I've appended to this post some information concerning Fr. Knabenbauer and the famous Cursus Scripturae Sacrae Completus (Complete Course in Sacred Scripture) series to which his volume on Ezekiel belongs. Translated by Qwen.
Commentary on Ezekiel 37:1-14 by Fr. Joseph Knabenbauer, S.J.
Introduction
To increase faith, confidence, and the alacrity of spirits, a splendid image and figure of restoration is submitted, by which is demonstrated to the eye that which seems to men plainly impossible to happen, nor able to be effected by human powers in any way. That God is both able and willing to do this is a famous vision, celebrated in the reading of all the churches of Christ.
Ezek 37:1: "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of a field which was full of bones."
St. Jerome [S. Hier.]: He calls the action of the Spirit of God upon Himself "the hand of the Lord."
St. Ephrem [S. Ephr.]: See [Ezekiel] 1:3 and 33:22.
Hebrew: Translate with the LXX and Syriac, also according to the Masoretic accents: "And the Lord brought me out in the Spirit." Or "Yahweh." Cf. Pinto, Calmet, Trochon. This mode of speaking is also formed in 8:3 and 11:24.
Sense: I was not led bodily from place to place, but all this was shown to me imaginatively through the spirit. For I seemed to myself to go out to a certain field, etc. (Pinto). Or, as Theodoret notes, this is again a spiritual contemplation; for he did not perceive with bodily eyes those things which were shown to him, but he perceived the revelation of the Most Holy Spirit.
Ezek 37:2: "And He led me around among them in a circuit; and behold, they were very many upon the face of the field, and exceedingly dry."
He orders the bones to be considered attentively. He made him circle around all those bones, which were not covered with earth but lying upon the field. And not only many, but very many, and on account of the antiquity of time, dry and exceedingly parched, having no moisture in themselves.
St. Jerome: Therefore, they were removed as far as possible from every appearance or shadow of life. In this matter, just as in the multitude, the greatness of the miracle and divine power is depicted by their resuscitation.
Ezek 37:3: "And He said to me: Son of man, do you think these bones will live? I said: O Lord God, you know."
By a question posed, the attention of the seer is excited to a matter far surpassing all human powers. That is, it seems plainly impossible for this to be done by men; the whole matter lies with the power and will of God.
Ezek 37:4: "And He said to me: Prophesy concerning these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."
God wishes to recall them to life not immediately by Himself, but through the Prophet as a ministerial or instrumental cause. This is accommodated to the whole manner of God's dealing with men, and especially to the mode by which He wishes to prepare the people for restoration through the Prophet. As is customary in oracles, those very things concerning which prophecies are poured forth are interrogated. This is done for the solemnity of speech, and simultaneously exhibits clearly that the whole matter is obedient to the nod of God, and nothing resists the will of God, but all things hear the voice of God, even if otherwise they do not hear at all. For God "calls those things which are not, as those which are" (Romans 4:17).
Ezek 37:5: "Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live."
Ezek 37:6: "And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow upon you, and will cover you with skin, and will give you spirit, and you shall live: and you shall know that I am the Lord."
In verse 5, the event is proposed summarily; in verse 6, it is described through individual degrees. First, the bones are joined with other bones by the bonds of sinews; then they are filled with flesh, and above, for beauty, the skin is extended, which may cover the ugliness of naked flesh; and then they receive the spirit which makes them live. And after they have lived, then let them know that He is the Lord. (St. Jerome).
Ezek 37:7: "And I prophesied as he had commanded me. And behold, as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a commotion. And the bones came together, each one to its joint."
Ezek 37:8: "And I saw, and behold, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin was stretched out over them above, but they had no spirit."
The Prophet executes the commands. Even here the principle "He spoke, and they were made" holds. First, a strepitus or crash occurs.
Hebrew: Qol (voice/sound).
Vatablus [Vat.]: Explains it concerning thunder.
Others: Concerning the sound of a trumpet or the voice of the Lord. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:52: "For the trumpet shall sound."
Commonly: However, concerning the crash of the bones moving themselves and approaching their body and companion, and colliding with one another (Maldonado, Marckius, Lapide, Menochius, Calmet).
Commotion: They similarly accept this either concerning an earthquake (so it seems to the LXX seismos; for that seismos declared the advent of God, as Theodoret expounds: if God descends, the earth is said to tremble; similarly Vatablus). Others accept the voice concerning the crash or creaking of the bones (Marckius, Trochon, Schröder, Keil, Smith). Others posit both acceptations: either an earthquake or [the crash of] the bones.
St. Jerome: This also seems [correct]. Immediately a commotion was made, and the bones were applied to their own framework, bound by sinews, filled with flesh, covered with skin.
Hebrew: Qol is not present in the LXX; yet phone (voice) is read in Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and also St. Jerome in his version made from the LXX, he expresses "voice," which is also read without an asterisk in Ezek 12:22-23, 26. The other word Ra'ash says both tremor and strepitus or tumult. See Ezekiel 3:12, 13; 12:18; 38:19; 1 Kings 19:11-12; Isaiah 9:4; 29:6, etc.
In this place, it seems more convenient that the voice be accepted concerning the crash or commotion of the bones, so that to the voice of the Prophet immediately a response is made, as it were, by the sound and motion of the bones. This delineates the efficacy of his words more than an interposed thunder and earthquake.
Just as in the first formation of man, the effecting of the body and the immission of the vital soul are separated and described distinctly and clearly, so that it may be apparent that the soul does not derive its origin from the preceding matter, so the same is observed in this figure of life being reduced. (St. Jerome, Theodoret).
Ezek 37:9: "And He said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe upon these slain, and let them live."
Spirit [Ruach]: Explain here concerning the wind, which is a certain image of the vital spirit, and which, while it is borne upon the bones, symbolically aptly expresses and shows their animation to sight and hearing.
Ezek 37:10: "And I prophesied as he had commanded me. And the spirit came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army."
From verse 9, it is to be considered that when the Prophet was uttering those words by the order of the Lord, the wind breathed upon the bones, upon which deed those living bodies arose, and an innumerable army stood before the seer, full of admiration.
Ezek 37:11: "And He said to me: Son of man, all these bones are the house of Israel. They themselves say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off."
Now the Lord Himself opens to the seer what this vision and this image means. Therefore, in the dry bones, the extinguished republic of the Jews is depicted, and the abject condition of the exiles, destitute of human powers when considered by themselves, [and] all hope. Therefore, the bones of the slain are said to be killed by violence, and simultaneously by that image it is represented how the exiles themselves pass judgment concerning their civil state. For just as dry bones cannot of themselves receive a soul and return to life, but must necessarily be aided by divine favor, so the Hebrews, established in Babylonian servitude, could neither return to their homeland by themselves nor be freed from miserable captivity unless God miraculously snatched them (Pinto).
Whence what is portended by that image is now placed beyond doubt. For God shows that, the bones having been raised, it will also come to pass that those who seemed similar to the dead will be freed from captivity and oppression in which they were, as it were, buried, and restored to their former condition (Maldonado, similarly Marckius, Lapide, Tirinus, Calmet).
Therefore, that their hope may be raised, that they may persuade themselves that their affairs will be aroused to new vigor by God, and that those who now seemed cut off from life and delivered to death will be reduced by the Lord to a new and better condition of theocratic life, therefore God promises them liberation with His power interposed.
Ezek 37:12: "Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and bring you up from your sepulchres, O My people, and will bring you into the land of Israel."
In "tumuli" and "sepulchres," He hints that although the state of captivity is most miserable, so that the whole people is considered by others as plainly extinguished and buried in everlasting destruction regarding the civil state, nevertheless He is both able and willing to liberate those buried in opprobriums and trampled by the Gentiles and devoted to destruction, and elevate them to new vigor.
By such a work, God will show Himself truly the living God, who, as He is perfect life, so He is able to recall His own to true life and effect that whatever He has said and promised, He truly brings to effect. Wherefore optimally the Hebrew name Yahweh is interposed.
Ezek 37:13: "And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have opened your sepulchres, and shall have brought you up from your graves, O My people."
Ezek 37:14: "And shall have put My spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall make you rest upon your own land: and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, says the Lord God."
Therefore, they are led to new life because God will give His spirit into their minds. The Spirit of the Lord will be the fountain and, as it were, the motor of new life. Whence again, since the Spirit of the Lord is holiness itself and can impel the mind of man only to holy and noble things, the character of spiritual restoration is declared.
For what the Spirit of the Lord, infused into minds, is about to effect, the seer has already taught splendidly in Ezek 36:26-27 and Ezek 11:19.
Note: Also in verses 12, 13, the repeated address of the people is to be noted, by which God, showing His benevolent soul, gently solaces the dejected and exhibits Himself to His people as a good shepherd (Ezek 34:12, 15).
Also here, the return into Judea is proposed as the beginning and prelude of restoration. By the Spirit of the Lord having been received, true life and unperturbed peace are signified to be present. For with Him present, that life is had from which all goods flow from the treasury of God.
Theological Discussion: Literal Sense vs. Resurrection
From those very things which are read in the sacred text, it is perspicuous that here an oracle is not poured forth primarily and per se concerning the resurrection of the dead. For those bones are not the bones of the dead simply, but of the slain, to whom, as is explicitly stated in verse 11, the house of Israel is designated, the miserable status of the people in exile, the republic destroyed.
The life itself inspired into those bones signifies, from verses 12–14, the return from captivity and the institution of a new theocracy. And interpreters also acknowledge this to be the sense of the image directly and per se (cf. St. Ephrem, Jerome, Theodoret, Vatablus, Maldonado, Marckius, Lapide, Tirinus, Calmet).
There are, however, those who wish the argument to be drawn from the resurrection of bodies as from a most certain thing to that liberation (Pinto), or that both are demonstrated equally here (Menochius).
But already St. Jerome adverts against those who think God is speaking concerning the resurrection which is believed by all, both Jews and Christians, questioning that which is said in verse 11, because it is said not concerning the general resurrection but properly concerning the resurrection of the house of Israel, which says: "Our bones are dried up." And if, as some arbitrate, the divine speech concerns the general resurrection, what need was there to say specially: "And I will bring you into the land of Israel," since the dead ought to rise in the whole orb of the earth from those places in which they are buried?
But the Doctor proceeds: Those who interpret this place concerning the resurrection of the dead ought not to make envy against us, expounding this place otherwise, as if we seem to deny the resurrection. For we know much more robust testimonies, and in which there is no doubt, to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Then he adduces Job 19:26, Daniel 12:2, Matthew 10:28, Romans 8:11. From this it is perspicuous that we do not deny the resurrection, but contend that these things are not written concerning the resurrection, but concerning the restitution of Israel is prophesied through the parabola of resurrection.
But simultaneously, he shows indirectly that from that parabola one can arrive at the resurrection of the dead itself, nor shall we immediately give occasion to heretics if we deny that these things are to be understood concerning the common resurrection. 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 not existing.
And our whole assertion tends to this: that just as it seems incredible that future resurrection is promised to dry bones and those confeated by much antiquity, and yet that which is promised will be future, so also the restitution of the people of Israel seems indeed incredible to those who do not know the power of God, but nevertheless it will be future.
In the same way Tertullian also speaks: "A figure could not be composed concerning bones, if that very thing were not going to happen to bones themselves. For although the figment of truth is in the image, the image itself must necessarily be in the truth of itself, prior to itself, to which others may be configured," etc. (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, c. 30, Migne 2, 837).
And not a few embrace this manner of arguing. Thus Maldonado adverts to verse 11, from which it is perspicuous that this place does not concern the future resurrection, although even from this it can be proved. For God would not have proposed this similitude of bones unless the dead were going to rise again. For He is not accustomed to propose parables except in those things which can and do happen. Similarly, Calmet confesses that only obliquely and, as it were, consequently, is the resurrection of the dead demonstrated from this. Furthermore, to the same sentence approach Reinke (Die messianischen Weissagungen, 4, 1, p. 125), Loch, Trochon, and others.
Preparation for the Doctrine of Resurrection
If we consider the vision itself, it is perspicuous without any doubt that the power of God is exhibited, which is able to recall even the dead to life. And if you weigh for what purpose that vision is conceded to the Prophet, it is equally certain that this power of God is given as a kind of pledge that God is both able and willing to lead the people from that miserable state to a new and better life.
But furthermore, one ought to have before the eyes at the same time how the doctrine of the true resurrection of the dead was already prepared and indicated among the Israelites by other sayings of Scripture. For a way is, as it were, paved to it while we read: "The Lord leads down to hell and brings up" (1 Kings 2:6); and Amos 9:2: "If they shall descend even to hell, thence shall My hand lead them out," etc. By which words, at least, the thought is injected into minds that it can be done that someone be reduced from the infernal regions to this life.
From which thought is not alien that which is proposed to King Ahaz to be chosen (Isaiah 7:11): "Ask you a sign… in the depth of hell," by which words even the resurrection of some dead man is left to the option of the king.
If by these places the thought concerning resurrection is injected into minds, now from others in which the full destruction of death and victory to be reported over death is finally announced, easily steps can be made, at least to a certain opinion and conjecture concerning future resurrection.
Indeed, if death is to be completely destroyed and a triumph to be held over it, that immense prey which death has made, i.e., those corpses, must be snatched from it. Otherwise, death still reigns victor in its kingdom, which consists of corpses. Wherefore the words "He will cast down death forever" (Isaiah 25:8), and "O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite" (Hosea 13:14), do not seem alien from the thought of future resurrection.
More clearly and distinctly that notion is expressed (Isaiah 26:19): "Your dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and give praise, you that dwell in the dust: for your dew is the dew of the light, and the earth shall cast out the dead." (Hebrew: See commentary on Isaiah, Part 1, p. 482, 484).
Therefore, since these things preceded the times of Ezekiel and injected the doctrine of resurrection into minds, it almost necessarily had to happen that in this vision not only should they perceive what God could do, but rather they should perceive that God, who was one day going to reduce corpses to life, by His power now wishes to render all certain by that argument concerning the new life to which He is about to elevate the people.
Wherefore not imméritly many Holy Fathers draw an argument from this place of Ezekiel for persuading the truth of the resurrection, e.g., Clement Romanus (Ep. 1 to Corinthians, c. 50, Migne 1, 313), Justin (Apol. 1, n. 52, Migne 6, 405), Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 5, 15, 1, Migne 7, 1164), Origen (Hom. 7 on Leviticus, 2, Migne 12, 481; Tom. 10 on John, n. 20, Migne 14, 371), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 18, 15, Migne 33, 1036), Epiphanius (Anchor, 99, Migne 43, 196), Ambrose (On the Interpellation of Job and David, 1, 5, 15, Migne 14, 804; On the Holy Spirit, 3, 19, 149, Migne 16, 811; On the Death of His Brother, 2, 73, Migne 16, 1335). Also the author of Questions to the Orthodox, q. 45, puts forth the same argument (Migne 6, 1289). Reinke (l.c., p. 125) and Tailhan (Analyse biblique), Kilber (Part 1, p. 449) recount very many other Fathers.
Moral Application
Since this vision concerning the dry bones is applied to the house of Israel, which was ejected into exile on account of sins, others accommodate it also to sinners.
Hear, for example, Pinto: Since by captivity sin is understood, and those who were captives are compared to dry bones, there is no doubt that by dry bones sinners are understood. And rightly so. For it cannot happen that the impious be justified by their own powers from themselves. But when they return from the death of sin to the life of justice, this is attributed to the mercy of God, who bestows His grace upon the sinner.
Biographical Information: Fr. Joseph Knabenbauer, S.J.
Joseph Knabenbauer (1837–1914) was a prominent Luxembourgish Jesuit biblical scholar of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Life: Born in Fentange, Luxembourg, on October 5, 1837. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1856. He taught Sacred Scripture at the Jesuit colleges in Innsbruck (Austria) and Vienna. He died in Vienna on February 16, 1914.
Scholarship: Knabenbauer was known for his rigorous critical method within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy. He was part of a generation of Jesuit scholars (alongside figures like Franz von Hummelauer and Cornelius a Lapide's later editors) who engaged with historical-critical questions (textual variants, authorship, historical context) while maintaining traditional doctrinal interpretations.
Works: He wrote commentaries on most of the Major and Minor Prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Minor Prophets) and the Gospel of Matthew. His style is characterized by concise Latin, extensive referencing of Patristic and later Catholic commentators (Jerome, Aquinas, Maldonado, etc.), and engagement with Hebrew and Greek textual variants.
The Cursus Scripturae Sacrae Series
Title: Cursus Scripturae Sacrae (Course of Sacred Scripture).
Publisher: Victor Lecoffre, Paris.
Period: Published primarily between the 1880s and early 1900s.
Context: This was a major French-led Catholic commentary series designed to provide a comprehensive, scholarly Catholic alternative to the rising Protestant and Rationalist critical commentaries of the 19th century (such as those by Keil & Delitzsch or Dillmann).
Editors/Contributors: While often associated with Fulcran Vigouroux (who edited the popular La Sainte Bible), the Cursus featured specific volumes by leading Jesuit exegetes. Knabenbauer's Commentarius in Ezechielem (1890) is a key volume in this series. Other contributors included Cornely (Pauline Epistles), Fillion (Gospels), and Trochon (Old Testament historical books).
Significance: The series represents the state of Catholic biblical scholarship prior to the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) and before the full flowering of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. It balances traditional allegorical/tropological readings (common in earlier Jesuit commentaries like Maldonado) with a stronger emphasis on the literal-historical sense and textual criticism, as seen in Knabenbauer's frequent references to the LXX, Syriac, and Masoretic text.
CONTINUE
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