Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’
Parallel translations
- WEB Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.
- KJV Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.
- NKJV Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’
- NASB Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the entire house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’
- NLT Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God explains the bones are the whole house of Israel, who say their hope is lost and they are cut off. The vision addresses real despair with real hope.
Overview
God interprets the vision: the bones represent exiled Israel, who feel hopeless and severed. Their lament voices the human sense of being beyond rescue. To such despair God speaks resurrection hope, the very hope secured for all His people in Christ's victory over death.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Eph 2:1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
- Ps 77:7–9“Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again?
- Ezek 39:25Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Now I will restore Jacob from captivity and will have compassion on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for My holy name.
- Jer 31:1“At that time,” declares the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.”
- Ezek 36:10I will multiply the people upon you—the house of Israel in its entirety. The cities will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt.
- Ezek 37:1–8The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by His Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones.
- Isa 49:14But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me!”
- Ps 141:7As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
- Jer 2:25You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’
- Hos 1:11Then the people of Judah and of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel.
- Jer 33:24–26“Have you not noticed what these people are saying: ‘The LORD has rejected the two families He had chosen’? So they despise My people and no longer regard them as a nation.
- Num 17:12–13Then the Israelites declared to Moses, “Look, we are perishing! We are lost; we are all lost!
- Lam 3:54The waters flowed over my head, and I thought I was going to die.
- Rom 11:26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob.
- Ezek 37:16“And you, son of man, take a single stick and write on it: ‘Belonging to Judah and to the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick and write on it: ‘Belonging to Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and to all the house of Israel associated with him.’
- Isa 40:27Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?
- Ezek 37:19you are to tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will put them together with the stick of Judah. I will make them into a single stick, and they will become one in My hand.’
- 2 Cor 5:14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 37:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.