(12) Open your graves.--In Ezekiel 37:2 it is said that the bones were "in the open valley," literally, upon the face of the valley. This was a necessity of the vision, in order that they might be seen; now the people, whom the bones represented, are spoken of as in graves, since this was the normal and proper place for the dead.
Verses 12-14. - I will open your graves. That this is not exact interpretation of the foregoing symbol may be argued from the fact that in the vision no mention is made of graves; yet the discrepancy to which it is supposed to point is more apparent than real. If the prophet was to see the bones, it was requisite that these should be above ground rather than beneath. On the other hand, when one speaks of a grave, it is not needful to always think of an underground tomb. To all intents and purposes a person is in his grave when, life being extinct, his body has returned to the dust. So, the opening of graves promised in Scripture is not so much, or always, the cleaving asunder of material sepulchers, as the bringing back to life of those whose bodies have returned to the dust. Hence the opening of Israel's graves could only signify the reawakening of the politically and religiously dead people to national and spiritual life. This was the first step in the restoration of the future held up before the minds of the despairing people. The second, indicated by the clause, and allah put my Spirit in you, pointed, as in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, to their future endowment with higher moral and spiritual life than they had previously possessed, and not merely, as in vers. 5, 6, to their political and national resuscitation (Smend). The last step, the re-establishment of the reconstructed nation in Palestine, was guaranteed by the word, I will place you in your own land. The circumstance that this is twice repeated (vers. 12, 14) shows that whatever view be entertained of the ultimate occupation of Canaan by Israel, this was the goal towards which the vision looked. That it received partial, limited, and temporary fulfillment of a literal kind in the restoration under Zerubbabel and Ezra, is undeniable; that it will ever obtain historical realization of a permanent sort is doubtful; that it will eventually find its highest significance when God's spiritual Israel, the Church of Christ, takes possession of the heavenly Canaan, is one of the clearest and surest announcements of Scripture. NOTE. - On the above nine verses (6-14) Plumptre writes, "We can scarcely fail to find, in our Lord's words in John 5, something like an echo of Ezekiel's teaching. There also, though the truth of the general resurrection is declared more clearly, the primary thought is that of a spiritual resurrection. Further, we may note that the complement of Ezekiel's message is found in the language of Daniel 12:2. Taking the two together, we find both reproduced in the teaching of John 5." (manuscript notes).
37:1-14 No created power could restore human bones to life. God alone could cause them to live. Skin and flesh covered them, and the wind was then told to blow upon these bodies; and they were restored to life. The wind was an emblem of the Spirit of God, and represented his quickening powers. The vision was to encourage the desponding Jews; to predict both their restoration after the captivity, and also their recovery from their present and long-continued dispersion. It was also a clear intimation of the resurrection of the dead; and it represents the power and grace of God, in the conversion of the most hopeless sinners to himself. Let us look to Him who will at last open our graves, and bring us forth to judgment, that He may now deliver us from sin, and put his Spirit within us, and keep us by his power, through faith, unto salvation.
Therefore prophesy, and say unto them,.... For their comfort, in order to revive their hope, and encourage their faith, in these distressed circumstances:
thus saith the Lord, behold, O my people: they were his people still, and he had a covenant interest in them, and they in him, though in such a low estate; and which was the ground of his care of them, and concern for them, and or doing all the good things to them after mentioned; all proceeded from his covenant, and the grace of it, and their relation to him:
I will open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves; the cities and prisons in Chaldea and other places; where they were confined and held captives, and out of which they could no more deliver themselves than a dead man of himself can rise up out of his grave: this is both an emblem of the resurrection of the dead at the last day (z), when they shall come forth out of their graves at the voice of Christ, some to the resurrection of life, and others to the resurrection of damnation; and of dead sinners, raised out of the graves of sin by the power and efficacy of the grace of God; see John 5:25,
and bring you into the land of Israel; to dwelt in it, and abide there, and be no more dispossessed of it; as they will not, any more, when once settled in it, upon their conversion in the latter day.
(z) To which it is applied in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 152. 2, & Taanith, fol. 2. 2.
thus saith the Lord, behold, O my people: they were his people still, and he had a covenant interest in them, and they in him, though in such a low estate; and which was the ground of his care of them, and concern for them, and or doing all the good things to them after mentioned; all proceeded from his covenant, and the grace of it, and their relation to him:
I will open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves; the cities and prisons in Chaldea and other places; where they were confined and held captives, and out of which they could no more deliver themselves than a dead man of himself can rise up out of his grave: this is both an emblem of the resurrection of the dead at the last day (z), when they shall come forth out of their graves at the voice of Christ, some to the resurrection of life, and others to the resurrection of damnation; and of dead sinners, raised out of the graves of sin by the power and efficacy of the grace of God; see John 5:25,
and bring you into the land of Israel; to dwelt in it, and abide there, and be no more dispossessed of it; as they will not, any more, when once settled in it, upon their conversion in the latter day.
(z) To which it is applied in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 152. 2, & Taanith, fol. 2. 2.