37 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.2 And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon 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 was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, 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, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”
As was indicated in the previous Note, the basic principle of interpretation must be that this was a word given first to the exiles in Babylon, as a comment on the new covenant spoken of in the previous chapter. That word was given to a people for whom all hope had apparently disappeared, who were saying, 'Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts'. But it was precisely to this point of despair that God had finally brought them, and only now were they able even to hear the word of restoration. And so, to their exclamation that such a new covenant (36:25ff) was impossible, and that they could not see how it could ever be, this vision was given, to show them how God was to fulfil it. As to the vision itself, there are two movements in it. There was first of all the prophesying to the bones, saying to them, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord'; and when this was done, there was an earthquake, and the bones came together, but there was no breath in them. Then, secondly, there was the prophesying to the wind, 'Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain so that they may live', and when this was done, the breath came into them. Perhaps this is meant to indicate not so much two separate actions, as two different aspects of the same action. We must be careful, therefore, not to read too much into this twofold action. It should be noticed that in the explanatory verses in 11-14 these two stages are ignored, and instead a new metaphor is invoked, that of resurrection of the dead from their places of burial. This means that the figures of speech do not have validity in their own right: they merely illustrate what God is going to do.