READING: Ezekiel 37:1-39:29, Ezekiel 32:1-16
Let me just say today that this video clip hardly reflects the way I learned this simple song as a young teenager in a church bus in the early 1970s! This many years later, though, I can still remember almost shaking the bus as we sang the words loudly – without, I suspect, any real understanding of the story in Ezekiel behind the lyrics.
The dramatic picture of Ezekiel 37 illustrates God’s willingness and power to restore His people. They were only bones – lifeless, hopeless – but God was committed to breathing new life into them. Scholars debate whether this passage at least hints at physical bodily resurrection, but we cannot deny the prospect of hope that echoes through the vision.
- It was God who would bring new life, evidenced by the number of “I will” statements in Ezekiel 37:1-14.
- “Life” is an important concept in the passage, also evidenced by the multiple uses of the word in these verses.
- What God said He would do in restoring His people, He would, in fact, do. He would keep His word.
God is still the God who breathes life into us when we are hopeless and defeated. When He works that kind of gracious miracle in our lives, somebody—beginning with us—will again take note that He is indeed the Lord (Ezek 37:6, 14).
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you living joyously today, or do you feel like a bunch of dead bones?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, thank You for breathing new life into us.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Ezekiel 32:17-33:20, Jeremiah 52:28-30, Psalm 137, 1 Chronicles 4:24-5:17
