The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘Sovereign Lord, you alone know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” ’ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” ’ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army. Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” Therefore prophesy and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.” ’
Ezekiel 37:1-14 NIVUK
Many years ago, during the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, Queen Elizabeth II spoke these words at the Guildhall in London:
‘1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an 'Annus Horribilis'. I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so. Indeed, I suspect that there are very few people or institutions unaffected by these last months of worldwide turmoil and uncertainty.’
It had indeed been a horrible year for her: three of her children’s marriages were in trouble, her family was beset by scandals in the press and her beloved childhood home caught fire.
However difficult these circumstances were for her and her family on a human level, the reality is that they had the financial resources to withstand it.
Many of us face troubles that are so deep and appear to be so long that we cannot see an end to them. The Coronavirus pandemic and the pretentions of an evil man in Ukraine have affected us all really badly. Few of us will reflect on the past three years with any great fondness or nostalgia.
The tone of the messages from our politicians has also radically changed. Gone is the rose-tinted optimism. Instead, we see depressing realism: inflation is high, prices are increasing, times are hard, it’s not going to get better quickly.
It’s no wonder some of us are turning off the news.
Maybe you're wondering if things will ever get any better.
The Jews of Ezekiel's day were in precisely that position.
Ezekiel lived in exile. He was of the priestly line. Given that he received his first vision aged thirty and in the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, he was removed from Judah during the first wave of exile (2 Kings 24:14). He did not see Jerusalem falling, and several of his visions relate to this subject, giving the awful reasons why this terrible event had to happen.
The Exile was not exactly a nice little short break. The Bible is clear about that. Lamentations, four chapters of almost unrelenting misery, describes the violence and the pain around it. Nehemiah's brothers describe the situation Jerusalem was still in seventy years after the exile took place:
They said to me, ‘Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.’
Nehemiah 1:3 NIVUK
But even this barely captures the horror of what they had endured.
They had lost their friends and relatives. They had lost their homes and their livelihoods. They had lost their way of life and their religion. They had lost their national identity and, as Nehemiah outlines, even their language was under threat (Nehemiah 13:23-24).
We have a modern term for this. We call it cultural genocide.
But above all these horrible losses, their greatest loss was their relationship with their God. It made the Jewish people unique. It gave them their standing in the world. Now their Temple was gone. It was clear that their God had turned His back on them.
The Jews were as lost as they could ever be on this earth.
And that is the context in which Ezekiel is inspired to write this vision.
We will use the reported words that the Jews were saying at the time to explore the wonders of this vision and its meaning for us.
But before we do, we must explore the valley of bones.
Questions
How do you react to the situation our world is in?
Do you see any similarities between the situation of Ezekiel’s day and ours?
What do you think we have lost over the last three years? Is there any hope of getting it back?
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