Thursday 23 February 2023

Background

We are now in the more hopeful part of Ezekiel, full of dramatic visions that emerge from trances and lead to prophecies. None are better known than the vision of the valley of dry bones. In Ezekiel’s time (and, tragically, in our own) the region we call the Middle East was criss-crossed by armies of conquest. Battles were frequent and bloody, often leaving behind battlefields full of dead bodies left to fall prey to birds and beasts. It is just such a deserted battlefield that Ezekiel sees now, carpeted with the dismembered skeletons of the fallen. Somehow, Ezekiel is led to find in this disturbing picture a sign of hope. With God, nothing is impossible. Skeletons can reassemble, connective tissue and flesh can clothe them, breath can return. So it is, says Ezekiel, for Israel. As a people they appear to be dead and buried. They have been crushed by conquest and scattered by exile. Yet God has not finished with them. Out of apparent hopelessness, God can create something new. The key element is the spirit of God; only God’s spirit can re-animate Israel and set her back on the path to nationhood.

This passage has given inspiration and hope to both Jews and Christians down the centuries. It is, for example, read during the Sabbath of the Passover festival. The Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, comments that this is one of the few Ezekiel visions that does not have a date. The reason, he says, is that this is a prophecy every generation needs to hear.

To Ponder:

• What are the modern equivalents of the valley of dry bones?
• What experience do you have of God transforming an apparently hopeless situation?