Ezekiel 37:2 - Exposition

And he caused me to pass by them round about . Not over, as Keil, Klie-foth, and Plumptre translate, but round about them, so as to view them from every side. The result of the prophet's inspection of the bones was to excite within him a feeling of surprise which expressed itself in a twofold behold; the first occasioned by a contemplation of their number, very many , and their situation, in the open valley , literally, upon the face of the valley; i.e. not underground, where they could not have been seen, but upon the surface of the soil, and not piled up in heaps, but scattered over the ground; and the second by a discernment of their condition as very dry , so bleached and withered as to foreclose, not the possibility alone, but also the thought of their resuscitation.