Sermons of Robert Murray MCheyne 20. The Vision of Dry Bones

Extract

“The hand of the Lord was upon me,” &c. Ezekiel 37:1-14.

In early life the Prophet Ezekiel had been witness of sieges and battle-fields — he had himself experienced many of the horrors and calamities of war; and this seems to have tinged his natural character in such a way that his prophecies, more than any other, are full of terrific images and visions of dreadful things. In these words we have the description of a vision which, for grandeur and terrible sublimity, is perhaps unequalled in any other part of the Bible.

He describes himself as set down by God in the midst of a valley that was full of bones. It seemed as if he were set down in the midst of some spacious battle-field, where thousands and tens of thousands had been slain, and none left behind to bury them. The eagles had many a time gathered over the carcasses, and none frayed them away; and the wolves of the mountains had eaten the flesh of these mighty men, and drunk the blood of princes. The rains of heaven had bleached them, and the winds that sighed over the open valley had made them bare; and many a summer sun had whitened and dried the bones. And as the prophet went round and round to view the dismal scene, these two thoughts arose in his mind: “Behold, they be very many; and, lo, they are very dry.”

If the place had not been an open valley, it might have seemed to his wondering gaze some vast charnel-house — as if the tombs of all the Pharaohs had been laid bare by some shock of nature to the wild winds of heaven — as if the wanton hand of violence had rifled the vast cemeteries of Egypt, and cast forth the mummied bones of other ages to bleach and whiten in the light of heaven. How expressive are the brief words of the seer: “Behold, they are very many; and, lo, they are very dry!” No doubt there was an awful silence spread over this scene of desolateness and death; but the voice of his heavenly guide breaks in upon his ear: “Son of man, can these bones live?” How strange a question was this to put concerning dry, …