Dry Bones Receive Breath as an Exiled People Receives Hope

Can these bones live?

The hand of the LORD is upon Ezekiel, and carries him out in the spirit of the LORD, and sets him down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. He causes him to pass by them round about: behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. The question is put to a priest-prophet standing in a mass of unburied dryness, not to a costume shop and not to a pundit with a map.

Bone to bone, then breath from the four winds

Ezekiel prophesies, and there is a noise, a shaking, and the bones come together, bone to his bone. He looks, and lo, the sinews and the flesh come up upon them, and the skin covers them, but there is no breath in them. He is told to prophesy unto the wind: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. Breath enters; they live, and stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

Then the interpretation, without which the vision must not be used: these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. The LORD will open their graves, bring them up out of their graves, bring them into the land of Israel, put his spirit in them, and they shall live. They shall know that he has spoken and performed it.

The vision first addresses collective exilic Israel whose hope has perished. It is restoration hope, not a Halloween text, not a license to disturb graves, not a promise of immediate cure, and not proof that every modern political event is resurrection. Later Christian resurrection reception may hear an echo; it must not erase this interpretation or annex the bones to a state as exhaustive fulfillment.