God who is faithful to us human beings, who speaks and acts and gives life, bestows the life-giving Spirit, gives us land from which we can be nourished, and gives us beauty that we can behold as we glorify him, the Creator of heaven and earth, our Maker.

For Ezekiel, the very possibility of the future return of the people of God to the land of their fathers is connected with their spiritual renewal, with that breath of God which gives a person life. This is undoubtedly the same breath that God "breathed" into the human being's "nostrils" at creation, although in the account of the Book of Genesis it is designated by another word.

The fallen person no longer lives so much by this breath as, in the language of the Bible, by "blood." After the fall, his vital principle, his "soul," turns out to be connected not with the breath of God, as it was before the fall, but with his own nature.

One can, if not live a full life in this way, at least exist. This is true for an individual person and for an entire people. It will be precisely existence on what remains, not so much life as survival. Then there is no room for independence, for one's own statehood, or for resistance to enemies: all this requires such spiritual strength as cannot be found by relying on one's own nature instead of on God.

Paradoxically, exile in such a spiritual condition was the best outcome. After all, the issue was not the destruction of the people. Even those deported to Babylon were not going to be killed. The authorities did not even take any special care over assimilation: if it happened in part, it happened only as a natural process under such conditions.

It was precisely the naturalness and ease of such a life that placed every Jew who found himself in Babylon before a choice: to keep faith with the God of the fathers or to get rid of that faith as an unnecessary burden in the new circumstances, one that now gives no advantages and can create problems, though not catastrophic ones.

However, in order to preserve the faith of the fathers, it had to be renewed, and it is precisely this spiritual renewal that the prophet speaks about. He understands perfectly well that the possibility of returning to the land of the fathers, and therefore in effect the chance for another, second history, can be received only by acquiring the spiritual strength necessary for the new historical path ahead. Otherwise this second history not only will not be successful; it simply will not be able to begin.

Ezekiel, perfectly understanding the spiritual situation that had developed, not by accident speaks of the renewal of the people as their resurrection: the matter truly is a return to life already lost, in the same way, or almost the same way, that centuries later those raised by Jesus would return to it. And just as the subsequent life of those raised can be considered a miracle, even though for now still in an untransformed body, so too the whole post-exilic history of the Jewish people can be considered a miracle. A miracle whose culmination will be the coming of the Messiah.

How is madethis prediction (and almost every prediction in the Old Testament)? Ezekielpronounces it in a historical defined situation (the Babylonian captivity), andit concerns first of all in particular this situation (the return of Israel onhis land). Let us notice that the prophet uses an unfold metaphor, where thecaptivity assimilates to the stay in the grave, and the liberation - resurrection(among others, it is almost the first performance of the idea of theresurrection of the death in the Bible).

It gives us the right to approach thisprediction further as a metaphor. Then we can see here and the second meaning:we, dead by our sins, the Lord vivifies us with His Spirit and gives us a new lifeonto this our earth. But indeed, there is a third meaning, maybe not the most metaphoric.God promises that he will resuscitate us after our physical death, will fill uswith Spirit, carrier of eternal life, and will settle on such a land, whichwill really be ours, just then we will really know our God, we shall enter notinto puddled relationship with him.

Ezekiel's vision of the spiritual renewal of the people of God certainly instilled hope in the hearts of those for whom it was intended, the deported inhabitants of Jerusalem. It is not surprising that later it was reinterpreted in the context of New Testament revelation, becoming a symbol of the universal resurrection. Nor is it surprising that a few more centuries later, around this and similar texts, a whole theology grew up connected with the teaching about the Holy Spirit. But it is still important to keep in mind that all such theological concepts belong to a completely different era and, to a certain degree, to a different tradition.

The prophet, however, speaks about the breath of God, which returns life to dead bones, making them not simply a people, but the people of God. And here before us is the prophetic, or more broadly, the common biblical idea of what life is, whether the life of an individual person or of an entire people, which also appeared before God as a certain spiritual whole. As is evident, life here turns out to be a process not natural, not biological, but spiritual in the full sense of the word, at least when the matter concerns a human being. This is not surprising: already at creation God "breathes" into man's "nostrils," exactly so in the Hebrew text, the breath of life, which gives man life. And in Ezekiel's vision He does the same thing with an entire people.

As is evident, the measure of life, or more precisely of "aliveness," both of individual people and of entire nations, is determined by the measure of the fullness of God's breath. And this measure can vary from that which is proper to the Kingdom, and here the parallel with the universal resurrection is quite appropriate, for resurrection into life presupposes entry into the Kingdom, down to the minimum characteristic of Sheol, where only a pale shadow of life remains. And only on a person's relationships with God does it depend how full and intense his life will prove to be.

The same concerns the people of God as a whole: as is evident, by the beginning of the exile, spiritually they represented a heap of bones, which showed itself accordingly in their historical fate. And when the spiritual life of the people again acquired fullness, their return to the land of the fathers also became possible. But another return preceded this return: the return to the fullness of communion with God, which took place already when the people were living in Babylon. Without it, the return to Judea would have proved meaningless and, most likely, simply impossible.

Ezekiel's vision of the spiritual renewal of the people of God, of course, inspired hope in the hearts of those for whom it was intended, the deported inhabitants of Jerusalem. It is no surprise that later it was reinterpreted in the context of New Testament revelation, becoming a symbol of the universal resurrection. It is just as unsurprising that, several centuries later, a whole theology connected with the teaching about the Holy Spirit grew up around this and similar texts.

But it is still important to keep in mind that all such theological concepts belong to a completely different era and, to a certain degree, to a different tradition. The prophet speaks of the breath of God, which returns life to dead bones, making them not simply a people, but the people of God. And here before us is a prophetic or, more broadly, biblical idea of what life is, whether the life of an individual person or of an entire people, which also stood before God as a certain spiritual whole. As we can see, life here turns out to be a process that is not natural, not biological, but spiritual in the full sense of the word, at least when it concerns a human being. And this is no surprise: already at creation God "breathes" into the human being's "nostrils" (in the Hebrew text, exactly so) the breath of life, which gives the human being life. And in Ezekiel's vision He does the same thing with an entire people.

As we can see, the measure of life or, more precisely, of "aliveness" both of individual people and of whole nations is determined by the measure of the fullness of the breath of God. And that measure can vary from what belongs to the Kingdom (and here the parallel with the universal resurrection is quite appropriate, since resurrection to life presupposes entrance into the Kingdom) down to the minimum characteristic of Sheol, where only a pale shadow of life remains. And only a person's relationship with God determines how full and intense that person's life will be.

The same applies to the people of God as a whole: as we can see, by the beginning of the exile, spiritually it was a heap of bones, and this had the corresponding effect on its historical destiny. And when the spiritual life of the people regained fullness, their return to the land of their fathers became possible. But that return was preceded by another: the return to the fullness of communion with God, which happened even while the people were living in Babylon. Without it, the return to Judea would have been meaningless and, in all reality, simply impossible.