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VALLEY OF VISION;

OR

THE DRY BONES OF ISRAEL REVIVED.

AN ATTEMPTED PROOF

(FROM EZEKIEL, CHAP. XXXVII. 1–14)

OF

THE RESTORATION AND CONVERSION

OF THE JEWS.

BY GEORGE BUSH,

PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, NEW-YORK CITY UNIVERSITY,

NEW-YORK:

SAXTON & MILES, 205 BROADWAY,

MDCCCXLIV.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by

GEORGE BUSH,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

EXPOSITION OF EZEKIEL, CHAP. Xxxvii. 1-14.

THE VISION.

1 THE HAND OF THE LORD WAS UPON ME, AND CARRIED ME OUT IN THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD, AND SET ME DOWN IN THE MIDST OF 2 THE VALLEY WHICH WAS FULL OF BONES, AND CAUSED ME TO PASS

BY THEM ROUND ABOUT: AND BEHOLD THERE WERE VERY MANY IN

3 THE OPEN VALLEY; AND LO, THEY WERE VERY DRY. AND HE SAID UNTO ME, SON OF MAN, CAN THESE BONES LIVE? AND I ANSWERed, 4 O LORD GOD, THOU KNOWEST. AGAIN HE SAID UNTO ME, PROPHESY UPON THESE BONES, AND SAY UNTO THEM, O YE DRY BONES, HEAR 5 THE WORD OF THE LORD. THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD UNTO THESE BONES, BEHOLD, I WILL CAUSE BREATH TO ENTER INTO YOU, AND YE 6 SHALL LIVE: AND I WILL LAY SINEWS UPON YOU, AND WILL BRING

UP FLESH UPON YOU, AND COVER YOU WITH SKIN, AND PUT BREATH IN YOU, AND YE SHALL LIVE, AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE 7 LORD. SO I PROPHESIED AS I WAS COMMANDED: AND AS I PROPHESIED, THERE WAS A NOISE, AND BEHOLD A SHAKING, AND THE BONES

8 CAME TOGETHER, BONE TO HIS BONE. AND WHEN I BEHELD, LO,

THE SINEWS AND THE FLESH CAME UP UPON THEM, AND THE SKIN COVERED THEM ABOVE: BUT THERE WAS NO BREATH IN THEM.

9 THEN SAID HE UNTO ME, PROPHESY UNTO THE WIND, PROPHESY, SON OF MAN, AND SAY TO THE WIND, THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD: COME FROM THE FOUR WINDS, O BREATH, AND BREATHE UPON THESE SLAIN, 10 THAT THEY MAY LIVE. So I PROPHESIED AS HE COMMANDED ME, AND THE BREATH CAME INTO THEM, AND THEY LIVED, AND STOOD UP 11 UPON THEIR FEET, AN EXCEEDING GREAT ARMY. THEN HE SAID

UNTO ME, SON OF MAN, THESE BONES ARE THE WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL BEHOLD, THEY SAY, OUR BONES ARE DRIED, AND OUR HOPE 12 IS LOST: WE ARE CUT OFF FOR OUR PARTS. THEREFORE PROPHESY AND SAY UNTO THEM, THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD; BEHOLD, O MY PEOPLE, I WILL OPEN YOUR GRAVES, AND CAUSE YOU TO COME UP OUT OF YOUR GRAVES, AND BRING YOU INTO THE LAND OF ISRAEL.

13 AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD, WHEN I HAVE OPENED YOUR GRAVES, O MY PEOPLE, AND BROUGHT YOU UP OUT OF YOUR 14 GRAVES. AND SHALL PUT MY SPIRIT IN YOU, AND YE SHALL live, AND I SHALL PLACE YOU IN YOUR OWN LAND THEN SHALL YE KNOW THAT I THE LORD HAVE SPOKEN IT, AND PERformed it, saITH THE LORD.

PREFATORY REMARKS,

No one of the ancient prophets has more explicitly announced the restoration of Israel, in the latter days, than Ezekiel. However large a proportion of his oracles is devoted to the fortunes of his people during the period of their captivity in Babylon and their subsequent return to their own land, it has almost never been doubted by commentators that the closing chapters of his book. refer to their ulterior destinies, in a remote period of the Christian dispensation. Even when it is granted that there is a primary allusion to the restoration from Babylon, still the admission is freely made that there is at the same time an involved and inner reference to a final recall of the Jewish race from their prolonged dispersion among the nations, and their reinstatement in the land of their covenanted heritage. But it may safely be affirmed that this event is announced in many passages not as the secondary, but the primary burden of the prophet's oracle, and the chapter immediately preceding the present, viz. the thirty-sixth, is among the most distinguished of this class of predictions. Its grand scope is to announce, under the form of a bold apostrophe to the mountains, hills, rivers, and valleys, of the land of Israel, the return and resettlement of the exiled tribes all over the length and breadth of the desolate wastes. and the forsaken cities, which had been so long "a prey and a derision to the residue of the heathen round about." In a tone of burning rebuke against the proud usurpers who had exulted in their possession of the "ancient high places" of the chosen race—who had, “with the joy of all their hearts and with despiteful minds, appropriated the hallowed territory to themselves-the Most High addresses the desolate soil itself, and declares that the period

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