Ezekiel 37:10,11

An exceeding great army— This vision itself, in the first place, affords a very lively image of the resurrection; next, they who are raised to life again, are said to be an exceeding great army; the Hebrew is still more emphatical, and even labours for expression: מאד מאד meod meod, A very very great army; like that of all nations and kindreds and people, which no man could number, Revelation 7:9. It is yet farther observable, that these dry bones, so miraculously raised to life, are called, Ezekiel 37:11. The whole house of Israel; an expression to which the return from the captivity of Babylon can never wholly answer; for it is most certain, that the whole house of Israel did not return: no, nor yet the whole house of Judah, but only a small remnant of them. If some more glorious return of that people, and their conversion to the Christian faith, is still to be expected, (Romans 11:25.) yet it may be questioned whether even this will fully answer the intent of the prophesy: for, to have a right notion of this matter, it may behove us to consider carefully the complaint of the captive Jews, to which this prophetic message is applied as a remedy. The complaint we have in these words; Behold, say they, our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: We are cut off for our parts; that is to say, as to ourselves. Hebrew לנו lanu. Certainly there must be something meant by this expression; and if there be, let any one judge whether a deliverance of their sons and grandsons from the Babylonish captivity (for none can say that they were promised it before the end of seventy years, of which the far greater part was still behind,) could any way answer the complaint here made, of a lost hope, or a despair, as to themselves; much less a promise of a deliverance to their late posterity, at the distance of some hundreds or thousands of years, though we conceive it to be never so great and glorious. Take the words that follow, then, in their obvious sense, and as a promise of some personal happiness to those who faithfully adhere to God in all their straits and difficulties, and it affords a consolation highly worthy of the divine omnipotence and greatness to reach out to his creatures; and though we suppose them before acquainted with the doctrine of the resurrection, yet there is something in this plain and circumstantial account of it, delivered with such high authority, which could not but renew upon their minds a pleasing hope and expectation of it, sufficient to silence all complaints.