Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 37:12
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
12. The figure is varied here, the people are regarded as dead and buried and their revival is an opening of their graves. The phrase “bring you into the land of Israel” shews, however, that the language is still used figuratively of the resuscitation of the dead nation and not literally of the resurrection of deceased individuals.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 12. I will open your graves] Here is a pointed allusion to the general resurrection; a doctrine properly credited and understood by the Jews, and to which our Lord refers, Joh 5:25; Joh 5:28-29: “The hour is coming when they that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and come forth.”
And cause you to come up out of your graves] I am determined that ye shall be restored; so that were ye even in your graves, as mankind at the general resurrection, yet my all-powerful voice shall call you forth.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Prophesy; tell them their mistake, and revive their hope by a new promise and declaration of my purposes of mercy towards them.
Say unto them; these poor desponding, dejected Israelites.
Behold; consider what my prophet assures you he hath seen, dry bones miraculously revived, and standing up in power as a mighty host, so shall you.
I will open your graves; though your captivity be as death, your persons and confinements close as the grave, yet I will open those graves. I will lift you out, lend you a hand to bring you out with life and strength. And I will be your guide, that you may know the way; be your support, that you may be able to go; and your guard and defence against dangers of the way, that you may certainly come into your own land.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. my peoplein antithesis to”for our parts” (Eze37:11). The hope that is utterly gone, if looking at themselves,is sure for them in God, because He regards them as Hispeople. Their covenant relation to God ensures His not letting deathpermanently reign over them. Christ makes the same principle theground on which the literal resurrection rests. God had said, “Iam the God of Abraham,” c. God, by taking the patriarchs as His,undertook to do for them all that Omnipotence can perform: He, beingthe ever living God, is necessarily the God of, not dead, but livingpersons, that is, of those whose bodies His covenant love binds Himto raise again. He canand because He canHe willHe must[FAIRBAIRN]. He calls them”My people” when receiving them into favor; but “thypeople,” in addressing His servant, as if He would put them awayfrom Him (Eze 13:17; Eze 33:2;Exo 32:7).
out of your gravesoutof your politically dead state, primarily in Babylon, finallyhereafter in all lands (compare Eze 6:8;Hos 13:14). The Jews regarded thelands of their captivity and dispersion as their “graves”;their restoration was to be as “life from the dead” (Ro11:15). Before, the bones were in the open plain (Eze 37:1;Eze 37:2); now, in the graves,that is, some of the Jews were in the graves of actual captivity,others at large but dispersed. Both alike were nationally dead.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 Joh 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(12) Open your graves.In Eze. 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.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 37:12-14. Behold, O my people That is, you who are truly such: for this most gracious appellation seems evidently taken from the words of the covenant so often mentioned; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. There would be no difficulty in this passage, if we only take the land of Israel, Eze 37:12 and your own land, Eze 37:14 as meant of that land of promise, or that better country, which the faithful all along believed in, and hoped for, Heb 11:16 that land, in short, which the true Israel of God should inherit for ever, Isa 60:20-21. Such a prospect as this was exactly fitted to obviate their complaints, which I think no other sense of the words can do fully. I might add, that as the doctrines of the Messiah and the future state are constantly united in the views and declarations of the prophets, so this plain description of a resurrection is followed by as plain a prophesy of the Messiah in the latter part of the chapter; who, by the well-known appellation of David, from whom he was to descend, was to be the one shepherd, king, and prince, over Judah and Ephraim, or the converted Jews and Gentiles. See Eze 37:24-25.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 37:12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
Ver. 12. Behold, O my people. ] God owneth them still, though they had little deserved it. “Shall men’s unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” Rom 3:3 Tumulos desperationis aperit; he openeth the graves of desperation, and lets in a marvellous light. So the Lord did for his poor Church by this blessed Reformation begun by Luther, whose book, De Captivitate Babylonica, did abundance of good. As for that wrought here in England, a foreigner a saith of it, that it is such as the ages past had despaired about, the present worthily admireth, and future ages shall stand amazed at. O beatos qui Deum ducem e spirituali Babylonia eos educentem secuti sunt!
a Scultet., Annal. Dec. 2, ep. ded.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
graves = sepulchres, or burying-places. Hebrew.
keber, not Sheol. See App-35. The repetition of this must include resurrection as well as restoration.
into the land of Israel = upon the soil of Israel. Hebrew. ‘admath. See note on Eze 11:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Therefore: Job 35:14, Job 35:15
I will open: This is a pointed allusion to the resurrection; under which figure Isaiah – Isa 26:9 also describes the restoration of the house of Israel, when he says, “thy dead men shall live;” at which time their bones are said to flourish – Isa 66:14, or to be restored to their former strength and vigour; and, in like manner, St. Paul – Rom 11:15, expresses their conversion by “life from the dead.” In the land of their captivity, they seemed as absolutely deprived of their country as persons committed to the grave are cut off from the land of the living; but when Cyrus issued his proclamation, Jehovah, as it were, opened their graves, and when he stirred up their spirits to embrace the proffered liberty, he put his Spirit within them, that they might live; and their re-establishment in their own land evinced the truth of God in the prediction, and his power in its accomplishment. Eze 37:21, Isa 26:19, Isa 66:14, Hos 6:2, Hos 13:14, 1Th 4:16, Rev 20:13
and bring: Eze 37:25, Eze 28:25, Eze 36:24, Ezr 1:1 -Ezr 2:70, Amo 9:14, Amo 9:15
Reciprocal: Psa 71:20 – shalt bring Dan 12:2 – many Luk 5:5 – we
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 37:12. I will open your graves is figurative and refers to the national graves of which Isaiah wrote in chapter 22: 14 of his book. That passage is commented upon in the 3rd volume of this Commentary. Of course the fulfillment of this national resurrection means the return from Babylonian captivity, recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah.