It started like any other morning: silence, dust, and the wind weaving through brittle bones.
My name won’t be found in any prophet’s scroll. I was just a boy who had survived long enough to remember what before felt like. Before our exile to Bavel — Babylon. Before we walked from Yerushalayim — Jerusalem — heads down, hearts shattered.
The adults whispered about the prophet Yechezkel — you may know him as Ezekiel — and his strange visions. They said he once lay on his side for over a year to show the punishment of our people. And that now, he had seen something even stranger: a valley full of dry bones.
"Dry bones?" I asked Ima under my breath one night after hearing neighbors gossiping. She didn’t answer me right away. Just stared into the fire. Finally, she said, “Sometimes when people lose all hope, they feel like bones — dry, forgotten, dead inside.”
It made sense. That’s how everyone looked. Like they were walking around with no life left, not even enough strength to dream.
Then the story came. Yechezkel had seen this wide valley covered in human bones — and the Lord had said to him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And the prophet had answered, “Only You know, O Lord.”
That part stuck with me. Yechezkel hadn’t said, “No.” He hadn’t even tried to make it sound more possible. He just trusted God’s answer more than his own thoughts.
As the prophet told it, the Lord had instructed him to speak to the bones: to tell them they would live again. That flesh would cover them. That breath would return to them.
So Yechezkel obeyed.
I tried to imagine it — a full valley, ribs rising from dust, leg bones clicking back into joints, skulls tipping skyward. A rumbling sound as the bones found their way back to each other. And then, life. Breath entering where there had been no lungs. Standing like an army, alive again.
I was too young to understand every part of the vision, but I understood this: sometimes Hashem — the name we use to speak of God with honor — gives us strange instructions. And sometimes, obeying Him when nothing makes sense is the way blessings begin.
That vision wasn’t just about bones. It was about us. All of Israel. We were those bones — tired, scattered, hopeless. But if God could bring breath back to skeletons, couldn’t He bring it back to a people who had forgotten how to hope?
Now, when I walk through the market and see joy returning to people’s eyes — even just a little — I remember that vision. I remember the prophet who spoke to what seemed dead, and the God who answered with life.
In a land where we thought we’d never rise again, dry bones stood up when hope was spoken.
And maybe that's the most important part of Yechezkel’s vision: that blessing follows obedience, and that even when we feel like dust, God can still breathe us back to life.
It started like any other morning: silence, dust, and the wind weaving through brittle bones.
My name won’t be found in any prophet’s scroll. I was just a boy who had survived long enough to remember what before felt like. Before our exile to Bavel — Babylon. Before we walked from Yerushalayim — Jerusalem — heads down, hearts shattered.
The adults whispered about the prophet Yechezkel — you may know him as Ezekiel — and his strange visions. They said he once lay on his side for over a year to show the punishment of our people. And that now, he had seen something even stranger: a valley full of dry bones.
"Dry bones?" I asked Ima under my breath one night after hearing neighbors gossiping. She didn’t answer me right away. Just stared into the fire. Finally, she said, “Sometimes when people lose all hope, they feel like bones — dry, forgotten, dead inside.”
It made sense. That’s how everyone looked. Like they were walking around with no life left, not even enough strength to dream.
Then the story came. Yechezkel had seen this wide valley covered in human bones — and the Lord had said to him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And the prophet had answered, “Only You know, O Lord.”
That part stuck with me. Yechezkel hadn’t said, “No.” He hadn’t even tried to make it sound more possible. He just trusted God’s answer more than his own thoughts.
As the prophet told it, the Lord had instructed him to speak to the bones: to tell them they would live again. That flesh would cover them. That breath would return to them.
So Yechezkel obeyed.
I tried to imagine it — a full valley, ribs rising from dust, leg bones clicking back into joints, skulls tipping skyward. A rumbling sound as the bones found their way back to each other. And then, life. Breath entering where there had been no lungs. Standing like an army, alive again.
I was too young to understand every part of the vision, but I understood this: sometimes Hashem — the name we use to speak of God with honor — gives us strange instructions. And sometimes, obeying Him when nothing makes sense is the way blessings begin.
That vision wasn’t just about bones. It was about us. All of Israel. We were those bones — tired, scattered, hopeless. But if God could bring breath back to skeletons, couldn’t He bring it back to a people who had forgotten how to hope?
Now, when I walk through the market and see joy returning to people’s eyes — even just a little — I remember that vision. I remember the prophet who spoke to what seemed dead, and the God who answered with life.
In a land where we thought we’d never rise again, dry bones stood up when hope was spoken.
And maybe that's the most important part of Yechezkel’s vision: that blessing follows obedience, and that even when we feel like dust, God can still breathe us back to life.
