The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."
Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' " (Ezekiel 37:1-6)
Ever since the end of season 3, it has been my dream that the theme of resurrection that has been woven into the tapestry of Lost would one day play itself out in the form of literal resurrections in the plot. And so, even though John Locke is my favorite character on the show, I was ecstatic to see that it was he in the coffin at the end of season 4 because it meant that, in all likelihood, he would be raised to life again, i. e., resurrected. And somehow, though it seems like it should have been so obvious, I didn't see it coming.However, one thing I did dream up at that time, over a year ago, was that perhaps the pit of the skeletons of former DI members was intended to be a reference to the valley of the dry bones in the book of Ezekiel. In this story, God gives the prophet Ezekiel a vision in which he is shown valley of dry bones belonging to dead Israelites. God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and tell them to live, and the bones begin to reconstitute themselves and grow tendons and flesh. They become an army of living Israelites ready to take the promised land back after a long exile. The vision is given to Ezekiel as a message of hope for he and his people, that God will indeed restore them to their land. (I have quoted part of the passage above. If you'd like the read the rest, you can do so here.)
And now you might see why I'm getting excited all over again by the new Dharma video that was debuted at this year's Comic-Con. Our beloved Dharma tour guide, Dr. Marvin Candle (who reveals his real name to be Pierre Cheng), pleads with whomever might see his video that they must reconstitute the Dharma Initiative. It's an interesting word choice. There are numerous other words that could have been used here: reform, recreate, rebuild. Better yet, he could have worded it as "form a new Dharma Initiative," which would seem to be much more in sync with the whole Octagon Global Recruiting gimmick. Reconstitute though seems to have the connotation of taking old parts and putting them back together again. (Dictionary.com gives the words reconstruct and recompose as close synonyms.)
My theory is that the scene from season 3 with Locke lying in the pit of Dharma skeletons was a bit of foreshadowing in more ways than one. Locke will be raised from the dead, and with him will be an army of formerly dead DIs, ready to take back the promised land. Now THAT will be something to see!
