NOTES for Eze 37:1-28

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.

Ezekiel lived in an age of catastrophes. So do we. Human beings generally live in times of catastrophes that they inflict on one another. In a vision, the prophet sees a field of dry bones. Only a field—in those days, destruction was not carried out on the scale it is today.

The Lord asks the prophet the same question that confronts us today: “Can these bones live?” What will become of you? What will become of these people? How will you go on living? “Lord God, You alone know.”

The prophet sees that even dry bones can become human beings again when God's creative word intervenes in history. The Fathers of the Church saw in this prophecy a prefiguration of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. At the end of history, despite all its horror and darkness, God can restore everything that we have disfigured, ruined, and destroyed. If we believe this, then, in fulfilling our Christian prophetic calling, we must address this world filled with human bones: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!”...

Ezekiel's vision of a field strewn with dead bones, which God brings to life by breathing the breath of life into them, is usually associated with faith in the universal resurrection at the end of time, on the assumption that this is what God is showing His prophet. Yet it is apparently not about this after all. Of course, faith in the universal resurrection and in the Day of Judgement must already have existed among the Jews at the time of the Babylonian exile, when Ezekiel was allowed to see what he saw. But God does not disclose to the prophet an image of the Last Judgement, but something else: the destiny of God's people. He shows Ezekiel the spiritual path that the people would have to travel. Dead bones: that was the spiritual state of the Jewish people when they found themselves in Babylon. And this is understandable, for if it had been otherwise, the historical destiny of the people would also have been different. In any event, the national catastrophe of the exile could then probably have been avoided.

But judging by what God allowed His prophet to see, no spiritual life was left among the people at all. Everything had to begin again, starting with the small community in Babylon and its spiritual renewal. Then, after that renewal, it would grow, in essence, into a new people, into that very post-exilic Jewry whose history continues to this day, the same people who would have to meet the Messiah promised by God.

Such a renewal could not, of course, be achieved by human efforts alone. God's direct intervention was needed; a miracle was needed. And the spiritual renewal of the people that took place in Babylon truly became a miracle, just as all subsequent Jewish history was a miracle, a history which, humanly speaking, simply could not have existed. The Babylonian kingdom absorbed and assimilated many small peoples, including the Jews' neighbours: the Ammonites, Moabites, Philistines and Phoenicians. All the more was the small community of Jews deported from Jerusalem doomed to assimilation in a metropolis such as Babylon was at that time.

Yet it was not only preserved, but was renewed spiritually and gave rise to a new Jewry. It was this miracle that God allowed Ezekiel to see, at a time when all of it still lay ahead. But what he saw inspired hope, the hope that what seemed to be the end of the people's historical journey was only the beginning of a new stage, leading the people directly towards the Messiah and to the threshold of the Kingdom.

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.

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.

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.

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.