The Valley and What Happened There
July 28, 2025 · GOD DID! by Sons of Sunday · Ezekiel 37:1-14
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 the valley which was full of bones... And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Ezekiel's answer to God's question is not yes or no. "O Lord God, thou knowest." It is a response that holds uncertainty and faith at the same time. He does not know if the bones can live. But he knows who does know, and he defers to that knowledge.
The vision God gives him is extended and strange: bones coming together, sinew and flesh forming, breath entering. The people of Israel, scattered and hopeless, are being shown in image what restoration looks like from God's vantage point. What appears to those inside the situation as a valley of death is, from outside it, a site of future life.
Songs that testify, songs of the "God did" variety, are often dismissed as simplistic. But the genre has deep roots in biblical lament and praise. The testimony song is a way of rehearsing what God has done so that both the speaker and the listener can locate their current experience inside a larger story.
Sons of Sunday's "GOD DID!" is in this tradition. The imagery of chains breaking and the pit releasing are not decorative. They draw on the language of Isaiah 61 and Ezekiel 37 directly, the tradition of liberation that runs through the prophets. The song is locating personal experience inside that long narrative.
Ezekiel's valley of dry bones is one of the most powerful images in the Old Testament precisely because it takes the worst case seriously. These are not sick bones or injured bones. They are dry. The moisture of life is gone. And God asks: can they live?
The testimony song says: they lived. I was in the valley. I have the before and the after. And it invites the listener who is still in the valley to consider that there is a God who walks through valleys asking if the bones can live, and who does not ask the question idly.