So I prophesied as he commanded me: See Ezek 37.7.

And the breath came into them: See the previous verse. Contemporary English Version says “the wind blew among the bodies,” and New Living Translation (1996) has “and the wind entered the bodies.”

And they lived may be rendered “Then they came to life again” (New International Reader’s Version), “and they came back to life” (Contemporary English Version), or “they came alive” (Christian Community Bible).

And stood upon their feet may be rendered simply “and stood up” (Good News Translation). It is not necessary to specify upon their feet, unless that is part of the normal expression for standing.

An exceedingly great host renders a very strong phrase in Hebrew, which is literally “a very, very large multitude.” It means there was a huge crowd of people (compare New Revised Standard Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, which say “a vast multitude”). The Hebrew word for host sometimes refers to an army and some translations try to reflect that; for example, Contemporary English Version has “and there were enough to make a large army” (similarly Good News Translation), New International Version says “a vast army,” and New Century Version translates “a very large army.” However, the main point of this phrase is not the army, but the huge numbers of people that had just come back to life. Translators will do well to use the strongest possible terms in their language to show the huge numbers of people involved. They may need to express this phrase with a separate sentence, such as “They were a huge crowd.”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .