{"id":24171,"date":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24171"},"modified":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","slug":"from-dry-bones-to-new-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24171","title":{"rendered":"From dry bones to new hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster explains how Jews interpret the famous passage about the dry bones in Ezekiel.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On the Shabbat which falls during the week of Pesach (this year April 4) we read Ezekiel 36:37 – 37:14. This prophecy includes the famous vision of the \u2018dry bones\u2019. Ezekiel tells the people, exiled in Babylon, that though they may presently feel like \u2018dry bones\u2019, \u2018hopeless\u2019 and \u2018cut off\u2019, G-d will eventually revive them and bring them out of their graves.<\/p>\n

Why do we read this prophecy on Shabbat during Pesach? Rabbi Hai Gaon of Babylon (939-1038 CE) cited the oral tradition that the resurrection of the Jewish dead would take place in Nissan, the first month of the Hebrew year.<\/p>\n

In addition, the resurrection itself would take place \u2018with the dew of Torah.\u2019 On Pesach, which always takes place in Nissan, we also start praying for dew. So, reading this Ezekiel passage during Pesach itself is appropriate.<\/p>\n

G-d tells Ezekiel: \u2018Son of man \u2026 prophesy to the bones and say to them: “Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord (Ezekiel 37:4).”‘\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later commentators compare the \u2018dry bones\u2019 to people who are devoid of Torah teaching. For many people this lack of knowledge is due to circumstances beyond their control. Either they grew up in a place where it was forbidden to teach Torah; or their parents were ignorant; or there was a lack of teachers. Torah is a lifeline – compared to water – which reanimates our \u2018dry bones\u2019.<\/p>\n

And where there is a suitable teacher, that teacher shouldn\u2019t wait for optimum circumstances, but start teaching immediately, even in a \u2018low place\u2019, such as the \u2018valley\u2019 of Ezekiel\u2019s vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And Ezekiel was successful, even in \u2018a low place\u2019. For \u2018I beheld and behold, there came up sinews and flesh upon them, and skin covered over them (37:8).’<\/p>\n

\u2018And then the spirit came into them and they came to life. And then they stood on their feet, an exceedingly great host (Ezekiel 37:10).’<\/p>\n

Ezekiel explains that there are three levels of hopelessness (v 11): \u2018our bones are dried up; our hope is lost; and we are cut off.\u2019 Each level is more hopeless than the preceding one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Dried up\u2019 means that at present we are devoid of Torah learning, but we know that we can still return.<\/p>\n

\u2018Our hope is lost\u2019 refers to our thinking that after so many \u2018arid\u2019 years change is impossible.\u00a0 There is no way back at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But \u2018We are cut off\u2019 means that we have left the community altogether. Unlike when we lose hope, when we are cut off altogether there is no one at all to whom we can turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, at this crisis point G-d Himself steps in (v 12): \u2018Behold, I Myself, the Lord G-d, will personally open your graves and raise you up out of your graves.\u2019 In the last resort, therefore, G-d Himself is our saviour (v 14): \u2018And I will even set you down in your own Land.\u2019<\/p>\n

Thus a personal call by the prophet to revival from the Babylonian diaspora is linked to the Exodus story of Pesach. This is when, \u2018with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm\u2019, G-d leads us out of Egyptian servitude, through the arid desert, and eventually into the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 5:14).\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the story doesn\u2019t finish here. Around 150 years ago, in 1877, Jewish poet, Naftali Hertz Imber, wrote the words of what would become Israel\u2019s national anthem, HaTikvah, the Hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Imber\u2019s words were carefully chosen to respond to this very same Ezekiel prophecy. The song includes the line: \u2018our hope is not yet lost.\u2019 These words contrast with Ezekiel\u2019s second stage of hopelessness: \u2018our hope is lost.\u2019 \u00a0Not yet, it isn\u2019t!<\/p>\n

Imber was writing exactly 70 years before the UN Partition Plan of 1947 granted statehood to the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. This UN vote itself took place only two years after the end of the Shoah, during which the Jewish people had been abandoned by their fellow human beings. At that time the Jewish people had truly felt as if there were no hope left.<\/p>\n

Many have compared the concentration camps, the extermination camps and even the post-war DP camps to a veritable modern-day \u2018valley of dry bones.\u2019<\/p>\n

UK rabbi, Reverend Leslie Hardman, the Jewish chaplain who, on April 20 1945, led what he called these \u2018dry bones\u2019 out of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, records how the left-for-dead skeletons spontaneously burst into the HaTikvah, singing those very words: \u2018our hope is not yet lost\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These same words would, three years later, become the National Anthem of the new-born State of Israel.<\/p>\n

The State itself was largely populated by the Jewish remnant, the nearly-dead Holocaust survivors, themselves resurrected by the \u2018outstretched arm\u2019 of G-d.<\/p>\n

But, as Ezekiel prophesied, everything became \u2018knit together\u2019 (v 7). The new State was declared by Israel\u2019s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, while the battle for the Old City of Jerusalem was still being waged. There was no time to lose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, despite the best efforts of some, Ezekiel\u2019s prophetic vision continues to be revived on a daily basis in this flourishing, happy, fertile and youthful country which, with G-d\u2019s help, will continue to be a sign of real hope to the world and an everlasting light to the nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster explains how Jews interpret the famous passage about the dry bones in Ezekiel.\u00a0 On the Shabbat which falls during the week of Pesach (this year April 4) we read Ezekiel 36:37 – 37:14. This prophecy includes the famous vision of the \u2018dry bones\u2019. Ezekiel tells the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[6075,6074,553],"class_list":["post-24171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-bones","tag-dry","tag-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}