Ezekiel 37:4-6
What is written? (ESV)
Then he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
What does it say?
God told Ezekiel to speak to the bones and tell them to hear God's word. He will give them breath, connect them with tendons, and cover them with flesh. He will cause them to live.
What is its immediate context?
Ezekiel spoke God’s words during the Babylonian captivity – after the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple. God’s Spirit has taken Ezekiel into a valley that was full of dry/dead bones (vs 1-2). The did come together (vs 7) “but there was no breath in them” (vs 8). Ezekiel prophesied “to the breath” (vs 9) and “the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.” (vs 10)
How Ezekiel 37:4-6 is applied across Bible answers
Are God’s word and the Holy Spirit the same thing?
Ezekiel is told by God to speak to a valley of dry bones in order to make them live [again] by "the breath" that God gave.
God confirms that "the breath" is His Spirit. He says about the "whole house of Israel" (vs 11) that He "will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land." (vs 14) If the Spirit is the breath in Ezkiel's vision, the Spirit and God's word cannot be the same thing.
Top 10: Passages that must be reconciled before concluding that the Holy Spirit indwells representatively through the Word?
Ezekiel is told to preach "the word of the Lord" to the "dry bones" and the result will be that God will "cause the breath [the Holy Spirit] to enter" and they "live".
