Gaspar Sanchez (a.k.a., Caspar Sanctius) was born around 1553 in Toledo, Spain, and entered the Jesuit order in 1571, studying at the University of Alcalá, becoming adept at both Greek and Hebrew. He taught scripture at a number of Jesuit institutions. He, like his contemporaries, Fr. Juan de Maldonado and Fr. Cornelius a Lapide, was a leading scholar of his day. His clarity of style is often compared to the former, and his comprehensiveness to the latter. Like Maldonado, Sanchez prioritizes the literal-historical sense but remained open to typological applications. Translated by Qwen.
Commentary on Ezekiel 37:1-14 by Gaspar Sanchez, S.J.
Introduction: Connection to the Preceding Chapter
This prophecy is optimally joined to the preceding one [Chapter 36]. For it looks to the liberty of the people as if to life, and to their glorious return. Moreover, the sorrowful condition of the captives, which is not far from death, is proposed by a spectacle and a hieroglyphic sign; and the most powerful hand of the Lord, which not only made those who seemed dead to be raised to life, but also that they might recover that splendor and glory from which they had before fallen.
Ezek 37:1-2: "The Hand of the Lord" is taken metaphorically either for the prophetic spirit, or prophecy, which suddenly illuminated and instructed the mind of the Prophet, as elsewhere often, e.g., Ezek 33:22; or for a certain force or divine instinct by which someone is suddenly carried away to some new thought or vision. Although this does not differ much from the former, nevertheless the very mode of speaking and the allegorical form indicates something not entirely similar.
For just as we lead someone apprehended by the hand to some new spectacle, sometimes unwilling, either because he knows not whither he is being rapt by another or for what cause he is impelled, or because he thinks it matters nothing to him to be led there; so now the hand of the Lord came upon the Prophet, which led him—not indeed unwilling, because he had long before submitted his will to the divine will—yet He led him as if by an external motion to a place of which immediately…
"And He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord": Just as before, chapter 8, he was led in the Spirit to Jerusalem—not indeed moved from the place where he had before sat, but in thought, because those things which were in Jerusalem and which were being done there were objected to his mind by the vestige of things—so now, as if seized by the hand, he was led in the Spirit into a field, because that field was objected to him with that species which is immediately described by the Prophet.
"And He set me down in the midst of a field which was full of bones": All this was offered to the thought of the Prophet. For it is not credible that human bodies were here unburied in some field so that bones appeared, scattered in such number in a field. Nor was that a polyandrium or common sepulchre, which we call coemeterium (cemetery), which sounds like "dormitory." That is proved because the bones are said not to have been hidden in sepulchres but dissipated on the surface of the field, and exceedingly dry.
Then, because if they were true bones and not only a species of bones offered, they would not have been those of the Chaldeans, who, of whatever condition they were, would not undergo that ignominy to putrefy unburied under the open sky and create disgust for others with a foul breath and horrible aspect; especially because those who are said to be raised, who portend the liberty of the captives, ought to have been from the number of captives.
But neither do they seem to have been from the Hebrews: partly because the Babylonians would not permit those bodies to be unburied in their region, whose breath is molest and pestilent; partly because such was the religion of the Jews concerning the corpses of the dead that they would not permit even the bodies of condemned men to be unburied. Which is cautioned by law (Deuteronomy 21:22) concerning those also whom wickedness of morals had driven to the cross. And whereas other Gentiles denied sepulture to those who inflicted death upon themselves, nevertheless the Hebrews permitted this in no way. Concerning whom Josephus says (book 3, On the War, chapter 14): "If anyone," he says, "shall have killed himself among us, it is decreed that he be cast out unburied until the setting of the sun, even though we deem it lawful for enemies to be buried."
I know that very many Jews putrefied unburied during the time of the siege or when it happened that the city was conquered by the Chaldeans, which Jeremiah laments (Lamentations 4:5): "They who were fed voluptuously perished in the ways; they who were nourished in scarlet embraced dung." Where we thought "to embrace dung" was the same as to be buried with an ass's burial, that is, foully to putrefy under the open sky. But here the reason is far different; for such was the multitude of the dying, such the narrowness of the places, such the disturbance of things, that neither did it befit anyone to give pious work to burying the dead, nor did any place contain so many corpses. Which Jeremiah said (chapter 19, verse 11): "In Topheth they shall be buried, because there is no other place for burying."
From which things it is plain, in my judgment, that those were not truly bones but a species of bones offered to the thought of the Prophet.
Ezek 37:3: "Do you think these bones will live?": This place is celebrated and often used by the Fathers when they dispute concerning the resurrection of the flesh, concerning which they think is treated here as if in a shadow which is so sharp and vivid to the truth that you might think you see the thing itself. So Clement Romanus (book 5, Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 8), Justin Martyr (Question 45 to the Orthodox), Irenaeus (book 5, chapters 15 & 34), Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapters 29 & 30), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 18), Chrysostom (Homily 2 on the Symbol, tom. 15), Augustine (On Genesis Literally, book 10), cf. the same Basil on that [verse] of Psalm 33: "The Lord keeps all their bones," and very many others. Nor was there any, I think, among the ancients mindful of the resurrection who was unmindful of this testimony of Ezekiel.
But if their words are well weighed, they do not so much think this figure to be of the resurrection as that from the resurrection of the dead, which the Lord establishes as a thing altogether certain, He supposes as explored to the Hebrews, the liberty of the captives is proved. And therefore they most efficiently effect from this place that there is a resurrection of the flesh. For the argument by which God confirms the abject and desperate spirits of the captives would be effective in no way if dry bones and bones reduced to powder were not going to be called again to life.
Therefore, the Lord seems to argue in this way: If these dry bones are to be raised to life, to be joined with the bond of sinews and clothed with flesh, and no one doubts my faculty for this change plainly admirable, let no one doubt that exiles, who are not led to the article of things, can be reduced by me to their ancient state and beauty.
But that here chiefly speech is concerning the house of Israel to be restored from that state which is not far from a sepulchre, the authors of whom above [the Fathers] teach, and with Jerome and Theodoret almost the other interpreters. Nor does the text itself permit us to doubt, for in verse 11 it is openly said: "All these bones are the house of Israel."
Ezek 37:4: "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord": The Lord was about to speak to the sons of Israel and to call them forth as if from sepulchres from a sorrowful condition of living. He orders, therefore, that they behold in the bones an exemplar of their liberty and better fortune, which at the command of the divine voice assumed a new form, namely that which they had before that spirit deserted them.
Ezek 37:5: "Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live": This may seem to some hysteron proteron, that is, an inverted order. For as is clear from the consequences, first the bones were coapted each into its place, then joined by the bond of sinews and covered with flesh, finally at the end, the spirit arriving, at last animated. But I rather think there was a certain summary in the beginning when God promises life and spirit to the bones; then he enumerated in their order singly those things which commonly precede animation and life in matter, which unless it be disposed and tempered by certain reasons, is neither animated by the spirit nor has vital faculty.
Ezek 37:6: "And I will lay sinews upon you": He pursues those things which necessarily precede the animating spirit, namely that the bones be brought each to its joint and, compacted by sinews, be covered with flesh, and finally, all coalescing and being tempered according to the mode of nature, skin be induced. Nature demands this, and God, the author of nature, follows its order.
"And I will give you spirit, and you shall live": Just as God did not before breathe into the face of Adam when he was truly Adam, that is, a lump of clay, the breath of life, than when he was formed into the species of man by the supreme Planner of things; then however when he had the image of man, he was animated by the breath of life, that is, by the spirit from which he immediately began to live. So God did not before infuse the spirit of life into bones dissolved and dry than when He joined and fashioned them into that species that they could be seen to be men.
Ezek 37:7-8: "And behold, as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a commotion": Hence it appears how great is the force of the divine voice and command, which the Prophet in the name of God induced upon dead and arid bones. For when he still had the prophetic word in his mouth—there are those who think the voices of the dead to be, who neither… [text unclear]… Ezekiel had uttered the whole prophecy—suddenly a sound is made from the commotion and collision of the bones which, gathered from various parts, were conferring themselves to their own joints and seats.
Nor could that sound be small, since there were very many bones, and those exceedingly dry, which were borne with great impulse to the divine command, and while they repeat their own places, in their haste they collide vehemently with one another. This cause of the sound is approved by Jerome and with him by very many others, to whom I altogether subscribe.
Others think the voice to be of the Angels, by whose ministry that whole business was being done. So Theodoret. Nor concerning these… [text unclear]… they rejoiced mutually concerning the spirit received, which life followed, or who praised the Lord from whom they had received that unexpected benefit.
Maldonado thinks the commotion was made by the earth which opened itself in various places that it might render bones from sepulchres, which afterwards were to be bound by sinews and animated by spirit. But surely the bones are not said to have been hidden in sepulchres but dispersed upon the surface of the earth, and the text itself not obscurely teaches whence that sound was emitted, because namely the bones approached to bones and bound themselves by mutual nexus.
Ezek 37:9: "Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe upon these slain": The corpses were lying with indeed the external species of men, inanimate minds, not otherwise than if they were of marble or carved wood, almost in the same way as the first man was formed from mud before the light of life approached. Wherefore the Lord orders that the spirit be called from the four winds which may give vital senses to the exanimate mole.
But here occurs something complex which it is necessary [to ask]: why the spirit is called, and why it is said to be from the four winds.
"Spirit": Hebrew Ruach. It is taken for the soul of the animal because it produces itself most by breathing. Whence when the signs of the life of an animal are lacking, nevertheless the breath persists, which signifies the animal to live, which other signs indicated to be extinct. Hence that [word] of Job (chapter 27, verse 3): "While my breath is yet in me, and the spirit of God in my nostrils," that is, as long as I shall live. Hence to expire is to die, and to breathe out the soul, which is proper to wind. Hence they say, nor unmeritably, that some origin was had from the Greek voice anemos, which signifies wind.
Surely among the Latins, anima is taken for wind which disturbs the air, inflates the sails of ships, and which we draw or emit by breathing or expiring. Hence that threefold motion… [text unclear]… To compress or contain the breath. Foetere (to stink), that is, for the breath to be grave.
For wind, authors passim, especially Latins: Horace (book 1, Ode 12): "Now the companions of spring, which temper the sea, impel the Thracian sails with breath," that is, the Thracian winds. And Virgil in Silenus: "They were the seeds of the lands and of the soul of the sea, and of the liquid fire simultaneously" (book 8). When he was treating concerning Vulcan who uses much for ironwork with bellows and fires, when he would promise all things prolixly from his ministry and art, he attributed this to him: "What can be done with iron and liquid electrum, so much fires and souls are able."
All optimally [says] Tully [Cicero] in Timaeus concerning air. "Thus," he says, "it happened that God placed air between fire, earth, water, and the soul, and compared and joined them by proportion, so that just as fire is to soul, so soul is to water, and whatever soul is to water, that water renders to earth by proportion."
Because therefore soul (anima) signifies both that nature which breathes and blows wind, namely, and the form which generates vital senses and pulses in living things, it happens that the common people think the soul is wind. To this is added that life is drawn by breathing. Wherefore, while the spirit is called from the four winds to inform and animate that heavy mole, the soul is called which by the common people is believed to be wind, so that from the parts of the orb whence just as many winds breathe, it may pour itself into those corpses again.
Moreover, Sacred Scripture is accustomed to accommodate itself to human thought and to assume speech from the midst of the crowd, as we have proved broadly in our commentaries on Isaiah, chapter 13, number 11. But the common people think the wind is the soul which breathes in us; indeed, they think the soul, after it has deserted the body, evaporates again into wind.
Aristotle attributes this opinion to Orpheus (book 1, On the Soul, last chapter), which Plato in the Phaedo refutes and ridicules. "There is no reason," he says, "why anyone should fear lest the soul, when it recedes from the body, be distracted and dissipated, and all life recede into the winds."
And Philostratus (book 2, Sophists) calls air soul; νoὴν (mind/spirit) he calls wind or blast, that is, he emitted soul. Also Ammianus (book 14) used this manner of speaking: "They," he says, "pierced by sword-points, prostrated, with souls loosed into wind, were cast out extinct."
From which sense Virgil, although he felt otherwise (book 4, Aeneid), concerning Dido when she fell lifeless: "And all heat slipped away, and life receded into the winds."
From which it is clear how common that opinion or delirium of men concerning the soul was at that time, when it introduced that mode of speaking into the custom of familiar speech.
And since Sacred Scripture does not abhor to call for wind from wherever it blows—from the four quarters of the orb, namely—in which it understands the vital spirit, Isidore Clarius approves this sentiment. Nor is it altogether disapproved by me, although I think the Jews were held by so crude an error, to whose opinion the Prophet accommodates himself, that they think the souls of men are airy and are inspired and bound to bodies by the breathing wind.
Others somewhat differently, among whom is Lyra, who when they deny that souls are airy, nor that there is anything common to the breathing, blowing nature with the soul (which is also called [spirit]) except the name, nevertheless say that in the blowing wind the vital [spirit], that is, the soul, is proposed to the Prophet.
For since this vision was imaginary, if nothing were in the soul which might move the sense and imprint some image of itself on the thought, something else ought to be offered which might express the nature of the form animating and vivifying most of all. But nothing seemed more commodious than wind, because it is subtle and thin and most easily of all things searches out and enters the most hidden and deepest recesses.
And indeed, that spiritual things which can be captured by no sense are expressed by wind is sufficiently customary in Sacred Letters.
First, the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) signified He had come into the hearts of the disciples in a violent blast.
Second, the grace given from the mouth of Christ showed a breath (John 20:22): "He breathed and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit."
Third, the Lord Himself (3 Kings 19:12) was known by Elias in the whisper of a thin air.
Finally, the soul is explained by the name of wind (Wisdom 15:11): "Because he knew not who formed him, and who inspired into him the soul which works, and who breathed into him the vital spirit."
And (Genesis 2) the soul is named the breath of life.
Which Jerome and Theodoret do not disapprove, indeed they incline very much to that sentiment when they say: just as when man was first created the Lord breathed into his face the breath of life, by which breath He signified the soul was infused into the body, so now by the blowing wind it is signified that the corpses were animated again.
But all these things, insofar as they are subject to some of the senses, could optimally inform the thought of the Prophet.
Why from the Four Winds?
Theodoret adduces this reason for this place: because God wished to show the Prophet, and through him the people, how easy it is for Him to restore all things.
But since to the four winds in that field, of which above, so great a multitude of bones had been dissipated, the spirit ought to be called from the four winds, that is, from the four quarters of the world, so that with the spirit blowing from wherever and the souls hastening to their bodies, it might appear more clearly to the Prophet that the bodies were animated and the thing was accomplished in a moment of time.
St. Basil observes aptly for this place on that [verse] of Psalm 33: "The Lord keeps all their bones."
"How," he says, "that the body of the Church may be aptly compacted, those who are considered the bones of the Church ought to consent among themselves," who namely on account of doctrine, authority, or other things which according to the Evangelical parable we call talents, are considered columns or bulwarks.
"Just as," he says, "bones by their innate force support the tender softness of flesh and contract it more closely, so likewise there are some in the Church who can by their own constant firmness support and bear the weakness of the weak."
"And just as bones are connected among themselves according to the commissures of joints, and these joinings are strengthened by sinews and ligaments which adhere to the bones, the same thing altogether happens if the colligation of charity and peace in the Church of God makes, as it were, a certain kinship of spiritual bones and conspiring into one."
Concerning bones of this kind moved or loosened from the harmony of concordant parts and, as it were, dislocated from their commissures and joints, the Prophet says: "Our bones are scattered by the side of hell" (Psalm 140:7).
Ezek 37:11: "These bones are the whole house of Israel": Hence it is plainly clear to what this hieroglyphic species looks: not that it may sketch the future resurrection of the flesh, but that it may portend the future liberty and happiness of the people.
In dry bones, dissolved from their compage and despoiled of flesh, the miserable fortune is optimally expressed, such as is feigned to be his who is subject to barbarous dominion, who is torn from his homeland, indeed distracted from himself in a way. For he is reduced to that misery that he cannot even provide for himself with impunity.
For he does not have eyes with which he may either decline evils or prospect utilities, because neither is any faculty given for declining evil nor for seeking good. Nor does he have hands or feet, because foreign will has bound them. Nor a tongue, which fear so compresses that he dares not even mutter in the highest pain before men inflated with victory and command.
Wherefore he who called servitude civil death expressed the nature and properties of servitude very beautifully. In these [captives] there is not flesh in which there is splendor and species, not sinews which join their members with a certain sweet nexus and make them turn to necessary and voluntary uses without any force and difficulty. Finally, in that state they are like bones exceedingly dry.
Surely Jeremiah describes the species of captives thus (Lamentations 4:8): "Their skin cleaves to their bones, it is dried up and made like wood." And (5:10): "Our skin was burnt like a oven by reason of the storms of hunger."
Moreover, these exiles are reputed as if already dead (Jeremiah, Lamentations 3:6): "He has set me in dark places as those that are dead forever." And Isaiah (chapter 32), when he says concerning the people in the same state: "For the house is left desolate," etc. "Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high" (Isaiah 32:14-15), which place colludes maximally with this testimony of Ezekiel.
"They themselves say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off."
From these things it becomes verisimilar to me that "dry bones" or "bones dried up" are taken proverbially for fortune so abject and desperate that no hope remains of better life or at least of lighter misfortune.
Here indeed from the familiar dialect of the Hebrews the note of similitude is to be understood in this sense: We are reduced to this point that we can be considered similar to those who have long since ceased to be among the living, whose bones have now dried up and are dissolved from one another and scattered variously.
Similar is the proverbial form in that "we are cut off," where without doubt the metaphor is taken from a tree which, when it is cut off from the earth, dries up immediately nor has any hope left in it of producing fruit or recovering the species which it lost.
Job used the same metaphor (chapter 19, verse 10): "He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone, and He has taken away my hope as from a tree that is plucked up."
Nor do I believe the metaphor is other in Isaiah (chapter 53) concerning the death of Christ: "Because He was cut off out of the land of the living," namely, just as a plant which, being cut off, draws no vital juice from the earth.
I think for the same cause those who are in that state that nothing useful can be hoped from them are called "dry," "cut off," namely, long since from the trunk or plucked from the earth.
Surely this people is called "dry wood" or "cut off" (Jeremiah, Lamentations 4:8): "Their skin cleaves to their bones, it is dried up, it is made like wood," namely, dry.
And this Prophet above (chapter 17, verse 9), when he was treating concerning the same people to be cut down by Nebuchadnezzar, says: "He will pluck up its roots, and cut off its fruits, and all the branches of its germination shall be dried up, and it shall wither." And he uses the metaphor more often in the same chapter, verse 10 and verse 24.
Wherefore the sense is the same in dry bones and a cut-off plant, by which words the exiles explained salvation and liberty. The Babylonians are thought by the Jews to please themselves thus in their own things.
Ezek 37:12-13: "Behold, I will open your graves, and bring you up from your sepulchres, O My people": To citizens to whom the homeland is dear, it is like life, because torn from their natal soil, just as trees from the earth whence they drew vital aliment, they sicken.
Jerusalem they ordered as if they had imposed perpetual silence on song and lyre, until they should return to it again (Psalm 136:6): "If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the jaws of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem, as the beginning of my joy."
Surely to the Jews, as Cornelius Tacitus is author (book 21 [actually Histories 5.5]), greater fear was inherent of exceeding the city than of life. "If," he says, "they were compelled to transfer their seats, greater was the fear of life than of death, because it was harder to lead life outside the homeland than to undergo death."
They seemed therefore to lie in tombs because they were absent from the homeland, which was for life or like life.
Therefore, they are said to have tombs opened and to be called out thence because from exile, which is like a tomb, they are to be recalled to the homeland, which obtains the place of life.
"O My People": But the Lord says when now He addresses the people more benignly: "My people," just as also in the verse immediately following, because now He looks upon them more propitiously and deliberates much more securely concerning their things than before.
Moreover, we observed above chapter 13, when God thinks something harder concerning the people or speaks to the Prophets, He is not accustomed to say "My people," as if He is affected as toward an alien, and he himself also assumes alien spirits, but He says "Your people" (Exodus 32, after the calf was adored, He says to Moses: "Go, get you down; your people have sinned"). And Ezekiel above chapter 13: "And you, son of man, set your face against the sons of your people." And chapter 33: "Speak to the children of your people."
A Question on Tombs vs. Field
Here someone might doubt why, when those [bones] exceedingly dry were not drawn from sepulchres as they were objected to the prophetic eyes, dispersed broadly over the surface of the field, in which recently we saw the multitude of Hebrews was expressed, now the Lord says those exiles who were reckoned as dead are to be drawn out of sepulchres.
Some think the bones were first hidden, then extracted and, that they might be objected to the eyes of the Prophet, were disseminated over the face of the earth. So Hugo conjectures.
I think one need not stick in this dissimilitude. Nor do I think all things singly are to be considered or compared with the image of things. Here only is signified in the bones, first dissolved and dispersed, the desperate fortune of the captives; in the same now joined by the nexus of sinews and animated by spirit, the liberty of the Jews, which is then expressed when they are said to be drawn out of sepulchres.
And since all these things are thus expressed aptly, nothing else being necessary, I think nothing further is to be labored by anyone, however much.
Especially since the place where corpses lie, whatever it be, however open, is accustomed to be called a sepulchre. Surely Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:19) is said to be buried with the burial of an ass, that is, under the sky and in a dunghill, where beasts are accustomed to putrefy.
Ezek 37:14: "And I will bring you into the land of Israel": Hence it is clear to what the spectrum of animated bones and reopened sepulchres tends. Namely, that the people may rise again to civil life, to liberty namely in their natal soil, outside of which the Hebrews did not think themselves to be among the living.
The Lord indicates the same immediately verse 14, when He explains what the infused spirit signifies, namely quiet and abundance in the homeland, with things so converted that they who before dragged civil death, the same afterwards may lead a truly vital life.
CONTINUE
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