Catholic Commentary
The Second Prophetic Word: The Breath of Life
9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’”10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Ezekiel 37:9–10 describes the prophet Ezekiel commanding the divine breath (ruach) to come from all four directions and animate the reassembled bones of slain Israelites into a living army, symbolizing national restoration from exile. Ezekiel's obedient prophetic word serves as the instrument through which God restores life to those who have been catastrophically destroyed, prefiguring both bodily resurrection and the Pentecostal animation of the Church.
Form without breath is death—Ezekiel's vision calls us to prophesy the Spirit into our assembled but lifeless faith.
Ezekiel 37:9 — The Command to the Wind
The Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruach) appears four times in this single verse, creating an incantatory density that is impossible to render in any single English word. The RSVCE and most translations must choose between "wind," "breath," and "spirit" at different points, but in the original, these are inseparably one: Ezekiel is told to call the cosmic, life-giving breath of God — associated everywhere in Hebrew thought with the power of creation itself (Gen 1:2; 2:7) — to animate what is inert. The command "prophesy to the wind" is extraordinary: the prophet's authoritative word (dabar) is extended not merely to inorganic matter (the bones, vv. 4–8) but to the divine ruach itself, who is addressed as a distinct agent that can be summoned and sent.
The phrase "come from the four winds" (מֵאַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת) literally means "from the four breaths/winds," that is, from every quarter of heaven. This is a summons of totality and universality: no corner of the cosmos is excluded from the gathering. In the ancient Near Eastern symbolic world, the four directions represent the completeness of creation. Ezekiel does not invoke a local, tribal deity but the Sovereign of the whole cosmos.
The designation "these slain" (הַחֲלָלִים הָאֵלֶּה) is significant: the word חָלָל denotes those killed, often violently, in battle or by sword — not those who died of natural causes. This amplifies the radicality of the restoration being promised. God is not merely reviving the lethargic; he is restoring those who have been catastrophically, violently destroyed. For the exiles in Babylon, who experienced the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple as a kind of national death, this language would have struck with particular force.
Ezekiel 37:10 — The Fulfillment
Verse 10 is a masterclass in prophetic obedience and divine fidelity: "I prophesied as he commanded me." Ezekiel does not hesitate or question the absurdity of speaking to the wind. His immediate, unconditional obedience mirrors the structure of all prophetic efficacy in Israel: the word, faithfully spoken, does what God intends (Isa 55:11). This is not magic or technique; it is covenantal partnership — God chooses to act through the mediation of a human voice.
The sequence that follows — "the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet" — recapitulates and exceeds Genesis 2:7, where God breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living being (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה). Here the act is communal and eschatological rather than individual and primordial: an entire people, a "great army" (חַיִל גָּדוֹל מְאֹד מְאֹד), is reconstituted. The doubling of מְאֹד ("exceedingly great") is a Hebrew superlative of emphasis; the risen assembly is not a remnant but an overwhelming, militarily capable host — the nation's vitality fully restored.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
The literal sense addresses Israel's national restoration from Babylonian exile. But the Fathers and the Church consistently read deeper senses here:
Typological (resurrection of the dead): The passage is a prefigurement of bodily resurrection. The two-stage process — bones reassembled, then breath infused — anticipates the Christian doctrine that the resurrection involves the reunion of the same body and the same soul, not a new creation from scratch.
Typological (Pentecost and the Church): The summoning of the Spirit "from the four winds" to animate a single assembled body is a type of Pentecost (Acts 2), where the Spirit descends as wind and fire upon the gathered community, constituting the Church as Christ's living Body. The "great army" echoes the militant, missionary Church.
Allegorical (Baptism and new life): Origen and others read the vision as an allegory of the soul dead in sin being vivified by the Spirit in Baptism and repentance — the bones are the remnants of our natural life, the breath is sanctifying grace.
Catholic tradition brings several distinct lenses to these verses that enrich their meaning beyond what a purely historical-critical reading yields.
On Bodily Resurrection: The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§993) cites the Valley of Dry Bones vision as a direct witness to Israel's progressive revelation of bodily resurrection: "The revelation of the resurrection came about progressively... the prophet Ezekiel... gives a glimpse of bodily life." The two-stage logic of Ezekiel 37 — the bones clothed with flesh before the breath arrives — is theologically important for the Catholic doctrine that the same body, transformed and glorified, is raised (CCC §999). The resurrection is not a replacement of the old but a vivification of it.
On the Holy Spirit: St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. Gregory of Nyssa both identify the ruach of verse 9 with the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, the "Lord and Giver of Life" (Dominum et vivificantem) — a phrase from the Nicene Creed that Pope St. John Paul II unpacked in his 1986 encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem. He explicitly linked the Spirit's role as life-giver to this passage, noting that the Spirit does not merely restore biological function but confers a new ontological status — the life of God's own children (§§ 12–14).
On the Church and Sacraments: St. Ambrose, in De Spiritu Sancto, reads the four winds as symbolizing the universal reach of the Spirit given in Confirmation, sealing believers from every corner of the earth into one Body. The "great army" is the Church Militant, animated not by human strategy but by divine breath. Vatican II's Lumen Gentium (§4) echoes this pneumatological ecclesiology: the Spirit "dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple... He guides the Church into the fullness of truth."
Contemporary Catholics live in a cultural moment that Ezekiel's vision diagnoses with uncanny precision: there are in many places forms of religion — its bones and sinew, its structures and language — that persist without evident life. The skeleton is assembled but the ruach has not yet been summoned. These verses issue a direct challenge: genuine renewal in the Church does not come from reorganization or rebranding but from prophesying — that is, from speaking God's word faithfully — and then waiting upon the Spirit who comes as he wills, from every quarter.
Practically, this passage invites a Catholic to ask: In what areas of my spiritual life do I have the form of faith without the breath? Regular Mass attendance, sacramental practice, doctrinal knowledge — these are the assembled bones. But Ezekiel reminds us that the Spirit must be actively and boldly invoked. This is a passage for Confirmation preparation, for charismatic renewal, for parish renewal programs, and for anyone enduring what St. John of the Cross would recognize as spiritual aridity — the experience of being the bones without the breath. The double command to "prophesy!" insists that faith must keep speaking even before the life is felt.