Ezekielchapter 37
28 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 10.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Set down in the midst of a valley full of very dry bones and asked, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' the prophet answers, 'O Lord Jehovah, thou knowest.' He prophesies, and there is a noise and a shaking, bone joining to bone, sinews and flesh and skin. But no breath, until he prophesies to the four winds and they stand up an exceeding great army. The interpretation is national resurrection: 'I will open your graves… and bring you into the land of Israel.' Then two sticks, Judah and Joseph, become one in his hand: one nation, one king, with David as their prince, a covenant of peace, and 'my tabernacle also shall be with them': the line Revelation 21 takes up.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 37 falls in Restoration promised (chapters 33–37). The watchman's charge renewed; false shepherds denounced (34); the new heart and new spirit (36:26–27); the valley of dry bones (37); one stick, one shepherd.
The valley of dry bones. ‘Can these bones live?’ The breath from the four winds; the two sticks; the Davidic prince.
Before it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 25–32. After it: Gog and Magog, chapters 38–39.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 37The history
The valley is a battlefield left unattended. Armies did not bury enemy dead, and Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions boast of leaving corpses to rot and filling plains with bones. In Israelite thinking an unburied body was the worst dishonour there was, and it also defiled the land. Very dry bones means it happened long ago and nobody ever came back for them.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
One Hebrew word carries the whole vision: ruach, which means breath, wind and spirit all at once. It appears throughout the chapter, so when Ezekiel prophesies to the breath and the wind comes from the four winds and the slain live, the same word is doing every job. English needs three words where the vision has one.
The order of the miracle matters. First a rattling and the bones come together, then sinews and flesh and skin, a valley of complete bodies, and still no life in them. The structure can be entirely restored and the thing still be dead. Only the second prophesying, to the breath, makes them stand up as an exceedingly great army.
The second sign uses two wooden staffs. Tribal staffs were emblems of a clan, the Hebrew word for tribe and for staff is the same, and Aaron's rod stood for the house of Levi among twelve rods representing twelve tribes. Ezekiel writes Judah on one and Joseph, that is Ephraim and the northern tribes, on the other, and joins them into one in his hand. The northern kingdom had been gone for over a century and was assumed lost for good.
The promises attached are national and concrete: one nation on the mountains of Israel, one king over them all, no longer two kingdoms, my servant David as their prince forever, an everlasting covenant of peace, and God's sanctuary in their midst forevermore. Read in the house frame, that is a real regathered nation under a real Davidic king in the coming kingdom; others read the whole vision as a picture of spiritual renewal or of the church, and the two readings are named rather than blended.
What it meant to them
The exiles' own words open the interpretation: our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off completely. God quotes their despair back to them and then answers it with the bluntest promise in the book, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people, and bring you into the land of Israel.
For people who had watched a nation die, this said the death was not the end of the story, and that whatever came next would not be a human recovery. Bones do not reassemble themselves. Someone has to speak.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
A. Can these bones live? Breath from the four winds
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.full of bones: The hand of the Lord sets the prophet down in a valley full of bones and walks him through them, very many, and very dry: an unburied army long past any human help, which the commentators read against the battlefield dead of the fall. The question is put to the prophet before any promise, son of man, can these bones live?, and his answer is the exact posture the book has been teaching, O Lord God, thou knowest, neither presuming nor despairing. Keil notes that the vision's force depends on the honest hopelessness first: nothing here is sick or dying; everything is dead.
Ezekiel 37:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 37:1
“The valley - The same word as “the plain” Eze 3:22; Eze 8:4. The “dry bones” represented the Israelites dispersed abroad, destitute of life national and spiritual.”
Ezekiel 37:1
THIS vision has been used, from the time of Jerome onwards, as a description of the resurrection and certainly it may be so accommodated with much effect. What a vision of the great day the words picture before the mind's eye! The great army of the quick, who once were dead, seem to start up as we read. Here, too, we have a very fit and appropriate question to be asked in a tomb—"Son of man, can these bones live?"
Ezekiel 37:3, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:3
“It is remarkable how he spoke to dry bones, which before nerves, flesh, and skin, and the life-giving spirit of God, could hear his word. And first, the bones are bound together with the ligaments of the nerves, then they are filled with flesh, and the skin is stretched over them for beauty, which covers the ugliness of the exposed flesh; and then they receive breath, which makes them alive, and after they have lived, then they know that He is the Lord.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
2. (vv. 4-8)
a.Prophesy upon these bones: The means of the miracle is the point of it: prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, preaching commanded to an audience that cannot hear. As the prophet obeys there is a noise and a shaking, bone to his bone, sinews and flesh and skin, and then the verse's deliberate halt: but there was no breath in them. The bench draws the two-stage shape as the text draws it, structure without life first, which guards the vision from meaning mere reorganization, as Fairbairn puts it: a nation can be reassembled and still be a corpse.
Ezekiel 37:4, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:4
“In minute detail the holy prophet Ezekiel teaches and describes how strength will be restored to our dry bones, feeling return and motion added; how, with the return of sinews, the whole structure of the human body will grow strong, and how the driest bones will be clothed with restored flesh and the openings of the veins and the streams of the blood will be concealed by a veil of skin drawn tautly over them.”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On the Death of Satyrus 2.69patristic
Ezekiel 37:4
“Prophesy--Proclaim God's quickening word to them. On account of this innate power of the divine word to effect its end, prophets are said to do that which they prophesy as about to be done (Jer 1:10).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:5, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:5
“Therefore, the prophet prophesies to the spirit, and says: Thus says the Lord God: Come, O spirit, from the four winds; come, that is, from the four corners of the world, so that just as in the first creation of man God breathed into his face and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7), so in the second creation, that is, the resurrection of the dead, being breathed upon by the spirit, they may be brought to life again; for when the spirit entered the human bodies, immediately they lived, and stood upon their feet.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 37:5
Behold, I will cause breath - רוח ruach signifies both soul, breath, and wind; and sometimes the Spirit of God. Soul is its proper meaning in this vision, where it refers to the bones: “I will cause the Soul to enter into you.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:6, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:6
“Secondly, That which was immediately done for them was that they were moulded anew into shape. We may well suppose it was with great liveliness and vigour that the prophet prophesied, especially when he found what he said begin to take effect. Note, The opening, sealing, and applying of the promises, are the ordinary means of our participation of a new and divine nature.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:7, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:7
“For the prophets have proclaimed two advents of His: the one, that which is already past, when He came as a dishonoured and suffering Man; but the second, when, according to prophecy, He shall come from heaven with glory, accompanied by His angelic host, when also He shall raise the bodies of all men who have lived, and shall clothe those of the worthy with immortality, and shall send those of the wicked, endued with eternal sensibility, into everlasting fire with the wicked devils. And that these things also have been foretold as yet to be, we will prove.”
Justin Martyr· written before 165· The First Apology, Chapter LIIpatristic
Ezekiel 37:7
“But we call in vain, still they are dead, still they are very dry; we must therefore be earnest with God in prayer for the working of the Spirit with the word: Come, O breath! and breathe upon them. God's grace can save souls without our preaching, but our preaching cannot save them without God's grace, and that grace must be sought by prayer.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:8, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:8
“So far, they were only cohering in order as unsightly skeletons. The next step, that of covering them successively with sinews, skin, and flesh, gives them beauty; but still "no breath" of life in them. This may imply that Israel hereafter, as at the restoration from Babylon was the case in part, shall return to Judea unconverted at first (Zec 13:8, 9).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 9-10)
a.Prophesy unto the wind: The second word is to the breath itself: come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. The Hebrew ruach runs through the whole vision as wind, breath and Spirit in one word, the philology every careful commentator carries, and Genesis 2:7 stands behind the shape, dust formed first and breath breathed after. The breath comes, they live, and they stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army: the valley of the slain ends as a muster.
Ezekiel 37:9, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:9
“The wind - Rather, as in the margin and as in Eze 37:5. The bones are the bones of the “slain,” because the scene was one which was likely to occur in the time of the Chaldaean invasion, and the fact of violent death reminded the prophet of the miserable condition of the people.”
Ezekiel 37:9
ACCORDING to some commentators, this vision in the valley of dry bones may refer to three forms of resurrection. Holy Scripture is so marvelously full of meaning that one interpretation seldom exhausts its message to us. The chapter before us is an excellent example of this fact and supplies an illustration of several Scriptural Truths of God. Some think they see, here, a parable of the resurrection of the dead. Assuredly, Ezekiel's vision pictures what will happen in the day when "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2246: “Come From the Four Winds, O Breath!” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
B. Our hope is lost: I will open your graves
1. (vv. 11-14)
a.these bones are the whole house of Israel: The vision interprets itself, and the exposition keeps the text's own referent at full strength: these bones are the whole house of Israel, the exiles who say our bones are dried, and our hope is lost. The promise answers with graves opened, a return to the land of Israel named twice, and my spirit put in you, the same order as the vision, regathering and then life. The church's readings are carried as the readings they are, with holders named: the fathers and many since heard the general resurrection here, and Jerome records the passage read at funerals; the site's ruling stands with the text, the promise is to named Israel, and the larger hearings stand beside it rather than in its place.
Ezekiel 37:11, 3 voices
Ezekiel 37:11
“Our bones are dried-- (Ps 141:7), explained by "our hope is lost" (Isa 49:14); our national state is as hopeless of resuscitation, as marrowless bones are of reanimation. cut off for our parts--that is, so far as we are concerned.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:11
“The application of this vision to the present calamitous condition of the Jews in captivity: These bones are the whole house of Israel, both the ten tribes and the two. See in this what they are and what they shall be. The depth of despair to which they are now reduced,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:11
“That they were so divided among themselves, too much of the old enmity between Judah and Ephraim remaining even in their captivity. But, as to this, by a sign of two sticks made one in the hand of the prophet is foreshown the happy coalition that should be, at their return, between the two nations of Israel and Judah,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:12, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:12
“I will open your graves - Here is a pointed allusion to the general resurrection; a doctrine properly credited and understood by the Jews, and to which our Lord refers, Joh 5:25, Joh 5:28, Joh 5:29: “The hour is coming when they that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and come forth.” And cause you to come up out of your graves - I am determined that ye shall be restored; so that were ye even in your graves, as mankind at the general resurrection, yet my all-powerful voice shall call you forth.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:12
“The hope that is utterly gone, if looking at themselves, is sure for them in God, because He regards them as His people. Their covenant relation to God ensures His not letting death permanently reign over them. Christ makes the same principle the ground on which the literal resurrection rests.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:14, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:14
“We notice here how the operations of the Spirit of life are again resumed; we know in what way the dead are raised from the opening tombs. And is it in truth a matter of wonder that the sepulchers of the dead are opened at the bidding of the Lord, when the whole earth from its utmost limits is shaken by one thunderclap, the sea overflows its bounds and again checks the course of its waves?”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On the Death of Satyrus 2.76patristic
Ezekiel 37:14
“And shall put my Spirit - רוחי ruchi. Here רוח ruach is taken for the Holy Ghost. They were living souls, animal and intellectual beings, when they had received their souls, as mentioned above: but they could only become spiritual, holy, and obedient creatures by the Spirit of God actuating their spirits. See the notes on Eze 36:25-27 (note). Three degrees or processes have been remarked in this mystic vision. When the prophet was commanded to prophesy - to foretell, on the authority of God, that there should be a restoration to their own land: -”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
C. Two sticks joined into one in his hand
1. (vv. 15-20)
a.came again unto me: The second sign of the chapter is done in wood: one stick written for Judah, another for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, joined one to another into one stick, and they shall become one in thine hand. The schism that began when ten tribes followed Jeroboam is healed in the prophet's fist before it is promised in the oracle, the sign preceding the sermon as Ezekiel's signs do. The people's question, wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?, is built into the sign itself, and the bench notes the method: an enacted riddle that makes the audience ask for the interpretation they would not sit still to hear.
Ezekiel 37:15, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:15
“In this there was a type of the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, Jews and Samaritans, in Christ and his church. And so the prophet slides into a prediction of the kingdom of Christ, which should be set up in the world with God's tabernacle in it, and of the glories and graces of that kingdom,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:16, 3 voices
Ezekiel 37:16
“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick,.... Or "wood" (a); a stick of wood; or table, as the Targum; a board or plank.”
Ezekiel 37:16
“Son of man, take thee one stick - The two sticks mentioned in this symbolical transaction represented, as the text declares the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which were formed in the days of Rehoboam, and continued distinct till the time of the captivity. The kingdom of Judah was composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with the Levites; all the rest went off in the schism with Jeroboam, and formed the kingdom of Israel. Though some out of those tribes did rejoin themselves to Judah, yet no whole tribe ever returned to that kingdom.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:16
“The union of the two rods was a prophecy in action of the brotherly union which is to reunite the ten tribes and Judah. As their severance under Jeroboam was fraught with the greatest evil to the covenant-people, so the first result of both being joined by the spirit of life to God is that they become joined to one another under the one covenant King, Messiah-David.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:17, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:17
“And join them one to another into one stick,.... Clap the sticks, planks, boards, or tables, to one another; glue them together, or set them so close to one another, that they may seem as one stick, plank, board, or table: and they shall become one in thine hand; they shall look as if they were one. R. Joseph Kimchi, the father of David, thinks they really became one, by means of a miracle wrought; but there is no need to suppose this; it is enough that they appeared to be so.”
Ezekiel 37:18, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:18
“God does not explain the symbolical prophecy until the Jews have been stimulated by the type to consult the prophet.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:19, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:19
“The stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim - Jeroboam, the first king of the ten tribes, was an Ephraimite. Joseph represents the ten tribes in general; they were in the hand of Ephraim, that is, under the government of Jeroboam.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 21-23)
Ezekiel 37:21-24
a.gather them on every side: The interpretation gathers the scattered from every side into one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, with one king over them all and the division into two kingdoms ended any more at all, cleansing joined to regathering, so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. Then the king is named: David my servant shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd, the promise of 34:23 returned word for word. The readings on David are named with their holders, the Messiah of David's line, so the Targum and the older writers together with the church reading John 10's shepherd here; a literal David raised, so a few; and the exposition states the positions and stops.
Ezekiel 37:21, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:21
“All believers unite in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. And the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel church, their becoming one fold under Christ the one great Shepherd, is doubtless the union that is chiefly looked at in this prophecy. By Christ and partition-wall between them was taken down, and the enmity slain, and of them twain was made one new man, Eph. ii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:22, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:22
“I will make them one nation - There was no distinction after the return from Babylon. And one king shall be king to them all - Politically speaking they never had a king from that day to this; and the grand junction and government spoken of here must refer to another time - to that in which they shall be brought into the Christian Church with the fullness of the Gentiles; when Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, shall rule over all.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:23, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:23
“I will save - I will bring them safe out of them. And will cleanse - Both justify and sanctify them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:23
“Note, When one sin is sincerely parted with all sin is abandoned too, for he that hates sin, as sin, will hate all sin. And those that are cured of their spiritual idolatry, their inordinate affection to the world and the flesh, that no longer make a god of their money or their belly, have a happy blow given to the root of all their transgressions.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D. One king, one sanctuary, forever in their midst
1. (v. 24)
Ezekiel 37:24, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:24
“David - The son of David. One shepherd - This king shall be their one chief shepherd, others that feed and rule the flock, are so by commission from him.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:24
“He shall be their shepherd, to guide them and provide for them. Christ is this David, Israel's King of old; and those whom he subdues to himself, and makes willing in the day of his power, he makes to walk in his judgments and to keep his statutes. It is here promised that they shall dwell comfortably,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 25-28)
a.they shall dwell in the land: The chapter ends in permanence stacked clause on clause: the land given to Jacob dwelt in by children and children's children for ever, my servant David their prince for ever, a covenant of peace that is an everlasting covenant, and the sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them carries the vocabulary John's Gospel and the Revelation take up, the word dwelt among us and the tabernacle of God is with men, which the bench names as the trajectory it is. The last verse widens the audience, the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel: the recognition formula's fifty-first landing makes the nations learn God from what he does with this people, which is the book's argument in one sentence.
Ezekiel 37:25, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:25
“The land that I have given unto Jacob my servant - Jacob means here the twelve tribes; and the land given to them was the whole land of Palestine; consequently, the promise states that, when they return, they are to possess the whole of the Promised Land.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:25
“For ever - 'Till Christ's coming to judgment, the Jews converted to Christ, shall inherit Canaan.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:26, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:26
“My sanctuary - I will set up a spiritual glorious temple, and worship among you. For evermore - Never to be altered or abolished on earth, but to be consummated in heaven.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:26
“The charter by which they hold all their privileges is indefeasible. God's covenant with them shall be an everlasting covenant; so the covenant of grace is, for it secures to us an everlasting happiness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 37:27, 2 voices
Ezekiel 37:27
“My tabernacle . . . with them--as foretold (Ge 9:27); Joh 1:14, "The Word . . . dwelt among us" (literally, "tabernacled"); first, in humiliation; hereafter, in manifested glory (Re 21:3).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 37:27
“My tabernacle - The tabernacle wherein I will shew my presence among them. Their fathers had a tabernacle, but the Messiah shall bring with him a better, a spiritual, and an heavenly. They shall be my people - By my grace I will make them holy, as the people of a holy God; and I will make them happy, as the people of the ever blessed God.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 37:28, 1 voice
Ezekiel 37:28
“28 And the heathen shall know that I the L ORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore. Here are more exceedingly great and precious promises made of the happy state of the Jews after their return to their own land; but they have a further reference to the kingdom of the Messiah and the glories of gospel-times.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 37. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 12 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Ambrose of Milan; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Charles Spurgeon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Justin Martyr, The First Apology, Chapter LII; Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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