Translated by Qwen.
Commentary on Ezekiel 37:1-14 by Cornelius a Lapide, S.J.
Introduction: Argument and Method
This chapter is of the same argument and method as the preceding one, but whereas there [in chapter 36] it was described plainly, here it is described elegantly through a parable. For under the type of dry bones coming back to life, he signifies the liberation of the captives in Babylon; under which again, symbolically and literally, he signifies the resuscitation of sinners from the death of the soul and their reduction to the Church through Christ—first indeed obscurely and tacitly, but then clearly and expressly. For he rises clearly and disertely to the Church and Christ in verse 15, where he asserts that Israel and Judah, once divided from one another, indeed contrary, are to be joined into one Church, where they shall be fed and ruled by one Shepherd, David—that is, Christ—through whom a new covenant of everlasting peace shall be sanctioned with them, so that He may be their God and Sanctifier, and they may be His holy people.
Therefore, that this parable of the reviving bones looks literally to Christ and the Church is clear both from the course of the chapter, especially verse 15 to the end, and from the preceding chapter to which this is connected. For here he explains that which he said there in verse 16: "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in the midst of you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will cause you to walk in My commandments… and I will save you," etc. He explains it, I say, through the parable of bones which, having received the vital spirit, come back to life; for thus sinners, having received the spirit of penance and the grace of Christ, return to spiritual life. Justification, therefore, is a resurrection. Hence the Apostle says (Romans 6:4): "That as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." And (Colossians 3:1): "If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above." See what was said there.
Ezek 37:1-2: "The hand of the Lord was upon me…"
"The Hand of the Lord": That is, the operation and afflatus of prophecy. So the Chaldean [Paraphrase].
Secondly, properly, the very hand of God seemed to the Prophet, which laid hold of him and led him into a field full of bones, as happened to him in chapter 8, verse 3: "A likeness of a hand was sent forth, and took me by a lock of my head, and lifted me up between heaven and earth." So Maldonado.
Thirdly, the hand of the Lord is the Word of God Himself, says St. Jerome, because all things were made by Him. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 104: Christ says He was preached in the Prophets, because He is the Word of God. Therefore they announced Christ, full of Christ.
Fourthly, Theodoret by "hand" understands the force and impulse of God which the Prophets perceived before they spoke, by which they were, as it were, impelled to prophesy; for it is the hand's function to impel. Hence some note that the Prophets name the "hand of the Lord" when they are about to say something illustrious, which teaches the hand, that is, the power of God.
Fifthly, Antonius Fernandez (Visione 17, sect. 1): "Hand," he says, stands for locution by which something is commanded to be done; for with the hand we impel a subject to where we wish.
All these return to the same. Properly, this hand lifted the Prophet and transferred him spiritually into a field full of bones. For the Prophet seemed to himself to be taken and transferred by this hand; for this was a mental vision, not a real translation. Whence follows:
"And He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord": Which [means] not corporally, but in mind and spirit, rapt by the Lord, I went out into the field. That is, not in reality, but through a prophetic vision, I went into the field.
Secondly, in the Spirit, that is, by the virtue and impulse of the Lord.
"And He set me down in the midst of the field": In the field of Shinar or Babylon. For there were the dry bones, that is, the Jews in captivity, nearly drained of blood and half-dead, as I shall say more fully soon.
Hence symbolically, Domingo de Soto, and from him our John de Salas (1.2, q. 9, a. 4, tract. 2, disp. 14, sect. 7), think that all men will rise again in the same place and field, namely in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the judgment will take place; that therefore the bones of individuals are to be transferred thither by angels from the whole orb, so that all may rise there in common.
But not less probably, Richard (in 4, dist. 48, q. 7) and Francisco Suárez (tom. 2, p. 3, disp. 50, sect. 7) think that each will rise again in that place where the corpse and bones were, or the greater part of them; for there the other parts are to be brought by angels, and thence individuals, now resuscitated, are to be transferred into the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the tribunal of Christ.
And Ezekiel hints at this here in verse 12, saying: "Behold, I will open… O My people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel."
The field, therefore, was integral Babylon literally, which symbolically signified the whole orb. For this, through the species of this field, was objected to the mind of the Prophet elevated by vision, as a certain small field similar to this; just as St. Benedict, mind-elevated in God, saw the whole orb in the species of a globe. Christ signifies the same (John 5:28): "All who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."
Ezek 37:3-4: "Son of man, do you think these bones will live?"
Literally, He calls the Jews, captives in Babylon, worn down by squalor and as if dry and dead, "dry bones," because they had no hope of return to their homeland, as is clear in verse 11. Consequently, He calls their resuscitation and life the liberation from captivity, which was for them like death. It is a metaphor, or rather a parable or enigma, taken from the bones of dead men who will rise on the day of judgment.
Moreover, by these dry bones, namely by the Jews in Babylon as if half-dead, He understands sinners who through sin have lost the soul and life, that is, the grace of God. Whence He says to them: "Hear the word of the Lord," because these through the preaching of the word of God are converted and rise from sin. As I shall say more fully soon.
Ezek 37:5-6: "Behold, I will send spirit into you…"
"I will send into you spirit": Vital spirit.
"Through the parable of resurrection He prophesies concerning the restitution of Israel," says St. Jerome. Therefore, grammatically, as if in the bark of the letter, it signifies the resurrection of the dead, and under this, as if in a parable, it signifies the liberation of the Jews from captivity, in which, like dry bones without spirit and life—that is, lacking all consolation and vigor, without any hope of escaping thence—they lay.
Those who live a life of captivity and miseries are said to dwell in sepulchres, as Psalm 67:7: "Who brings out those who are bound in strength; similarly those who provoke Him, who dwell in sepulchres." Truly the Poet says: "It is not to live, but to be strong in life." In Civil Law also, civil servitude is considered to be civil death, just as liberty is considered to be civil life.
Secondly, under the type of liberation from Babylonian captivity, which He touches upon and as it were presupposes, He properly and literally understands the resuscitation of sinners, who, held captive in sin by the life of the soul, cannot rise from it by any natural virtue, through the afflatus of the spirit and grace of Christ.
Therefore, there is a double parable here, that is, a double literal sense; for in that sense a type is involved together with an antitype, but one is subordinated to the other and as it were subaltern, as I explained in the Canons.
Therefore, from this place and from this parable, we rightly prove that there will be a resurrection of bodies. Tertullian teaches this (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 29): "For," he says, "could a figure or parable be composed concerning bones, if that very thing were not going to happen to bones themselves?" So St. Ambrose (On Faith of the Resurrection), Theodoret, Justin (Apology 2 for the Christians), Cyprian (book 3, To Quirinus, c. 49), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 18, 15), and St. Jerome, who proves the same thing thus: "For never would a similitude of resurrection be placed for signifying the restitution of the Israelitic people unless the resurrection itself stood and was believed to be future, because no one confirms uncertain things concerning things existing."
Hence St. Ambrose (On Faith of the Resurrection) calls the bones of men lying in sepulchres "seeds of eternity," because after the flesh is consumed they remain, just as after an apple the seeds remain, from which God will raise up man as a new tree who may live forever. Therefore, bones coming back to life are like seeds sprouting again. They will bring forth flowers for the Saints; for the flower of resurrection is immortality, says St. Ambrose.
Hence also St. Hilary on Psalm 52:6: "The hope of eternity," he says, "is accustomed to be signified in the bones," from which that saying is: "This now is bone of my bones" (Genesis 2:23), which the Blessed Apostle refers as a great mystery to Christ and the Church, which borrows a wall of eternity from Adam, which although the Lord's body was wounded and pierced, is not broken: "A bone of Him shall not be broken" (John 19:36).
Another symbol of resurrection is seed, which cast into the earth dies, but in spring sprouts again and produces a new grain and seed, which the Apostle adduces (1 Corinthians 15:37). However, the seed does not rise again the same in number, but the same in species; but in quicksilver (mercury), the same in number rises again, just as in the resurrection the same body in number which lived will rise.
Moreover, there is a hysterologia here, or an inverted order of narration. For first he narrates what was done in the last place. For first the bones were joined, then covered with sinews and flesh, finally they received the spirit, as is clear in verses 8 and 9. So Maldonado.
Ezek 37:7-8: "And behold, as I prophesied, there was a sound…"
"There was a sound": That is, a strepitus of the bones which were moving and being transferred, and approaching others collided and emitted a strepitus.
This strepitus signifies:
First, the sound of the Jews and the jubilation of those exulting over their liberation and return to the same, comparing themselves and convening their own.
Secondly, under this type it signifies sinners being moved by a sermon to the detestation of crimes and to bewail them. For a great commotion and strepitus of affects colliding with one another happens in the heart of a sinner while he is converted, because although there was violence of passion in the flesh, yet in the eternal and impassible nature of divinity nothing was allowed to passion.
"And behold, a commotion": Signifies attrition or contrition for sins in the making, or in an inchoate act. For then man does not yet live, that is, is not yet justified; but when to it, as if in completed act, justifying grace is infused…
Grammatically, it signifies the motion by which in the resurrection bones will be joined to one another by angels. For then a great commotion will be made both of the earth and of the sepulchres and of the bones coming out thence and approaching one another.
Symbolically, it signifies the motion of the Jews in Babylon, by which each moved to his joint, that is, tribe and family, so that he might adhere to it and return with it to Judea.
Therefore, Tertullian teaches in the place cited that the people of the Jews, dead, dried up, and dispersed in the field of the orb, is to be recollected and recomposed, bone to bone, that is, tribe to tribe and people to people, and recorporated with the flesh of faculties and the sinews of kingdom, and thus led out from sepulchres, that is, from the most sad and darkest dwellings of captivity, and to breathe by the name of refreshment and to live thenceforth in their own land, Judea.
But under this as if type, He understands again the compunction and commotion of the sinner while he is converted, as I said.
Ezek 37:9-10: "Come from the four winds, O spirit…"
"From the four winds": Because the dead and captives are dispersed into all quarters. Hence thence come, O Spirit of God, both essential and notional, that is, O Holy Spirit, and breathe into them the spirit of life, that the dead may rise, to the captives give spirit, that is, strength of mind and boldness of returning, to sinners give the spirit of grace, that they may be justified.
Appositely, the soul is compared to wind, because by wind, that is, by spiration and exspiration which the soul causes, we live.
Moreover, souls are said to come to the body from the four winds both because they left their bodies there while men died (for the soul seems to be there where it remained while it deserted its body), and because some will come from heaven, some from Purgatory, some from any quarter of the world, namely the souls of those who will die on the day of judgment in any part of the orb. For these will suddenly be recalled thence to their body while they rise.
Ezek 37:11: "These bones are the whole house of Israel…"
"These bones signify the house of Israel" which was captive in Babylon as if it had been dead in a sepulchre. Here He applies the parable to the Jews captive in Babylon, who thought themselves done for regarding themselves and their return, nor was there more hope that they would be restored to liberty and homeland than that those bones would come back to life. God therefore shows that He is able to effect both this and that.
"Our bones are dried up": That is, we have been dead for a long time; we have lost all vigor, mind, spirit, and strength.
Mystically, St. Clement (book 5, Apostolic Constitutions, c. 6) thinks the Jews said these things because they did not believe the future resurrection, to whom accordingly God responds and promises the resurrection, saying: "Behold, I open your sepulchres and lead you out from them," etc.
"Our hope is lost": Of returning to the homeland.
"We are cut off": Just as a branch torn from the root has no hope of life to be joined again to the root, so we, torn from our homeland, do not hope for return so that we may be joined to it again. Thus the sinner does not hope for pardon, indeed often despairs, unless hope be breathed into him by the Spirit of God.
Therefore, these dry bones are a symbol of extreme calamity, in which all things seem to men measuring by the forces of nature to be desperate; but then God, invoked, is accustomed to be present most of all and to help, even above nature. So God permitted the Jews to be worn down and consumed in Babylon as if up to the bones, that He might teach them to hope in desperate things and to invoke God, and invoked, gloriously liberate them and as it were raise them from death.
This is what Isaiah says (26:19): "Your dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise." That is, subject to my command, nod, and virtue, that I may raise them from death. Hence Isaiah subjoins: "Awake and give praise, you that dwell in the dust," because "the dew of light is your dew." That is, just as dew easily irrigating dry herbs vegetates them as if vivifying them, so easily I, God, by my grace and virtue, will recall you, dry and dead, to life.
Wherefore then the blessed will say that [word] of Psalm 54:20: "All my bones shall say: O Lord, who is like to You?"
Ezek 37:12-13: "Behold, I will open your graves…"
"I will open your graves": He calls the prisons of Chaldea "tumuli and sepulchres," and under these the prisons of sin. For captivity is called civil death. That is: I will liberate you from Babylonian servitude, and equally I will snatch the world from the captivity of sin.
Verse 14: "And I shall make you rest upon your own land…"
"Upon your own land": Namely Judea. Under this He understands the Church.
Biographical Information: Cornelius a Lapide (1567–1637)
Full Name: Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide (born Cornelis van den Steen).
Life and Career:
Birth: December 18, 1567, in Bocholt, Prince-Bishopric of Liège (modern-day Belgium).
Education: Studied at the University of Cologne and the University of Douai. Entered the Society of Jesus in 1592.
Professor: Taught Hebrew, Greek, and Sacred Scripture at the University of Louvain (1596–1616) and later at the Roman College in Rome (1616–1637).
Death: March 12, 1637, in Rome. He was buried in the Church of St. Ignatius.
Reputation: Known for his extraordinary memory, piety, and diligence. He was said to have read the entire Bible 30 times and the works of the Fathers multiple times. His commentary was widely used in Catholic seminaries for over three centuries.
Scholarly Output:
Magnum Opus: Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram (Commentary on Sacred Scripture). This massive work covers almost the entire Bible (excluding Job and the Psalms, which were left unfinished or treated differently).
Method: Lapide's commentary is a "compendium of commentators." He systematically collects and synthesizes interpretations from the Church Fathers (Greek and Latin), medieval Scholastics (especially Thomas Aquinas), and later Catholic exegetes (such as Maldonado, Suárez, and Soto).
Style: Clear, concise Latin. He typically presents the literal sense first, followed by allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses. He is known for illustrating spiritual points with vivid analogies (e.g., the quicksilver/mercury analogy in this passage).
CONTINUE
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