Bible Commentaries

Ezekiel 37:3

I. We may take Ezekiel's vision as a pledge that God does not abandon a good cause, however dark may appear its prospects at any particular time. There are in the world evils so great that we are tempted to think their cure hopeless. God knows when and how the difficulties which beset holy enterprises will be cleared away. The Maker of mankind does not despise the work of His own hand; the day will come in His own good time when there will be a shaking, and the bones will come together, and a breath will pass into the lifeless forms, and they will live and stand upon their feet.

II. Still more deep and impressive should be the comfort derived from this prophetic vision when we apply it not to any outward or professional work in which we are engaged, but to the personal work of bringing over our hearts and lives into conformity with Christ's will. When we look within ourselves and consider our own state before God, we may well repeat the question, Can these bones live? Fallings away, humiliating defeats, abandonment or forgetfulness of holy purposes in the presence of temptation are no doubt sufficiently depressing; and the true remedy is to have faith in God, to believe that His Spirit will breathe a new life into our failing energies, and in that belief diligently to seek Him.

III. This great passage implies the current belief of the resurrection of the body, all the more as the application is figurative, and made to strengthen a disheartened people. Thus, though the passage was not intended to teach the Jewish captives the truth of the Resurrection, yet it is interesting as one of the signs that the hope of immortality was gradually unfolded and made clear to God's people under the Old Testament. We may receive the vision as a Divine pledge that God's blessing reaches beyond the grave, that His power will still surround us, and His Spirit be breathed into us, in that unknown world to which we all are hastening.

G. E. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 332.

I. All men are spiritually dead. (1) They are destitute of the principle of spiritual life. (2) They are insensible to the beauties and attractions of the spiritual world. (3) They are incompetent to discharge the functions of holy beings. (4) They are under the dominion of sinful propensities.

II. No created power can communicate spiritual life to men.

III. It is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit to quicken the spiritually dead. (1) His influence is obtained in answer to prayer. (2) It operates through the instrumentality of the word. (3) It produces faith in Christ. (4) The mode of His working is inscrutable.

G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 294.

References: Ezekiel 37:1-10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 582; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 74; Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 427. Ezekiel 37:1-14.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 384. Ezekiel 37:3.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. vi., p. 209; H. P. Liddon, Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Old Testament, p. 278; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 294. Ezekiel 37:10.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 236. Ezekiel 37:11-12, Ezekiel 37:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1676. Ezekiel 37:15-17.—Pulpit Analyst, vol. ii., p. 457. 37—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 103. Ezekiel 40:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1578. Ezekiel 43:12.—Ibid., No. 1618. Ezekiel 43:15.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 185.