Unnoticed Resonances of Tomb Opening and Transportation of the Remains of the Dead in Ezekiel 37:12-14

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) Whether Ezek 37:12-14 was an original component part of a larger narrative encompassing 37:1-14, or related to material in 37:1-11 in some other way, many commentators view these verses, like 37:1-10, as a response to the saying attributed to a dejected Judah in 37:11: "Our bones are dry, our hope has perished, we are utterly cut off " (...).1 The narrative of 37:1-10 contests the saying's assumption of hopelessness by envisioning a valley of human remains that are reconstituted and reanimated through Ezekiel's prophetic word and Yhwh's decisive actions. Similarly, 37:12-14 challenges the people's despondency with a prophetic word from Yhwh to the people: Thus says the Lord Yhwh, "I am about to open your tombs and raise you up [...] from your tombs, my people, and I will bring you to the land of Israel. You will know that I am Yhwh when I open your tombs and raise you up from your tombs, my people. I will put my spirit in you and you will live, and I will set you in your land, and you will know that I, Yhwh, have spoken and acted," oracle of Yhwh. Both 37:1-10 and 37:12-14 respond to the metaphors of the saying in v. 11, which suggests the "death" of the people.2 The first section (vv. 1-10) takes up the figurative expression "our bones are dry" and offers in response a vision of a reanimated people of great number; the second (vv. 12-14) responds to the claim that the people "are utterly cut off " with a promise that Yhwh will raise them from their tombs, reanimate them, and resettle them in their land. Each section, in its own way, challenges the notion that hope has perished for the Judeans in exile.3 Though 37:1-10 has received much attention from scholars, 37:12-14 has been of less interest, even given its strikingly unusual imagery and its message of restoration in the land.4 It is my purpose to analyze the imagery of 37:12-14, particularly Yhwh's promise to open the tombs of exiled Judeans, raise them up from their tombs, and bring them back to their land, in light of the resonances of tomb opening and the transportation of the remains of the dead back to ancestral territory and family tomb as witnessed in both biblical and cognate literatures. Ezekiel 37:12-14 is a response specifically to the claim in the people's saying (v. 11) that Judeans are "utterly cut off." As I have argued elsewhere, this expression suggests that exiled Judeans view themselves as essentially "dead" as a people, separated from Yhwh in a manner not unlike those who are literally dead in the underworld according to a text such as Ps 88:5-6: I am counted with those who descend into the Pit, I am like a man without help, Among the dead . . . ,5 Like the slain, those who lie down in a tomb, Whom you do not remember anymore, And as for them, from your hand they are cut off.6 The expression "we are utterly cut off " in Ezek 37:11 implies not only that the people view themselves as dead for all intents and purposes, but that their relationship to Yhwh has been severed, not unlike the connection of the dead to Yhwh according to Ps 88:6, where it is said that the entombed dead are no longer remembered by Yhwh and are "cut off " from Yhwh's hand, meaning that he no longer acts on their behalf. Psalm 88:11-13 elaborates on the idea that the dead are "cut off " from Yhwh's hand with a series of rhetorical questions that suggest that Yhwh no longer does wonders for the dead, that the dead cannot praise him, and that his acts of covenant loyalty (...) and faithfulness (...) are not spoken of by the dead, presumably because they are no longer remembered by them.7 Similarly, the saying of 37:11 may be suggesting that exiled Judeans, like the dead, can no longer worship Yhwh; that they cannot hope for any kind of saving intervention from him; and that they cannot expect him to keep his covenantal promises. Thus, like the dead, exiled Judeans are "cut off " from Yhwh according to Ezek 37:11. …