He said unto me,
Ezekiel 37:3Son of man, can these bones live?
And I answered, O Lord God, Thou knowest.
Words: Philip Doddridge (1702–1751). Published posthumously in Hymns Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures, by Job Orton (Shropshire, England: Joshua Eddowes & John Cotton, 1755), number 146: Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones.
Music: Octavius Joseph E. Sweetser, 1865 (🔊 pdf nwc).
If you know where to get a good photo of Sweetser (head & shoulders, at least 200×300 pixels),
Look down, O Lord, with pitying eye;
See Adam’s race in ruin lie;
Sin spreads its trophies o’er the ground,
And scatters slaughtered heaps around.
And can these moldering corpses live?
And can these perished bones revive?
That, mighty God, to Thee is known;
That wondrous work is all Thine own.
Thy ministers are sent in vain
To prophesy upon the slain;
In vain they call, in vain they cry,
’Till Thine almighty aid is nigh.
But if Thy Spirit deign to breathe,
Life spreads thro’ all the realms of death;
Dry bones obey the powerful voice;
They move, they waken, they rejoice.
So when Thy trumpet’s awful sound
Shall shake the heav’ns, and rend the ground,
Dead saints shall from their tombs arise,
And spring to life beyond the skies.