Ezekiel 37:1-6 meaning

Ezekiel 37:1-6 opens the vision of the valley of dry bones, in which the LORD transports the prophet to a wide plain covered in human remains and commands him to prophesy life over them, announcing that He will rebuild the bodies and put breath into them so they may live.

The vision begins with God transporting Ezekiel:

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 (v. 1)

The phrase the hand of the LORD was upon me recurs at Ezekiel 1:3, 3:14, 3:22, 8:1, 33:22, and 40:1—it is the prophet's marker for when the LORD's controlling presence takes hold of him. The Spirit is the agent of the transport, and the destination is a valley the LORD has selected. The Hebrew word for valley here ("biq'ah") denotes a broad open plain between hills, a wide and exposed expanse.

The same word appears in Ezekiel 3:22, where the LORD met the prophet on a "plain" at the beginning of his ministry. What the prophet is about to see covers the whole floor of an open field. In this case, the valley is filled with bones. We will soon learn that these bones are of human remains. God guides Ezekiel through this mass grave:

He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. (v. 2)

The LORD walks Ezekiel through the field, around and among the bones, so that the encounter is firsthand. Two conditions are recorded. First: very many bones are spread across the plain in numbers beyond counting. Second: the bones are very dry. The Hebrew word "yabesh" denotes total dryness, the condition of bones that have been exposed to the elements long enough for all moisture, all soft tissue, and all marrow to have gone. The LORD is walking the prophet through the most thoroughly dead version of human remains available; the description leaves no doubt that these remains are very old and very dead. God inquires what Ezekiel makes of this sight:

He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know." (v. 3)

The LORD asks a question He already knows the answer to, but the question is addressed to the prophet and the prophet must respond from his own position. The title son of man ("ben-adam") appears more than ninety times in Ezekiel and places the prophet each time in his creaturely standing before the LORD. The natural answer for this question from everything the survey has established points toward a proper response of "No, these bones cannot live." But the question comes from the One who made the bones to begin with. So Ezekiel’s answer is one of worship, acknowledging that the creator of all things can do as He wishes.

Ezekiel's answer is arguably one of the better answers in the Hebrew Scriptures: O Lord GOD, You know. His answer recognizes God's complete sovereignty over all things. We will soon find out that the bones represent the exiles from Judah. God will mention in Ezekiel 37:11 that they have lost hope, saying: "our hope has perished." Ezekiel realizes God can do all things, and God steps right into his faith and asks him to be the instrument of the impossible: God asks Ezekiel to instruct the dead bones to first hear God and then be raised to life:

Again He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.'" (v. 4)

The LORD's response to the prophet's deference is a command for Ezekiel to address the bones directly and call them to hear the word of the LORD. Bones have no ears. They have no capacity to hear and cannot receive a prophetic address in any ordinary sense. The command speaks an impossibility when viewed from a human perspective. But God is God. He is not bound by human limitation. In fact, He is not bound, period.

The capacity to hear comes from the LORD's word when it goes out. The audience has no capacity to hear, but will respond nonetheless. This is because the word of the LORD never returns empty (Isaiah 55:11). This pattern fits with the LORD commanding creation to come to order. His word is spoken into situations that appear to exclude any response, but the response occurs anyway. God commands Ezekiel to tell the bones that they will be brought to life once more:

"Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.'" (v. 5)

The standard prophetic formula thus says the Lord GOD introduces the LORD's announcement of His own intention. The Hebrew word translated breath here is "ruach," the same word that can be rendered "spirit" or "wind" depending on context. It will carry all three senses across this chapter. The language is creation-language: the LORD breathing life into what was made from dust appears first in Genesis 2:7, and the announcement here is expressed with the same vocabulary. God breathed life into the dust which formed Adam's body, and only then did Adam come to life. The LORD declares His intention to perform a new creative act on the valley:

"I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD." (v. 6)

The rebuilding sequence is spelled out: sinews first—the connective tissue and tendons—then flesh growing back on the sinews, then skin closing over the flesh, then breath entering. The order reverses natural decomposition. When a body decays, soft tissue goes first and bone remains last; the LORD's restoration begins where the decay ended and rebuilds inward toward life.

The verse closes with the formula that runs through Ezekiel more than sixty times: you will know that I am the LORD. The purpose of the act is the same purpose attached to every judgment oracle and every restoration oracle in the book—that they may know the LORD who acts in their history. LORD translates the Hebrew word "Yahweh" which derives from "I AM," as God said His name was "I AM WHO I AM" when asked by Moses for His name (Exodus 3:14). So the essence of LORD is that He is the very meaning and substance of existence. As Colossians 1:16-17 asserts, all things were made by Him, consist in Him, and are held together by Him.

When scripture refers to God as the LORD, the I AM, it often carries the context of God as Israel's senior partner in Israel's covenant/treaty with the LORD.

The phrase you will know that I am the LORD occurs over sixty times in Ezekiel. This phrase applies to seven categories of activities that demonstrate that the God of Israel is its covenant LORD:

• Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah (Israel knows through her own fall). The Babylonian invasion, siege, famine, sword, and exile are enforcement provisions of Israel's covenant/treaty with God and demonstrate that God keeps His word. He promised to enforce these "cursings" for breaking the covenant vow, and is now doing as He promised. Examples of this category include Ezekiel 6:7, 13, 7:4, 9, 27, 11:12, 12:15-16, 20.)
  
  Israel had treated the LORD as absent or controllable (He won't do this so long as we appease Him with sacrifices). So He demonstrated the reality of His character by executing the covenant curses, as He promised. They will know He is the LORD by experiencing that His word came true against them.

• Judgment on the surrounding nations (the nations know God is the LORD through their own fall) Chapters 25-32 turn the formula outward. Each oracle against a hostile neighbor ends with the same refrain—they will know He is the LORD when judgment falls on THEM:

• Ammon (Ezekiel 25:7), Moab (Ezekiel 25:11), Philistia (Ezekiel 25:17), Tyre (Ezekiel 26:6), Sidon (Ezekiel 28:22-23), and Egypt repeatedly (Ezekiel 29:6, 9, 16, 30:8, 19, 25-26, 32:15). Nations who mocked Israel's God or gloated over Jerusalem's fall will have their mocking return to their own head. As is typical in God’s divine golden rule, God will do to them as they did to or wished on others.

• Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah as a testimony to watching nations (the nations know God is the LORD through what He does to Israel). This is similar to the first category, but the primary audience God focuses on in coming to know He is the LORD is the nations.
  
  The nations learn Yahweh's holiness by watching how seriously He disciplines His own. (Ezekiel 5:13, 5:15-17). God's justice on His own people is itself a testimony to the watching world that God keeps His covenant promises and is not a God that shows partiality.

• Restoration and regathering of Israel (Israel knows God is the LORD through mercy and return). After judgment, the formula next attaches to acts of grace: the return from exile, regathering to the land, cleansing, and renewed covenant. Israel will know He is the LORD by being restored (Ezekiel 20:42, 44, 28:25-26, 34:27, 36:11, 39:28.) That God restores Israel and brings them home is also in keeping with His covenant promise (Deuteronomy 32:36).

• Spiritual restoration and a new heart for God’s own name. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, God says He will cleanse Israel of their sins and give them a new heart so they will walk in His statutes. In Ezekiel 36:22, the LORD asserts that He is doing this not for their sake, but for His own name, His own reputation. This is also a witness to the surrounding nations (Ezekiel 36:36).

• Judgment on Gog / final eschatological deliverance. Gog will come against a restored Israel and God will intervene to deliver it. This will prove to both Israel and the nations that God is the LORD (Ezekiel 38:18, 23, 39:6-7).

• A restored kingdom. Ezekiel 37:24-28 speaks of the messianic kingdom when "My Servant David" will sit on the throne, which will be Jesus. Israel will be restored to the land. There will be an everlasting covenant. And God's dwelling place will be with them. All this will cause the nations to know that God is the LORD.