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.”
But did the vision work, so far as Ezekiel and his people were concerned? Did the dry bones live? Ah yes! Work it did, and two things may be said to substantiate this claim. On the one hand, it was during the exile that synagogue worship was instituted among the people - since they could no longer go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship - and there, in the synagogues, preaching as we know it today was born. Before the exile there was so little exposition of the Word. In the long tortuous history of the people of God, from Solomon to Zedekiah, even in the reigns which were good, and which saw reform and renewal, there was little emphasis on the Word, as such - it was mostly on ritual, and on the great feasts – and only in one or two cases, as for example in the reigns of Jehoshaphat and Josiah, was there any real concern for the exposition of the Law. But during the exile, preaching came into its own, and - and this is the second thing - following the exile, when the people returned to Jerusalem, we find the Word of God and prayer coming into prominence. One has only to read passages like Nehemiah 8:5-8, for example, to see the immense change and transformation that had taken place from the earlier, pre-exilic days. There was a point, indeed, in those days, when the people became dispirited and discouraged, and God raised up the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to minister among them. And two things happened: one was that a new spirit was born in them, a spirit of hope and resolution; the other was that things began to work in their favour in the international world-scene, as the then powers that be moderated their attitude to the returned exiles and permitted this work of rebuilding to continue unhindered. Yes, it did work in Ezekiel's day: the dry bones were resurrected, and the exiles returned, a living people, purged from idolatry and made a spiritual people, with a spiritual destiny.