Ezekiel, son of Buzi, was a Judean priest who, with wealthy compatriots, was exiled to Babylonia in 597 BCE. Ezekiel was part of a “brain drain” under Babylonia’s King Nebuchadnezzar II as a way to subdue the vassal state of Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 24:14-16).

The exiles are lamenting that their bones are dried up, their hope has perished, and they are utterly cut off (v 11). Yet God will open their graves and raise them up and return them to their homeland. The recognition formula (“And you shall know that I am Yahweh,” v 13) suggests that God has a greater purpose in them than a return ticket to Palestine.

The second line of the exiles lament (v 11) “our hope is lost,” acknowledges an utter absence of hope. The root means not only “to vanish” but also “to perish.”

 

Ezekiel’s’ fellow deportees mourn that they might as well be dead. Their hope has perished and without hope, they might as well be dead. In the light of Judah’s collapse, Jerusalem’s destruction, the exiles’ own situation, and Ezekiel’s past denunciations, good news was, for many, hard to hear, impossible to envision.

Katheryn Pfisterer Darr:

At the core of this vision is the challenge to view circumstances through God’s eyes rather than through our own limited vision. Can these bones live? Of course not. But look at them through God’s eyes, and watch bones rush to their appropriate partners. Watch as God’s spirit, which heals hopelessness, infuse them so that they rise up-a great army testifying to the power of Yahweh. Can corpses be brought forth from graves and become living beings again? Absurd! But look through God’s eyes, and watch them come up, receive God’s spirit, and return home. When we raise our vision to look beyond what our mundane eyes can see, we watch the impossible happen through God’s eyes.

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dried bones bears no date because every generation needs to hear in its own time that these bones can live again (Elie Wiesel).

Like the ancient exiles it becomes very easy to look at our personal or communal situations as hopeless and dead-ended. But when we look through God’s eyes, we can see the broader picture and a new basis for hope. God can sustain us and fill our barren situation with life sustaining hope.

 

Please refer to the sermon, “Bleached Bones? Look Again!” in the homily section of DPS.