'Bones' in the Bible
I'll place the corpses of the Israelis in front of their idols. I'll scatter your bones around your altar.
Gather together the best pieces of meat on it including the thighs and the shoulders and fill it with the choicest bones.
Take the best bones from the flock, pile wood under the pot for the bones, bring it to a boil, and then cook the bones in it."'"
Pile up the wood! Make the fire burn hot. Boil the meat! Mix the seasonings. Burn those bones to a crisp!
They won't be buried with dead warriors from ancient times, who went straight to Sheol, buried with their war weapons, with their swords placed under their heads and their shields laid on top of their bones, since they spread terror throughout the land of the living.
You haven't strengthened the weak, treated the sick, set broken bones, regathered the scattered, or looked for the lost. Instead, you've dominated them with brutal force and ruthlessness.
"I'm going to seek both the lost as well as the scattered, and bring them both back so their broken bones can be set and the sick can be healed. But in righteousness I'll exterminate the fat and the stiff-necked.'"
The LORD laid his hand on me and brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD to the middle of a valley that was filled with bones.
He led me here and there throughout the valley, and I was amazed to see that the surface of the entire valley was covered with myriads of very dry bones!
The LORD asked me, "Son of Man, will these bones ever live?" "Lord GOD," I replied, "you know the answer to that!"
Then the LORD told me, "Prophesy to these bones. Tell them: "You dry bones, listen to the message from the LORD: "
This is what the Lord GOD says to you dry bones! "Pay attention! I'm bringing my Spirit into you right now, and you're going to live!
So I prophesied, just as I had been ordered to do so. Immediately there was a noise and a rattling and then all of a sudden the bones came together by themselves! Each bone came together, all of them attached together!
As I continued to watch, I saw tendons growing on the bones, and muscles growing and covering them, and then skin covered the flesh from above. But the bodies weren't breathing.
"These bones represent the entire house of Israel," the LORD explained to me. "Look how they keep saying, "Our bones are dried up, and our future is lost. We've been completely eliminated!'
As scouts go searching throughout the land, whenever they see someone's bones, they will place a sign beside the remains until the remains have been buried in the Valley of Gog's Gang.