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Prophesy to the breath

Ezekiel 37:7-10 (JDV)

Ezekiel 37:7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, I noticed a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.
Ezekiel 37:8 As I looked, and noticed tendons appeared on them, flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Ezekiel 37:9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of Adam. Say to it: This is what the Lord Yahveh says: Breath, come from the four winds and breathe into these murdered ones so that they may live!”
Ezekiel 37:10 So I prophesied as he commanded me; the breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, a vast army.

Prophesy to the breath

According to Davidson, “The breath needful to be life in the vast multitude now created must be furnished by wind coming from all quarters of the heavens” (268). Davidson points out that the same Hebrew word is used for both breath and wind here, and yet he insists they do not refer to the same thing. Instead, he speaks of “an intensification of meaning” in which the same word means “the living principle itself.” Why? Human traditions insist that we are made up of some divine spark that cannot die.

The only divine spark reflected in today’s text is a resurrection. It is not the result of any immortal entity inside these bones. It is the result of a loving God who chooses to breathe breath and life back into them. Before God’s intervention, they are dead. After God intervenes, they are alive.

Thank you, LORD, for the promise of a resurrection.

Davidson, A. B. Ezekiel. Cambridge: University Press, 1892.