The valley of bones. Ezekiel 37:1-3 (NASB) The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 He had me pass among them all around, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and behold, they were very dry. 3 Then He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “Lord God, You Yourself know.”
Ezekiel’s remarkable prophetic experience is not specifically called a vision, but that seems to be the sense of the phrase, “brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord.” We regard what follows as something Ezekiel saw as a vision, not with his physical sense of sight. Ezekiel saw a large expanse, a valley. This was truly Death Valley; the floor of the valley was so dense with human bones that it was described as “full of bones.” Ezekiel saw them all around.
The people represented by these bones were not only dead; they were also disgraced. In the thinking of ancient Israel (and the ancient Near East), an unburied corpse with exposed remains was a shocking disgrace to the dead. These bones were obviously denied proper burial.
Apart from their presence in a living body, bones are dead. Dry bones are not only dead; they have been long dead. Bones are what remain when life has passed. If something never had life, it would not leave bones. Yet when something has been dead so long, we give up hope it will ever live again.
The Lord asks a question in verse 3, “Son of man, can these bones live?” One might hope that a recently dead corpse might somehow resuscitate. No one hopes that scattered, detached bones might live. Admirably, Ezekiel responded to God’s question with the only hope that could be found, saying “Lord God, You Yourself know.” Ezekiel had no hope in the bones, but he did have hope in God. Ezekiel did not presume to know what God wanted to do with the bones. However, Ezekiel was confident that God did know. This week we dive into one of the most fascinating and encouraging chapters of Ezekiel as we look at the vision of dry bones and what it means.
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