Monthly Archives: December 2024

Ezekiel 39 The Disposal of Gog and the Glorification of the LORD

Ezekiel 39: 1-10 The Destruction of the Armies of Gog

¹ And you, mortal, prophesy against Gog, and say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal! ² I will turn you around and drive you forward, and bring you up from the remotest parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel. ³ I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. ⁴ You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples that are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every kind and to the wild animals to be devoured. ⁵ You shall fall in the open field; for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD. ⁶ I will send fire on Magog and on those who live securely in the coastlands; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

⁷ My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. ⁸ It has come! It has happened, says the Lord GOD. This is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹ Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them — bucklers and shields, bows and arrows, handpikes and spears — and they will make fires of them for seven years. ¹⁰ They will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any trees in the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons; they will despoil those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord GOD.

Gog of Magog, the great leader of the worldwide forces arrayed against Israel is portrayed both as a powerful avaricious leader and as a powerless disarmed creature utilized by God to demonstrate the superiority of the LORD. Similar to the image of the Pharoah of Egypt as a great river ‘dragon’ hooked and pulled out of his residence in the Nile River, now Gog is driven out of its home in the north to its place of slaughter in the mountains of Israel. This leader who could rouse the armies of north, south and east to attack and plunder helpless Israel now finds himself helpless and being pulled into a trap by the Holy One in Israel. This conqueror of nations now looses the bow and arrows in their hands and his armies are reduced to carrion for the birds of the air and the wild animals. The mighty opponent of Israel has been brought low by the Divine Warrior, the God of Israel who both draws the opponent to the mountains of Israel and destroys this enemy to the land and people. Not only is the army of Gog destroyed, but even the homeland is destroyed by fire. Even those who perceive themselves safe from the consequences of war discover that the reach of the LORD can impact them in their safe places in the north and along the coastline.

Those who have been walking through Ezekiel will not be surprised that the motivation of the LORD is the reputation of the holy name of God. The LORD’s name has suffered by the exile of the people, even though for Ezekiel the punishment was justified, and now the defeat of Gog becomes a means by which the divine reputation is restored and the nations come to know the LORD. Never again would the LORD tolerate the disrespect and desecration of the holy name. In verse seven the attribute of holiness is lifted up three times, twice in relation to the name of God and once in the title the Holy One in Israel. The title the Holy One in Israel is similar to Isaiah’s Holy One of Israel[1] but rather than using the relation of a genitive case Ezekiel uses the locative ‘in.’ Ezekiel’s title locates God in the midst of the land of Israel, and although there is a restored relationship in the previous chapters the locative linkage is probably stronger in Ezekiel’s conception.

In the name Jerusalem is the Hebrew word for peace shalom, yet this city of peace has rarely known a peaceful generation. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright can remind us about Israel,

Every forty-four years out of the last four thousand, on average, an army has marched through it, whether to conquer it, to rescue it from someone else, to use it as a neutral battleground on which to fight a different enemy, or to take advantage of it as the natural route for getting somewhere else to fight. (Wright, 1992, p. 3)

Even today Israel remains a contested space where many long for an elusive peace. It is not surprising that throughout the scriptures of Israel there are numerous images of the LORD bringing an end to war.[2] Now the weapons of war are utilized as the wood for the fires for cooking and heating for seven years. In contrast to many other images creating a bonfire where spear and shield are consumed, now the dropped shield, bows, arrows, javelins,[3] and spears provide a sabbath for the war-torn land allowing seven years for the trees to regrow and recover after war.[4] Those who came to conquer are conquered, those who hoped to pillage are now pillaged, and the people and land in this image have a much needed rest from war.

Ezekiel 39: 11-16 The Burial of Gog and The Purification of the Land

¹¹ On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers east of the sea; it shall block the path of the travelers, for there Gog and all his horde will be buried; it shall be called the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹² Seven months the house of Israel shall spend burying them, in order to cleanse the land. ¹³ All the people of the land shall bury them; and it will bring them honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord GOD. ¹⁴ They will set apart men to pass through the land regularly and bury any invaders who remain on the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; for seven months they shall make their search. ¹⁵ As the searchers pass through the land, anyone who sees a human bone shall set up a sign by it, until the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹⁶ (A city Hamonah is there also.) Thus they shall cleanse the land.

There has always been a connection between humanity and the earth in the Hebrew scriptures, and for the Jewish people the burial of a corpse was not merely a sanitation requirement, it was placed in the law as a requirement for a right relationship with the land. That is why Deuteronomy 21: 23 refuses to allow for a person executed to remain unburied overnight. The removal and burial of the bones of the forces of Gog is a required portion of the purification of the land. Bones have played an important part of this section of Ezekiel, in chapter thirty-seven Ezekiel found himself amidst the bones of Israel which were regenerated into a large host of a reborn people but now Ezekiel and the people must deal with the bones of the army of Gog which are the remnants of a large host littering and contaminating God’s land.

Like many aspects of chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine, the location of the burial of the forces of Gog has prompted various speculations about the ‘Valley of Travelers’ which becomes the ‘Valley of Hamon-gog.’ The ‘Valley of Travelers’ may be a variant spelling of the Valley of Abarim (Valley East of the Sea-in this instance the Dead Sea).[5] But this mass of graves may be intended as a blockage of transit through Israel by the nations. The title the ‘Valley of Hamon-Gog” (ge hamon gog) may be a play on the Valley of Hinnom (ge hinnom) which in both the books of Kings and Chronicles is a place where child sacrifice was practiced in Molech worship. Jeremiah references this valley:

And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come to my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. Jeremiah 7: 32-33.

Regardless of whether the Valley of Hamon-Gog and the Valley of Hinnom are the same, these places become graveyards that are filled with the dead until there is no more room.

The land previously received a seven-year sabbath from the need of the people to cut wood, now the people spend seven months gathering and burying the bodies of the armies of Gog. A group of people are set aside for the purpose of gathering, transporting, and burying these bodies. The entire people is to participate in the identification of remains that need burying, and it is only once this period of burial is completed that the land can be cleansed from the defilement of death.

Ezekiel 39: 17-20 The Feast of the Carrion Eaters

¹⁷ As for you, mortal, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every kind and to all the wild animals: Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth — of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ You shall eat fat until you are filled, and drink blood until you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. ²⁰ And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with warriors and all kinds of soldiers, says the Lord GOD.

Both the ordering and the presence of commemoration of the feast for the carrion eaters is strange. Ezekiel does not shy away from grotesque subjects but he does also have a pretty strong orientation towards priestly ideas of purity and the language of ‘the sacrificial feast’ or zebah meal points to the meals shared around the sacrifices done in the temple. Here the zebah meal is turned on its head, instead of sacrificial animals feeding both the priests and the community, now animals gather to feast on this sacrificed community of Gog. In addition, this section follows a time of gathering together the bones of the army of Gog for burial in the valley of Hamon-gog, and would probably make better sense before that section. Yet, ancient writers are not bound by the same expectations of linear progression that most modern authors utilize.

In spite of the strange placement and the inverting of the sacrificial imagery it does point to a normal process in the aftermath of a battle where bodies cannot be swiftly buried. The language also continues to bring down the mighty where kings become carrion and the mighty the meat for the scavengers including vultures, eagles, ravens and crows along with the wild animals, presumably jackals, hyenas, wolves, and lions. Mighty warriors and princes are now linked with the sacrificial animals: lambs, goats, bulls. The bulls of Bashan are frequently mentioned throughout scriptures and are a highly valued animal for sacrifice and food. In addition to the warriors who are left on the field are the horses and other animals utilized by the army.

War is a destructive process and death and the animals who feed on dead corpses have always evoked a range of emotions from discomfort to disgust. Yet, these birds and wild animals are fulfilling an essential function in helping to remove the bodies from the battlefield. For Ezekiel, who viewed the world through the priestly lens of clean and unclean, this focus on both corpses and corpse eaters (both unclean) was probably distasteful. Yet, for Ezekiel there is also a desire to demonstrate God’s unopposed power. Even still, the sacrificial feast being comprised of unclean bodies for unclean animals may have been a challenging vision for Ezekiel and continues to be uncomfortable for those reading these words.

Ezekiel 39: 21-29 The Glorification of God and the Renewal of Israel

²¹ I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. ²² The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward. ²³ And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt treacherously with me. So I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. ²⁴ I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

²⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid, ²⁷ when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind; ²⁹ and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD.

Throughout the book of Ezekiel there has been a focus on the reputation of the LORD. The holy name of the God of Israel has been defiled and desecrated throughout the book, but now before both Israel and the nations the honor has been restored to God’s name and the LORD will jealously defend this honor. The nations who have assumed that Israel’s captivity and exile demonstrated the weakness of the LORD now understand that Israel’s exile was a result of their disobedience. God chose to allow the Assyrians and Babylonians to take the people of Israel away as a consequence for their sins. Yet, within the law there is always an ending to the consequences of disobedience. Deuteronomy 4: 30-31 is a good representation of this:

In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the LORD and heed him. Because the LORD your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.

In contrast to the language of Deuteronomy, the prophet Ezekiel rarely utilizes mercy as a characteristic of God, and here in verse twenty-five is the only occurrence of the word mercy (Hebrew rhm) in the entire book. Here God’s merciful action towards Israel is not motivated by Israel’s return to the LORD, but instead is a result of God being jealous for God’s holy name. Regardless, it does bring about a restoration of the fortunes of Jacob[6] and a regathering of the people from their exile back to the land of Israel. Ezekiel likely anticipates the people of Israel receiving the new heart and spirit he mentioned in chapter thirty-six as the spirit of God if poured out upon Israel. A restored reputation of the divine name requires a people of a new spirit of obedience so that God never hides God’s face in the future.

[1] Isaiah 12:6, 43:5, 55:5, 60:9,14.

[2] Isaiah 2:2-5, 9:5, Micah 4:3-4, and Psalm 46:9 are some of the images that resonate with Ezekiel’s imagery of the weapons of war being used as fuel for the fire.

[3] NRSV handpikes.

[4] In ancient warfare the trees of an invaded land were used for both the creation of weapons, but also siege works and the fires of the armies. Trees which bore fruit may also be destroyed as a way of denying produce to an invading enemy or to punish the people. Warfare has always exacted a heavy price on the land it occurs on.

[5] Numbers 33: 47-48 has the people of Israel camped in the mountains of Abarim before they enter the plains of Moab by the Jordan Sea at Jericho. (NIB VI: 1525)

[6] A phrase used only here and in Psalm 85:1.

Ezekiel 38 The Forces of Gog and the Divine Warrior

2 Replies

Gog and Magog besiege the City of Saints. Their depiction with the hooked noses noted by Paul Meyer.[28] —Old French Apocalypse in verse, Toulouse MS. 815, fol. 49v

Ezekiel 38

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² Mortal, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him ³ and say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; ⁴ I will turn you around and put hooks into your jaws, and I will lead you out with all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with shield and buckler, wielding swords. ⁵ Persia, Ethiopia, and Put are with them, all of them with buckler and helmet; ⁶ Gomer and all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remotest parts of the north with all its troops — many peoples are with you.

⁷ Be ready and keep ready, you and all the companies that are assembled around you, and hold yourselves in reserve for them. ⁸ After many days you shall be mustered; in the latter years you shall go against a land restored from war, a land where people were gathered from many nations on the mountains of Israel, which had long lain waste; its people were brought out from the nations and now are living in safety, all of them. ⁹ You shall advance, coming on like a storm; you shall be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your troops, and many peoples with you.

¹⁰ Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme. ¹¹ You will say, “I will go up against the land of unwalled villages; I will fall upon the quiet people who live in safety, all of them living without walls, and having no bars or gates”; ¹² to seize spoil and carry off plunder; to assail the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who are acquiring cattle and goods, who live at the center of the earth. ¹³ Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its young warriors will say to you, “Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your horde to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to seize a great amount of booty?”

¹⁴ Therefore, mortal, prophesy, and say to Gog: Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are living securely, you will rouse yourself ¹⁵ and come from your place out of the remotest parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army; ¹⁶ you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the earth. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I display my holiness before their eyes.

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord GOD: Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? ¹⁸ On that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel, says the Lord GOD, my wrath shall be aroused. ¹⁹ For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare: On that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; ²⁰ the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the animals of the field, and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all human beings that are on the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. ²¹ I will summon the sword against Gog in all my mountains, says the Lord GOD; the swords of all will be against their comrades. ²² With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him; and I will pour down torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur, upon him and his troops and the many peoples that are with him. ²³ So I will display my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

The introduction of a new enemy Gog of the land of Magog for some future conflict between the LORD the God of Israel, and this previously unknown enemy has fascinated readers across the millennia since it was recorded. Gog and Magog will reappear in Revelation 20:8, now as two separate entities, as the nations gathered by Satan for the final conflict in a scene indebted to Ezekiel 38-39. This war to end all wars occurring amidst the mountains of Israel at the ‘end of days’ forms a termination of the threats against the people of God in Ezekiel.

Gog, and Magog, have taken on a place in the imagination of readers far beyond the initial narrative in Ezekiel. From the author of Revelation to Stephen King authors have been attracted to these names for a dark shadowy force that opposes the people of God. Interpreters have attempted to discern who the ruler or nation referred to here is and their answers across history have included Ethiopia, the Goths, Muslim invaders to Europe, Stalin, or Hitler. (NIB VI: 1512) Martin Luther, using Revelation’s splitting of Gog and Magog into two powers, viewed it as the papacy and the Turks who were in Luther’s view enemies of the gospel. It is possible that Gog is merely a personification of the forces of darkness, evil and chaos.[1] My best guess is that Ezekiel is using Gog as a cypher for Babylon, but this is a controversial view. Most writers on Ezekiel will note that Ezekiel never speaks against Babylon because he both lives as an exile in Babylon and views Nebuchadrezzar and the larger Babylonian army as instruments of God. Although these are important to note, it may also explain why Ezekiel is using a cypher rather than naming a future judgment of Babylon explicitly. Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s older contemporary, also viewed Babylon as an instrument utilized by God but that did not keep the book of Jeremiah including two chapters related to the judgment of Babylon at the end. I do find it plausible that the great army in the north who is being summoned to a future showdown in Israel could be Babylon, but ultimately we will never be able to state any particular identity with certainty.

Meshach and Tubal appear in the list of nations that Tyre traded with in Ezekiel 27:13 as well as among the slain in Sheol that Egypt encounters in Ezekiel 32:28. Persia (or Peres) may or not refer to Persia (modern day Iran) but Ethiopia and Put are nations to Israel’s South. Magog, Tubal, Meshech, and Gomer are all listed as descendants of Noah’s son Japheth in Genesis 10:2-3.[2] Regardless of the specific identities of these nations, the intention is that the threat comes from both the north and the south and it is the nations of the world aligned against Israel. A well-equipped and dressed army comes from across the known world to take advantage of the relatively defenseless people of Israel. These armies advance upon the unwalled towns of Israel like an approaching storm. Yet the battle is not between Israel and the forces of Gog, but between the LORD the protector of Israel and these armies of darkness.

This malevolent Gog and the nations that follow him (here Gog is a person, and Magog is the nation or city their power rests) conspire against a perceived weak opponent. Israel, now living at peace in the mountains of Israel has not fortified their cities.[3] It is possible that Ezekiel perceives that Israel, now returned to the land, has been unable to rebuild its walls and army but I think it is more likely that Ezekiel imagines a future where the people live in safety because they are trusting in the LORD as their protector rather than walls, horses, chariots, and armies. In contrast to Israel’s perceived weakness is the strength of the nations gathered to assault the nation, and even the traders of Sheba, Dedan and Tarshish look at the assault of the nations under Gog on Israel as a chance to participate in the accumulation of the spoils of war. Here Israel is referred to as the ‘center of the earth’[4] and this may be Ezekiel’s perception of Jerusalem, the temple, or the land of Israel being at the center of concern for the earth[5] but it also may reflect the central location of Israel on the trade routes that run between the empires of the north and east and the northern African nations.

The movement of Gog and the coalition of armies from nations across the world arriving at the mountains of Israel rouses the LORD to act as a divine warrior protecting the land and the people. Previously the LORD had placed the divine sword in the hands of Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon to act as an agent of judgment, but now the sword is in the hands of God to demonstrate God’s power over these armies opposed to God’s protected people. In language resonant with the psalms, God’s movement among the lands causes the earth to quake and both the creatures and the human residents respond in fear. Sword, pestilence and bloodshed, all previously utilized against Judah, are now mobilized against these armies. In addition, torrential rains, hailstones, and fire and sulfur (probably imagining some type of volcanic event or resonating with the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah) also rain down upon these assembled armies made impotent against the divine warrior.

At this point in Ezekiel the people have been restored to the land, but the exile of the people has caused the honor given to the LORD’s name by the nations to suffer. The invasion of Gog and the nations gives a place where the power of the LORD can be demonstrated and that all the nations can know the greatness and holiness of the LORD. The divine reputation and honor are central concerns in Ezekiel and although the portrayal of God in this book may seem harsh to us, it probably was comforting to a people in exile. The image of God as the divine warrior roused to protect the people, regardless of motivations, would be a welcome one for a people who felt powerless in their exile. The following chapter will double some of the language from this chapter and see to the destruction and disposal of Gog and their armies but also the restoration of Israel to the land and the safety of the people in the future.

[1] As Katheryn Pfisterer Darr notes Gog may come from the Sumerian word for darkness gȗg. (NIB VI: 1512)

[2] Also repeated in 1 Chronicles 1: 5-6.

[3] Walled cities were the defensive technology of the day and they made an assault on a city extremely costly. Most walled cities had to be conquered by siege warfare where the city supplies of water and food are cut off.

[4] Literally navel of the earth.

[5] Ezekiel has previously referred to Jerusalem as the center of nations. Ezekiel 5:5.

Ezekiel 37 The Valley of the Dry Bones and a Sign of Reunification

5 Replies

Vision of Ezekiel 1640-1650 by Leonhard Kern By Anagoria – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79010820

Ezekiel 37: 1-14 The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones

¹ The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³ He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” ⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. ⁵ Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶ I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

⁷ So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸ I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. ⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

¹¹ Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴ I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.”

The valley of the dry bones along with the imagery of Ezekiel’s initial call are the two portions of this large book that many people are familiar with. For both Jewish and Christian readers this reading appears at critical points in the life of the communities of faith. For Jewish readers this is the reading to accompany the Torah reading (Exodus 33: 12-34:26) on the sabbath of Passover week. Christians who utilize the revised common lectionary encounter it on the fifth Sunday of Lent in year A and the day of Pentecost in year B.[1] Beyond the utilization in worship is this passage in the memory and imagination of people who come back to its imagery of life out of death and hope from hopelessness.

Ezekiel is moved by the powerful force of the hand of the LORD coming upon him and transporting him to an unidentified valley. The valley is not named but it is presumably known to Ezekiel since he refers to it as ‘the’ valley. This valley full of ‘very many’ bones that are laying unburied would be a shocking scene for a person from a priestly household that would know the importance of the proper treatment of the human corpses for the people. Yet in this image he walks through a boneyard of a vast number of people who were unburied and have been long left to be picked over by scavengers whose bones have lost all their connective tissue and internal life. As Daniel Block states, “the picture is one of death in all its horror, intensity, and finality.” (Block, 1998, p. 374)

We cannot know the inflection of Ezekiel’s answer to the LORD on whether these bones can live, whether his answer to God is delivered with conviction or resignation, whether it is immediate or whether the prophet struggles to answer this question. From the perspective of a mortal these dried out bones in this valley of death are as far removed from life as could be imaginable. Yet, as Tova Ganzel also notes Ezekiel’s answer also is an encapsulation of the prophetic message throughout the book. (Ganzel, 2020, p. 323) Ezekiel has throughout the book been the obedient and submissive prophet, and throughout the book God has known what Ezekiel and other mortals have not.

Bones that are without life have been an image of despair in the scriptures[2] and yet here the prophet is to be a part of a movement from despair to hope. The prophet is commanded to speak the words that come from God and participate in God’s act of recreation. Just as God creating the world by speaking in Genesis 1, now the prophet is involved in the recreation of a people through sharing these creative words. Initially dry bones become bodies, enfleshed and whole again but without breath. The words have done what they could do on their own, but for life to return the breath/wind/spirit is needed.

Throughout this passage the Hebrew ruach is behind the words for breath, wind, or spirit and can mean all three. The prophet calls out to the ruach to come from the four directions and come into the mouths and nostril and enter into the lungs reanimating these newly regenerated bodies. From dry bones of conquered people to a new beginning for the people of Israel. The very large and uncountable number of bones has become a vast multitude that we learn is the whole house of Israel, both those who suffered recently under Nechuadrezzar’s conquest as well as those who were exiled by the Assyrians a century and a half earlier.

Ezekiel’s imagery is probably not imagining the generalized resurrection that Daniel 12:1-2 and later the New Testament would utilize, but it does significantly expand the imagery of life from death in the Hebrew Scriptures.[3] Ezekiel’s reference for the imagery of the dry bones likely emerges from the curses of Deuteronomy 28: 25-26:

The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out against them one way and flee before them seven ways. You shall become an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your corpses shall be food for every bird of the air and animal of the earth. There shall be no one to frighten them away.

2 Samuel 21 shares the story of David allowing the Gibeonites to enact revenge against the sons of Saul by impaling them and allowing the birds and animals to feed on them, but Rizpah (the mother of two of the seven sons exposed this way) chases the birds and animals away and the bones are eventually buried. The desolation of the people in the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem, and the inability to provide proper burials for so many people who lost their lives would have been viewed as a curse upon both the people and the land. But now there is a reversal of the curse. Where previously the people moaned the rhyming (in Hebrew) three-line lament: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely now bones and flesh are renewed, and hope is restored. A people who lost hope in their future and God now through the prophet are given a vision of a new and vibrant life back on their own soil.

Most of Ezekiel’s visions are dated but this one is left without a date. Elie Wiesel, a well-known holocaust survivor, claimed that this vision has no date because every generation needs to hear in its own time that these bones can live once again. (NIB VI: 1504) Christians and Jewish faithful need to remember that God’s creative words and spirit can take the hopeless valley full of death in all its horror and regenerate both a people and hope. Bones can once again become bodies, bodies can once again breathe, boneyards become filled with a vast multitude making a new beginning as God’s reconstituted people.

Ezekiel 37: 15-28 Two Sticks As A Sign of a Reunified People

¹⁵ The word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁶ Mortal, take a stick and write on it, “For Judah, and the Israelites associated with it”; then take another stick and write on it, “For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it”; ¹⁷ and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸ And when your people say to you, “Will you not show us what you mean by these?” ¹⁹ say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with it; and I will put the stick of Judah upon it, and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand. ²⁰ When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, ²¹ then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. ²² I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. ²³ They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

²⁴ My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. ²⁵ They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. ²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. ²⁷ My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ²⁸ Then the nations shall know that I the LORD sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.

Ezekiel continues his hopeful message with a sign act joining two sticks[4] into one symbolizing the reunification of the tribes of Israel into one nation under one ruler. Judah and ‘Joseph’ or ‘Ephraim’ were the designations for the twelve tribes unified as Israel under King Saul, David, and Solomon. In the aftermath of Solomon’s reign, the nation split with the northern tribes, with Ephraim being the strongest tribe that the kings of ‘Israel’ or ‘Samaria’ emerged from splitting from the people of Judah who remained under the line of Davidic kings. Many prophets had hoped for the reunification of the people into one people, one kingdom, but the people of ‘Joseph’ had disappeared among the nations a century and a half ago. Yet, the concern here is to reinforce the reunification of the people as one nation, hence the use of the Hebrew goy.[5] One people under one king in one kingdom.

It is unusual for Ezekiel to refer to a leader of the people as king (melek) but a restored nation without a restoration of a common ruler was probably beyond Ezekiel’s imaginative capacity. Even in this passage he will revert to his preferred ‘prince’ (nasi). Yet, just as God was the one who would reinvigorate dry bones into a vast multitude or give the people a new heart and new spirit, now God will bring together two nations long divided into one and will not divide them again. They will return to the land, they will be cleansed from their past transgressions, apostasies, and they will never return to the idols of the other nations. The covenant of peace will be an everlasting covenant, and God will dwell among them.

The placement of God’s sanctuary among them is a means for God to dwell among God’s people. It is from this central place in the midst of the people that the people will be made holy, and that God shall be with them. For Ezekiel the people are now one kingdom under one king (who serves as God’s prince) living in obedience with one sanctuary. Ezekiel’s conclusion of his book will be dedicated to this new temple with a new sanctuary, but here we have a renewed people in the land reunited into a covenant of peace.

[1] It is also utilized on the Easter vigil, but relatively few churches still do a liturgical vigil of Easter and even fewer members participate in this liturgically important but underattended service.

[2] See for example Proverbs 17:22, Psalm 31:10, 102:3.

[3] Isaiah 26:19 and Hosea 6:1-3 do utilize ‘resurrection’ imagery but Ezekiel’s vision is much longer engagement with this language.

[4] There is some debate about how best to translate this word which could refer to trees, branches, scepter, staff, or even tablets. Many commentaries go into exhaustive detail on this while I am intentionally noting this and moving on.

[5] The Gentiles, or the nations, are often referred to as the goyim in Hebrew, and it is common to speak of the people or land of Israel, but here Ezekiel is emphatic that it is one nation.

Review of the Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular