The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 258

the reconstructed skelet.on : corresponding Spirit, in resuscitating Israel, wonld make to the two stage& into which the process of use of all the varied forces that were then man's original creation was divided (Gen. working in the world (Plumptre). The ii. 7). The result would be that the resur- designation of the dead as slain reveals rected and reanimated bones, like newly that the resurrection intended was not that made man, would know the Lord. of men in general, but of the nation of Vere. 7, 8.-Bo I prophesied as I was Israel. oomma.n.ded. The words uttered were with- Ver.10.-An exceeding great army. This out doubt those of vera. 4-6. The effeot harmonizes with the feature in the vision produced is depicted in. its varioUB steps. which describes the bones as those of ale.in First, there resulted a noise-literally, a men, while also it may be viewed as fore- t1oice--which the Revisers take t.o have been. shadowing the future destiny of Israel "a thundering:" and Hiivernick, Keil. " The bones of the slain on the field of Smend, and others, "a sound " in general : battle, having been brought together, clothed but which Ewald, Hengetenberg, and with flesh, and a new life breathed into Schroder, with more propriety, regard as them, now they stand up, not as 'a mixed having been an audible voice, if not, a.a multitude,' but ns 'an exceeding great Kliefoth supposes, the trumpet-blaat or army' prepared to take their part in the "voice of God," which, according to certain ware of Jehovah under new and happier New Testament passages, shall precede the conditions" (Plumptre). (On the phrase, "t.o resurrection and awaken the dead (John v. stand upon the feet," comp. oh. ii. 1; Zeoh. 25, 28; 1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thesa. iv. 16); per- :xiv. 12; Rev. :xi. 11.) haps, as Plumptre suggests, the ••counter- part" thereof. Next, a shaking, ueurµbs Vere. 11-H contain, IIOOOrding to most (LXX.); which the Revisers, following Klie- commentators, the Divine interpretation of foth, understand to have been an earth- the vision, Kliefoth a.lone contending that quake, as in 1 Kings xix. 11 : Amos i. 1 ; they furnish, not so much an exposition of Zech. i 1; xiv. 5 (comp. lfott. xxvii. 51), the vi.eion-which, he think&, must be ex- and Ewald explains IM! "a peal of thunder running througl1 the entire announcement," plained independently, and which he regards as in eh. iii. 12, 13 and xxxvili. 19, 20; but as teaching the future resurrection of God's which is better interpreted by Keil, Smend, people-as an applioe.tion to Israel's oase of and others as e. rustling proceeding from the doctrine contained in the vision, a movement among the bones. Thirdly, the bones came together in the body a.a a whole, Ver. 11.-These bones are the whole house and in particular bone to his bone; i.e. each of Israel, On the principle that "God ia bone to the bone with which it was designed his own best interpreter," it should not be to be united, as e.g. "the upper to the lower difficult to see thut, whatever foreshadowings po.rt of the arm" (Schroder). Lastly, the of the final resurrection of the just may be sinews and the 11.eah co.me np upon them, contoined· in the vision, its primary inten- and the skin oovered them above; or, as in tion was to depict the politiool and national the Revised Version, there were sinews upon restoration of Iaro.el (Ephraim and Judah), the111, and flesh came up and skin cotJered them whose condition o.t the time the :fl.old of abO'IJe; precisely e.e Jehovah had announced withered bones appropriately represented. to tho prophet wonld take place (ver. 6). That Hitzig errs in supposing the "bones" Yet, though the external framework of the alluded to in this verse symbolized the bodies was finished, there was no breath in portions of Ephraim nud Judah then dend, them-1"Uach hoving still the same import instead of the portious still living (iu exile), as in ver. 5. With this the preliminary who co11.idered thomsol ves us pra.ctico.lly atoge in the reani.mr.ting process terminated. dead, is nppnrent from the words that Ver. 9.-The finishing stage began by the follow. Behold, they say. Tho complaint prophet receiving II command to prophesy was munifcstly taken from the popular say- unto the wind (better, breath, or spirit), and ings current umong the people of the exile. to summon it from the four "breathe," or Broken up, diaper.ed, exp11tri11ted, o.nd de- "winds" (in this case the preferable render- spairing, the members of what hud onco ing), thot it might breuthe upon the slain. been "the whole house of Israel" felt there " Four winds " are mentioned, IM! in eh. xl. was no hope more of recovering national 20, to indicate the four quarters of heaven lifo and unity. The oheel'iess charocter of (comp. oh. v. 10, 12; xii. 14; xvii. 21), and the outlook they expressed by saying, Our perhaps also to suggest the immense bones (not the bones of the deod, but of the quantity of vitalizing force demanded by living) are dried-moaning," 'l'he vital force the multitude of the dead (Smend), "the of our nation is gone" (the bones being re- fulness and force of the Spirit's operations" g1nded in Scripture as tho seat of the vitol (Hengstenberg), or the notion that the force; comp. Ps. xxxii. 3)-our hope ia lost-  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHE'l' EZEKIEL. [oH. xxxvn.1-28.