Chapter One

The Vision of the Glory of God on the Cherubim

Ezekiel 1:1. And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. “And.” Besides the book of the Prophet Ezekiel, books that begin with “and” are: Exodus, Joshua, Ruth, Judges, Kings, Jonah, Esther, 1 Maccabees. Consequently, for an ancient Hebrew such a beginning of books presented nothing as unusual and strange as it does for us. But in the case of most of these books such a beginning finds some explanation in the fact that these books are continuations of preceding ones. At the beginning of the book of Ezekiel, however, “and” is especially unexpected. One must pay attention to the fact that “and” stands here not only before the first sentence of the book, but also before the second, completely independent sentence, yet connected with the first by a relationship of temporal sequence (the second “and” in the Russian translation is rendered “when”). In order to give the speech roundedness, smoothness, and solemnity, so important at the beginning of a book, “and” is placed not only before the second sentence, but also before the first. Such “and” has an analogy in the Greek μεν, the Latin nam, itaque. Consequently, the beginning of the book of Ezekiel with “and” does not give grounds for concluding that at the beginning of the book there was some lost passage, for example, an account of another vision (Spinoza Tract, theol.-pol. p. 10) or information about the prophet’s earlier life (Clostermann, Ezechiel in Studien u. Kritiken 1877, 391 and following). “In the thirtieth year.” The year of his call to prophecy Ezekiel calls the thirtieth, without saying from what this year was the thirtieth. But in verse 2 the prophet fills in this unclear date, noting that this 30th year was the 5th year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin. There are the following explanations of this enigmatic date. 1) The ancients (Origen, Ephrem the Syrian, Gregory the Dialogist, partly Saint Jerome) understood here the 30th year of the prophet’s life. In favor of this understanding speaks the following consideration: “if this is the 30th year of the prophet’s life, then Ezekiel came forth to his prophetic service at an age when under other circumstances he should have received priestly ordination; in this year he received spiritual baptism to prophecy, as a rich replacement for the lost priestly service” (Kraetzschmar, Das Buch Ezechiel 1900). This was that fullness of age which by the decrees of Providence proved necessary for the Savior Himself for the beginning of His service. But if here is the 30th year of the prophet’s life, then he should have added “of my life.” 2) Others (e.g., the Targum, the rabbis) think that the chronology here begins with the 18th year of Josiah, when in the temple of Jerusalem the book of the law was found and when the long-abandoned Passover was solemnly celebrated, thus laying the foundation for the religious and moral renewal of the Judean kingdom, and consequently of all Israel of that time – the beginning of a new era of its life. From this event to the call of Ezekiel, indeed, about 30–32 years passed. Since in the year the book was found God through the prophetess Hulda confirmed His threats of impending disaster to Judah, then in the opinion of Saint Theodoret and others this year can be considered the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, all the more since according to Ezek 4:6 from the call of Ezekiel there remained Jude 40 years of captivity, consequently the year of the prophet’s call was the 30th year of captivity. But, however great the public significance of the mentioned event might have been in the life of the Jews, certainly there were events in the lives of the Jews more important, and they did not become eras: for example, the building of the temple; there is no record that Josiah introduced chronology from here; and the consequences of Josiah’s reform were not such that other kings would have grounds to begin a new chronology from it. Such an era in the time of Ezekiel would have been too young for him to use without explanation. 3) The most widely spread opinion about the 30 year Ezek 1:1 is that this is the 30th year of the Babylonian, so-called Nabopolassar era, from the reign of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar: Nabopolassar reigned (according to “the Canon of Kings” of Ptolemy) 21 years, Jehoiakim in Judea, in whose 4th year of reign according to Jer 25:1 Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne, after Nabopolassar reigned another 8 years, and (omitting the reign of Jehoiachin) 5 years from the captivity of Jehoiachin will give 34 years. Since Ezekiel’s vision is marked with two eras and one of them is Jewish (verse 2), the first should relate to the Chaldean kingdom where the prophet lived; Daniel marks the years by the reigns of Babylonian rulers (Dan 2:1 and others), while Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra mark them by the Persian ones, with the latter like Ezekiel marking the years of Artaxerxes by bare numbers (Hag 1:1 cf. Zech 1:1; Ezra 6:15). But leaving aside the incomplete coincidence of this era with Ezek 1:1, it is not confirmed by other places in the Bible. 4) Some still suppose here the 30th year of a jubilee. But jubilee chronology is used only by the rabbis, not by the Bible (they begin counting jubilees from the entry of the Hebrews into Canaan). Although the destruction of Jerusalem was placed in the 36th year of a jubilee, for which reason the call of Ezekiel falls on the 30th year of a jubilee, perhaps the rabbis in their reckoning of jubilees based themselves precisely on Ezek 1:1-5. Modern exegetes suppose here a corruption of the text: Bertholet considers the date a gloss referring to the 30th year of captivity, the Hebrew commentator Luzzato (commentary 1876) a corruption of “13th year of Nebuchadnezzar,” Kraetzschmar supposes here an omission of the words “of my life.” Although one cannot fully agree with any one of the given explanations, it is remarkable that each of them behind the 30 years before Ezekiel’s call indicates one or another important event from which the prophet indeed could have been reckoning his chronology; but from which precisely he was reckoning, this remains unknown or, more precisely, was left unknown by him. But might not this very silence give the key to the explanation? Could the prophet himself have indicated from what his year of vision comes to be thirtieth? If this year came to be the 30th from some specific event in time, then nothing could have prevented the prophet from naming this event. But the starting point for reckoning certain mysterious times and periods in the Bible is not always a precisely determined individual event in time: exegetics is powerless to precisely determine from what should be reckoned the 400 years “of the sojourning of the seed of Abraham in a land not their own” (Gen 15:13) or the 70 weeks of Daniel, as if the beginning of these symbolic periods is lost to human understanding in the sacred darkness. That which happened to the Prophet Ezekiel on the Chebar was, as we shall see, an event in the history of Israel significant enough to have such symbolic periods as Egyptian slavery and Babylonian captivity. And it came to pass at the fulfillment of a known number of years “30” whose symbolism is beyond doubt – from something such that cannot be named or pointed out by human finger. It was proper for a vision full of mysteries – the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel on the River Chebar – to have a mysterious date. And in no way could the prophet have better and more strikingly warned the reader at the outset about the terrible mysteriousness of what he was about to relate than by determining the time itself through a symbolic and inexplicable number. Such an explanation of the date Ezek 1:1 may seem strange to our, European one might say thinking. But one must bear in mind that the first verse of Ezekiel with this date incomprehensible to our ears was read and copied for ten centuries in this form, with this bare number 30, and no scribe or rabbi thought of the possibility of an error here, no one dared to correct the prophet and complete his thought. “In the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month.” While other prophets indicate only the year of their call (Jeremiah), some limit themselves to marking the reigns in which they carried on their service (Isaiah, Amos, and others), and some do not name the time at all (like the place) of their activity (Nahum, Habakkuk, Jonah), the Prophet Ezekiel besides the year indicates also the month and day of his call, because no prophet was called to his service so shattering in nature, by which the day of his call could not but be imprinted on Ezekiel’s soul. And in general, “later biblical writers display much more chronological care than the earliest ones” (Hävernick, Commentar über d. Pr. Ezechiel 1843). The month of the prophet’s call was the fourth, of course, of the sacred or Passover year, which alone is known to sacred writers (Zech 1:7; Esth 2:16), and not of the civil year which began with the month of Tishrei (September); even the existence of the latter among the Hebrews is doubtful and is supposed only on the basis of Lev 25:12. The fourth month of the Passover year corresponded to June-July. So, the call of the prophet was in the height of Oriental summer with its heat, interrupted at times by devastating storms: and the vision of the prophet began with a storm. “When I was among the captives.” Literally, “and I among the prisoners.” The auxiliary verb is deliberately omitted: in the analogous Nehem 1:1 it is present. With the verb the expression could have only a concrete meaning: the prophet was (during the vision) in the company of prisoners; but “that someone was with the prophet during the vision is not suggested by the form of expression, different from Ezek 8:1” (Kraetzschmar). Without the verb the expression takes on the character of a general introduction of the author to his reader of his own person: “I am of the captives by the river Chebar.” Moreover, everywhere in the book the prophet mentions his first vision, he connects it with this river; evidently here too he names this river not only as the place of his residence, but also as the place of his vision. The distinctive mode of expression (without “was” Nehem 1:1 and without “found,” “sat” Nehem 8:1) permits precisely such a twofold meaning in it. Theophanic visions frequently occurred on the banks of rivers and seas: Daniel had two visions on the banks of rivers; apocalyptic visions were given on the open sea. In respect to suitability for visions, waters can rival with mountain peaks and deserts, these usual places of visions and theophanies: in the sound of water there is always something mysterious, the voice of the Almighty (Ezek 1:24; Ps 41:7-8; Ps 92:3-4). Perhaps Ezekiel in the described case of ch. 1 “sat on the bank of the Chebar, being moved by the sound of waters to lofty thoughts which had as their subject the terrible fate of him and his people” (Kraetzschmar). “Captives” – Hebrew golah. This noun, derived from a root homophonic and synonymous with the Russian “gol’” (“golah” – to strip Gen 9:21 and others) entered into literary use with the Babylonian captivity (2 Sam 24:15) and became among the population of Judea spared by the conqueror a special name for those pining in captivity (Ezek 11:15). More precisely the meaning of this collective noun is rendered by the Slavonic “plenenie” (captivity); “captives” – the meaning is softer than required; Westerners prefer the simple transliteration – golah. With this one word alone the prophet sufficiently sketched both the external conditions of his life and the state of his spirit. Contrary to the opinion of recent biblical scholars (e.g. Stade, Gesch. d. v. Isr. II, 1–63) the condition of the Jewish captives in Babylonia, at least at first, could not have failed to be harsh: it took hard labor to find the means of life in an unfamiliar land where the captives were of course given the worst, unwanted parcels of land. One is struck by the fact that the prophet cannot name by name the place of his residence, his city or village. He indicates only the river, on the bank of which lived the Hebrew colony to which he belonged. Probably this was only an emerging, being built by the toil and sweat of the captives, insignificant settlement, not yet having received a name. And for his future prophetic activity God designates for Ezekiel not this his initial residence, but another, probably more significant and wealthy settlement Tel-Aviv (Ezek 3:15). “Chebar” (according to the Masoretic text Kevar) of the Prophet Ezekiel was formerly identified with Chabor 2 Sam 17:6, probably a tributary of the Tigris, on which the Assyrian kings settled Israelite captives, then with the Sabora of Ptolemy (5, 6) also Ἄβορρας (lib. 16) a tributary of the Euphrates flowing from the Masian mountains and emptying into the Euphrates near Carchemish. But both these rivers lie north of Chaldea. In the region of ancient Chaldea proper, neither has it been preserved, nor is it known from monuments, a river with such a name. But in lower Mesopotamia not only rivers but even the smallest canals were called nagar “river,” as the Prophet Ezekiel calls the Chebar. Rawlinson put forth the supposition that the Chebar was a large canal in lower Mesopotamia connecting the Euphrates with the Tigris and called nar-malha “royal river”; during Pliny’s time there was a tradition that this canal was dug by a regional chief named Gobar (Knabenbauer, Ezechiel propheta 1890). More light on the location of Chebar is shed by the discovery made by Hilprecht in 1893 in Niffer, ancient Nippur, to the S.E. of Babylon; in the documents he found there (and published in The babylonian expedition of the university of Pensilvania) contracts from the times of Artaxerxes I (464–424) and Darius II (423–405) the name naru kabaru is mentioned twice as the name of a large navigable canal lying at Nippur; it is supposed that this is the present Shatt-el-Nil, representing an ancient canal 36 m. in width; it leaves the Euphrates at Babylon, flows to the S.E., passes through the middle of Niffer, and empties again into the Euphrates at Warka, ancient Uruk. “Kabaru” in Assyrian means “great”; the name indicates that this was one of the main waterways of Babylonia. The form “Kevar” instead of “Kabar” is explained by a dialectical pronunciation of the name, as from Babylonian Puratu, Persian Ifratu in Hebrew became Perat (Euphrates) or else this form is due to the punctuators who vocalized qvr according to the familiar to them Perat. “The heavens were opened.” “The opening of the heavens understand as having happened not as a result of a division of the firmament, but by the faith of the believer, in the sense that heavenly mysteries were opened to him” (Saint Jerome). From the description of the Chebar vision it does not appear that at it the heavens opened in the proper sense as at the baptism of Christ, before the saints Stephen, Paul, John the Theologian; rather it seems a heavenly vision descended to the prophet on earth; such were all the visions of Ezekiel: they were heavenly scenes, but on earth (VIII–XI, XL–LIV). The expression relates not so much to the Chebar vision, which the prophet will begin to describe only from verse 4, but to the character of all his activity: beginning his book, whose distinctive feature is visions, it was natural for him to warn the reader about this and to note when the series of visions began and when heaven was opened before him. Such meaning and purpose of this expression is confirmed by the following sentence: “and I saw visions of God,” where the plural shows that the prophet is speaking of all his visions; if in Ezekiel at times the plural of this word is used in relation to one vision, it is only when the vision is too complex and presents a whole series of pictures, as for example the vision of chs. VIII–XI; but concerning the vision of chs. XL–XLIV the plural (in Ezek 40) is only in some codices. “Of God” can mean “which God produces” (genitivus subjecti), as well as “in which God is seen” (gen. objecti).

Ezekiel 1:2. On the fifth day of the month (this was the fifth year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin) If one bears in mind that verse 1 does not yet speak of the Chebar vision but generally of the beginning and character of the prophetic activity of Ezekiel, then verses 2 and 3 will not contain those seemingly insurmountable difficulties (particularly the repetitions) that led to suspicions of the authenticity of the entire beginning of the chapter (Cornill deletes verse 1, others – verse 2, etc.). Could the prophet have begun the description of his first vision more simply and clearly than with the words: “on (the mentioned above) fifth day of the month – this was the 5th year of the captivity of King Jehoiachin – there came the word of the Lord to Ezekiel” etc.? From the customary (stereotypical) beginning of prophetic books Ezekiel made only that insignificant deviation that he prefaced such a beginning with a remark (in verse 1) concerning the abundance of visions in his book and when and where these visions began, when heaven opened before him – a remark, in view of the distinctive character of his book, far from unnecessary. It is completely in the spirit of not only Hebrew but also every language so ancient to convey the idea “in the mentioned, in the named day through” a repetition of the nearest numerical designation of it. – The mysterious and perhaps subjective date of verse 1 the prophet in this verse translates into a simpler, clearer, and more objective date, from which the reader sees in what period of the national life of Israel his call to prophetic service occurred. Other prophets date their speeches by the years of reigns; for Ezekiel, living so far from his homeland that news from there arrived barely in 1.5 years (cf. Ezek 33:21 and Jer 39:1), this was inconvenient; moreover, the kingdom of Judah soon fell. The chronology of Ezekiel sounds sorrowfully: years of captivity instead of years of reign! “Jehoiachin.” Hebrew Jehoiachin, this is a briefer writing instead of the full Jehoiakim (2 Sam 24:6; 2 Chr 36:8 and following). Just as in Ezekiel, this king is named in 2 Sam 25:27 and the Septuagint renders it Ἰωακείν, in Slavonic Jehoiachin. This is how it should be written here too. The writing “Jehoiakim” is erroneous and probably arose from a confusion of this king with his father Jehoiakim. In the book of the Prophet Jeremiah this name is already written Jehoiachin, in the Septuagint Ἱοχανίας (Jer 24:1), as here in them; the difference arose because the name of God contained in this word (it means “God will strengthen”) is placed here at the end of the word, and there at the beginning. The form “Jehoiachin” has now become customary. The captivity of Jehoiachin occurred in the 8th year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Sam 21:12), and Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne in 604 B.C.; consequently Jehoiachin (with Ezekiel and others) was taken into captivity in 597–598 B.C., and the call of Ezekiel was in 592–593 B.C.

Ezekiel 1:3. And the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, a priest, in the land of Chaldea by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was upon him there. “The word of the Lord came.” However miraculous and unprecedented in all Old Testament history was the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel on the river Chebar, this vision had its greatest importance for him not from its extraordinariness, but from the fact that through this vision he was called to his service, that it made him a prophet; through it God for the first time spoke to him in that voice in which He spoke to His prophets. The expression “the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel” sounds solemnly, placed here as it seems out of place. The reader expects after such an expression to read an exposition of what God said to the prophet – but instead before him unfolds the terrible in its grandeur picture of the vision, and the reader begins to understand that the word of the Lord which the prophet heard was at first a silent word, a word without words, yet all the more shattering and powerful. For this solemnity the expression “it came” in the Hebrew is expressed twofold, through an indefinite with an indicative, as in Gen 18:18: “Abraham being shall be in a great nation” – an emphatic (strengthened, energetic) construction, not rendered for some reason here as in Genesis in the Septuagint. The solemnity of speech explains also that the prophet replaces here (cf. Ezek 24:24) the personal pronoun “I,” by which he designated himself in verse 1, with his own name and indeed the full one – with the addition of his father’s name and even the title priest: “to Ezekiel, son of Buzi, a priest.” The name “Ezekiel” not applied to the present prophet (who in the Old Testament is nowhere named, except Sir 49:10) is found elsewhere only in 1 Chr 24:16, as the name of an ancestor of the 2nd priestly order under David (there it is rendered in Slavonic “Ezekiel” in Greek Ἐζεκηλ). The name (accurate pronunciation – Yehezkel, in Hebrew jargon – Hatzkel) consists of the verb hazaq “to be strong” and the name of God El (Elohim) and means (as does the name Hezekiah from “hazaq” and “Yehova”): “God is strength,” “God will make, makes or make strong”; Origen (homil in Ez. 1) explains it as “dominion of God,” and in Hieron. Onom. Sacr. (II, 12) it is explained as “brave of God” or “conquering God.” “The name contains the faith of pious parents at the birth of their son” (Kretz.). It meant that “Ezekiel would not have the tenderness and sweetness of heart of his contemporary Jeremiah, but in its place an amazing strength of spirit (cf. also with the name “Isaiah” – “salvation of God.” Hävernick). Perhaps this was the prophet’s name not from birth but official, adopted when he received his call from God (Hengstenberg. Die Weissangungen des Pr. Ezechiels erklarte, 1867–1868). A reference to the prophet’s name is found in him in Ezek 3:8. The name of Ezekiel’s father Buzi means “despised,” perhaps indicating the low position which for some reason the prophet’s family occupied in Jerusalem (contrary to the assertion of some based on Ezek 44:10-14 that the prophet belonged to the aristocratic priestly family of Zadokites who held the best positions); there is no basis for the rabbinical opinion that Buzi is identical with Jeremiah, given such a name by those displeased with his rebukes. The appellation “priest” can be grammatically in the Hebrew language be referred both to the nearest noun “Buzi” and to Ezekiel. The Septuagint, Jerome, and all ancient translations refer it to Ezekiel and justly, because the prophet himself and not his father should be most directly defined (cf. Jer 1:1). Even if Ezekiel did not hold the office of priest, the title was inseparable from him by virtue of his descent according to a certain line from Levi. With Jehoiachin, priests were also carried away into captivity (Jer 29:1). The priestly origin of the prophet explains much in his book; but the prophet mentions it not only for that reason, but also because he valued this title. “In the land of Chaldea by the river Chebar.” The repeated indication by the prophet of the place where his call occurred serves as one of the chief grounds for critics to suspect the incorruptness of verses 1, 2, and 3. Indeed in verse 3 this indication is somewhat unexpected. Ewald (Die Propheten des Alten Bundes. 2 Aus. 2 B. Jeremia and Heseqiel, 1868) explains such a repetition by saying that at the time of writing the book the prophet was already living in a different place.

1 Samuel 18:46. “And the hand of the Lord was upon him there.” This expression is used in the Bible of any direct, miraculous, and particularly strong action of God upon a person (1 Kings 18:46; 2 Chr 30:12; 2 Sam 3:15; Ezek 3:14; Acts 13:11); but in Ezekiel it invariably precedes the description of each of his visions (Ezek 1:3; Ezek 3:22; Ezek 8:1; Ezek 37:1; Ezek 40:1); consequently he designates by it his state upon the onset of a vision (ecstasy) as produced clearly by immediate divine power and somewhat heavy for a human being (cf. Dan 10:8 and the expression of the psalms: “the hand of the Lord was heavy upon me”). Ezekiel 1:4. And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came from the north, a great cloud and a fire flashing itself, and brightness around it, The description of the mysterious vision of the prophet on the river Chebar begins. This vision, in which the prophet was shown heavenly beings (cherubim) and their transcendent activity and relationships, was revealed to him through purely earthly phenomena, phenomena of nature, although reaching an unusual and even impossible in the natural course of nature degree: a whirlwind, a large cloud (thundercloud) and the appearance of some special fire. All these phenomena can be united in the concept of a storm, which concept the prophet himself uses as a definition for the first of the indicated phenomena – the wind (“whirlwind”). Obviously it was preceded by the present vision of God not a simple and natural storm, but a storm which one might call a storm of theophany. Many important theophanies in the Old Testament were accompanied or preceded by such a storm – the Sinai theophany (Exod 19:16-18), to the prophet Elijah (1 Sam 19:11-12); God also spoke to Job from a storm (Job 38:1; cf. Zech 9:14; Ps 49:3). The appearance of a storm before and during theophany is understandable. If God can appear and be at a known place on earth, then the earth at that place, as well as a person, if not completely unable, then at least with difficulty can bear the presence of God on it; at that place to which God “descends,” nature cannot help but enter into a state of confusion. – The trembling and convulsion of nature at theophany is expressed first of all in wind, which is nothing other than a disturbance, a vibration of the air. Therefore theophanies are often accompanied, as is the present one, by wind: so wind accompanied the appearance of God in paradise after the fall (“and in the cool,” as the Slavonic “afternoon” is an imprecise translation of Hebrew larua(ch) – “in the wind” in Gen 3:8), theophany to David at one battle with the Philistines (1 Chr 14:14-15) the appearance to Elijah on Horeb. In verse 12 we shall see that the wind seen by the prophet on the Chebar possessed such an extraordinary quality that it is scarcely applicable to it the name wind, and the Septuagint for good reason here translates the Hebrew ru(a)ch not as ανεμος “wind” as in Ezek 13:11, but as πνευμα “spirit.” “It came from the north.” Since in the wind came to the prophet God Himself, the glory of the Lord (verse 28), all interpreters reasonably consider it very significant that this wind came from the north, but they explain it in different ways. 1) The majority thinks that the north is taken as the place from which the most destructive invasions came against the Jews, from which the attack of Nebuchadnezzar was also threatening; cf. Jer 1:13-14. But the prophet at the moment of the vision is precisely on that north from which the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar was being prepared; the north in relation to this north would be Media and other regions from which nothing threatened Judah at that time. 2) Others think that the mention of the north concerns the widespread belief then that in the northern part of the sky was the entrance to the dwelling and palace of the gods; since the sun’s motion causes one to suppose the south to be leaning downward, the north appears to lie higher and with its high mountains – the Lebanon, the Caucasus – reaching the sky. Usually the ancients imagined gods dwelling on one of these mountains supporting the sky under the very pole (Greeks on Olympus). This mountain, it is said, was in view of the prophet Isaiah in Isa 14:13-14 (cf. Ps 17:3; Job 37:22; Job 38:1; Ezek 28:14). But if there existed and was known to the Jews such a mountain with which such pagan Eastern beliefs were connected, then to any pious Jew this mountain could appear a place of action of dark powers – the mountain of demons (who are the gods of the pagans); could the prophet have thought God came from such a mountain? 3) Finally some suppose that the prophet represents God coming to him from the not yet abandoned (cf. chs. X–XI) dwelling of His in Jerusalem, in the temple. But Jerusalem lies west of Babylon, not north. The question will be somewhat illuminated if we compare this case of the appearance of the Glory of God with other cases of its manifestation. At the very least, in some of these cases God chose for His procession over the earth as it were intentionally a certain direction, and in the choice of these directions one cannot help but notice a certain regular alternation and sequence. So until the Prophet Ezekiel and his so critical epoch for Israel, whenever the sacred writers speak of the direction from which the Lord and His glory come, they always in that capacity indicate the south: Deut 33:2; Hab 3:3. But at the end of the book of Ezekiel, where the prophet speaks of the future glorious restoration of the Holy Land, the future distant, the Glory of the Lord directing itself toward the new temple for eternal dwelling in it, comes already from the East. Only from the west, the land of darkness and evil, the Lord never came. “A great cloud.” God appeared on earth repeatedly in a cloud: thus He led Israel through the desert, was present in the tabernacle (Exod 40:34, cf. Ezek 33:9-10) and in the temple (1 Sam 8:10-11). The participation of a cloud in theophany had the sense that God covered Himself by it from those to whom He appeared. In this case, as at Sinai (Judg 5:4; Ps 67:9-10), the theophanic cloud was part of the storm which accompanied theophany (cf. Job 38:1), was the thundercloud of this storm. But of course as much as the storm of theophany exceeded an ordinary storm, the theophanic cloud exceeded a simple, however large, thundercloud (the prophet makes this clear by the definition “great”), exceeded it by a) density reaching complete envelopment of the earth in darkness (Ps 17:10; Joel 2:2; Zeph 1:15; Deut 4:11; Heb 12:18); b) lowness above the earth reaching complete descent to the earth (Ps 17:10 and others), for which reason such a cloud, consequently and the present one, should have resembled a whirlwind. (Cook in The Holy Bible 1876 puts this word in the text of Ezek); hence is understandable the addition of the Septuagint about this cloud that it was “in it,” that is, in the wind, whirled and borne by it. “And a fire flashing itself.” Together with wind and cloud came on the prophet a fire. These were three great complete visions, equal to each other, dreadful each by itself and terrible in their union. The interpretation of the determination which the prophet gives to this fire differs – according to Hebrew mitlahahat (Russian “flashing”). This word occurs only in Exod 9 and also applied to the fire which together with hail, the 7th plague of Egypt, poured over the land. The Septuagint, translating this word as εξαστραπτων “flashing” (fire of lightning), think that this is frequent lightning; but to denote lightning in the Hebrew language there is a special word baraq, used constantly even in psalms with their figurative language. Mitlahahat is a reciprocal form of the verb lakah “to take.” But it is difficult to find meaning for such a form from this verb. The majority, including our Russian Bible translation, following the Vulgate, understand this form from the verb lakah about the external appearance, the contour, the mode of burning of the fire – that it was a fire flashing, rolling, twisting, coiling, rather than spreading (it is possible, they say, that the coils of fire wound through all the cloud): others – continuously here and there arising. These explanations sin against the value of the verb lakah, which never loses its basic meaning “to take” and in no voice cannot have such distant and artificial meaning as the Russian “to grasp” in the sense of “to seize each other,” “to form a circle.” And in respect to the fire, lakah can have only one meaning – “to engulf” the burning substance, “to consume it”; and since this fire came to the prophet as came wind and cloud, then it had to burn everything on its path, and consequently the very path of wind and cloud; it engulfed their common road (hence also – reciprocal form); it was therefore such the same fiery river as flowed in the vision of Daniel before the throne of God. Like wind and cloud it arose not from natural cause but was kindled by the descent of God and by it burned the place through which God was passing. In old times thus burned Mount Sinai “because of the descent of God upon it,” the path by which God passed before Elijah on Horeb, the thornbush from which God was making revelation to Moses; fire and smoke passed between the separated parts of animals at the theophany to Abraham (Gen 15:17); when God is called “a consuming fire,” it is this characteristic of His appearance that is meant. In such fire, as in wind, storm, earthquake, the convulsion of nature at the appearance of God in it manifests itself: in the air this convulsion produces a strong, whirlwind; the earth from the appearance of God shakes and trembles; waters wave and roar (Hab 3:10); combustible substances are ignited and burn. It is known that the last coming of God to earth will be in “flaming fire.” (2 Thess 1:8). “And brightness around it,” that is, the fire spread brightness around it. In order that this remark not be idle, one must suppose that the prophet wishes to draw attention to the extraordinary brightness and strength of the brightness spread by the aforementioned fire, as well as to the fact that this brightness stood out too sharply in the darkness with which the vast cloud of theophany enveloped the surroundings. In the Septuagint this remark stands before the words “fire flashing,” where it apparently fits better; then the pronoun “its” would refer to the cloud, rather than to the fire to which it cannot refer in the Hebrew because of its grammatical gender – masculine.

Ezekiel 1:5. And from its midst as it were the appearance of electrum, out of the midst of the fire; and from its midst appeared the likeness of four living creatures, – and this was their appearance: the shape of them was like a man; “From its midst.” What is “its”? In the Hebrew here the pronoun is feminine; consequently “its” cannot be referred to the nearest noun “brightness,” which in Hebrew is masculine; one cannot refer it to the noun “fire” which is too far away; moreover the fire of verse 4, as we saw, engulfed the earth under the phenomenon moving over it, and with brightness, light of verse 5 shone, as verse 27 shows, the God sitting above the firmament; one cannot refer the pronoun to the noun “cloud” which is even further and masculine. To which noun then should we refer it? To none. As we shall see further in verse 5, the feminine pronoun with the preposition “from the midst” replaces the non-existent in the Hebrew language a neuter pronoun: “from the midst of this,” “from the midst of all this,” all that was seen by the prophet thus far, shone “the appearance of electrum.” “The appearance of electrum,” Slavonic “the vision of amber” – both a conjectural translation of Hebrew gen hashmal, of which the second word is a hapax legomenon (found only in Ezekiel and in this connection). The focal point of everything seen thus far by the prophet was something which had the appearance (Slavonic “vision” is more precise than Russian “light”) of electrum. The prophet could not say that it had “a likeness” of electrum or the actual appearance, the outline of electrum; only “as if” a spark. Being a word identical in letter to the word “eye,” which differs only in pronunciation (gain), gen is used of a small surface, of a glittering point: perhaps a spark of a precious stone (Ezek 1:16), of glittering metal (Ezek 1:7), of scabs of leprosy (Lev 13:2), sparkling in wine poured into a vessel (Prov 23:31). The meaning of gen foreshadows an approximate meaning and the mysterious word hashmal (Russian translation “fire,” Slavonic “amber”). It should mean some kind of small, glittering object that gleamed and sparkled in the surrounding light and fire. But what exactly this object was, all the efforts of interpreters to say something about it have resulted in almost nothing. Only in two other places in the prophet is this word used, and in both cases in the description of the appearance of Him Who appeared to him in the vision. Having the general likeness of a man, He Who appeared to the prophet was altogether shining and radiating like fire, and above the loins as electrum (Ezek 1:27) and as zohar, “brightness,” “radiance” (Ezek 8:2). Thus the radiance of fire and lights seemed to the prophet insufficient for him to form a concept from them of that light which he saw: this light stood out and shone brightly on the field of fire itself (“from the midst of the fire”) differed by some shade from the light of fire and surpassed it: it shone above the heads of the living creatures (verse 27, cf. 22). The brightness of fire and of heavenly bodies seemed to the prophet insufficient to express what he saw: the light which he saw with his own eyes surpassed all comparison. Some have attempted to form a concept of hashmal from etymology, but it itself presents a puzzle. There is no root in the Hebrew language close to this word; but such a root is sought in related languages and on this basis the word is given meaning: “golden copper” (cf. Ezra 8:27), “polished copper,” “amber,” “incandescent or glittering metal,” they consider the word an ancient name for gold (Meyer) or for pure fire, without smoke (some recent rabbis) 3. Recent discoveries are beginning to shed light on the mysterious “hashmal” of the Prophet Ezekiel. In the list of booty taken by Thutmose III from Nagar in northern Syria (the list is placed on tablets found in the ruins of Karnak), mentioned is “ashmere” or “ashmal.” It reminds also of the Assyrian “eshmaru,” which is placed alongside gold, silver, precious stones and royal regalia brought by Ashurbanipal upon the conquest of Susa from the treasures of this city. All this allows us to say so far about hashmal that it was some kind of great and rare jewel, not inferior to gold and precious stones. In the Prophet Ezekiel it is indeed placed infinitely higher than topaz (more precisely some precious stone “tarshish,” which in its turn was placed much higher than gold – see Ezek 1:16) and higher than sapphire (see 26). The Septuagint, not understanding probably this word as Peshitta and Targum (leaving it untranslated) also, resolved to translate it as ἤλεκτρον apparently on the following grounds: they, like present-day interpreters rightly thought that under this word is understood some kind of jewel and most likely a metal of high value; on the basis of Dan 10:6 (cf. Mark 9:3; Matt 28:3) they could suppose that the light seen in this case by the prophet and differing from the red light of fire was the light of lightning. But if one compares this light to the light (luster) given off by some metal, then no comparison will be more precise than comparison with electrum. Being a mixture of 3/4 or 4/5 gold with 1/4 or 1/5 silver, this alloy was highly valued in antiquity, scarcely less costly than gold (Pliny, Hist nat. XXXIX, 4; Strabo 3:146) probably because of the difficulty of its preparation and its beauty; into the blinding sparkle of gold this mixture brought the quiet and gentle gleam of silver, similar to how “the unbearable radiance of Godhead was moderated in Christ by the union of His with humanity” (Saint Jerome). “From the midst of the fire.” This addition some following the Vulgate which translates it “id est de medio ignis,” consider an explanation of the expression “from its midst” (at the beginning of the verse) made by the prophet himself; but this would be an unheard of in Ezekiel pleonasm. Therefore others suppose that the hashmal was as it were incandescent in the fire; but noble metals melt in fire, they do not become incandescent; and was hashmal a metal? The most natural sense these words acquire in the light of verse 27: according to this verse hashmal shone precisely from the midst of the fire, only not of the fire of verse 4, but of another mass of fire which as with a garment clothed the One Sitting on the throne. – The Septuagint after “from the midst of the fire” has the addition “and light in it,” made apparently based on verse 26, which more precisely from the Hebrew would be: “and light to him,” or “in him” (lo), that is “and the hashmal, the electrum was something (strongly) radiant, filled with light, woven from light and brightness.” “And from its midst.” The pronoun “its” in the Hebrew here feminine, just as at the beginning of the verse, here replaces the neuter and means “from the midst of all this,” that is all that was seen by the prophet thus far – were visible mysterious creatures: the wind bore them (verse 12), the cloud enveloped them, the fire ignited under them (verse 4) and between them (verse 13), the electrum – hashmal shone above their heads (verse 27, cf. 22). The Slavonic “in the midst” (without the pronoun) is not a variant, but a skillful translation of the expression so unclear in the Russian translation. “Likeness.” Hebrew demut can mean a likeness very distant, indefinite, bordering on the opposite (Isa 40:18-19 about the likeness of pagan gods to God), Western biblical scholars do not dare even translate this word with a noun but translate descriptively “as if,” “something like”; a closer likeness is meant in Ezekiel by other words, for example mare (“appearance”); “demut” the prophet uses of parts of the vision less noticeable and clear, which yet prove to be the most important: about the faces of creatures, about the wheels, about the throne and the One Sitting on it. Consequently how far the similarity extended of the creatures seen by the Prophet Ezekiel, the word demut does not permit one to say. If the figures appearing to the prophet were barely discernible, if they had barely visible indefinite outlines (contours, silhouettes), the prophet could say that he sees the “likeness” of creatures. To what extent unclearly appeared to the prophet the figures of creatures, at least at first, is shown by the fact that up to verse 10 he cannot determine which creatures these were. The mysterious creatures appearing to the Prophet Ezekiel were “four.” This number is symbolic, which is evident from the persistence with which it is carried through in this vision: not only 4 creatures, but also 4 faces in each of the creatures, 4 wings, 4 wheels. 4 is the symbol of spatial fullness, as it embraces all the cardinal directions; therefore the body seen by Nebuchadnezzar meaning all the universal monarchies has 4 component parts; the Prophet Daniel sees 4 beasts and before their appearance a battle of 4 winds comes forth (Dan 7); according to Ezek 14:21, if God wishes to destroy some nation, He sends 4 plagues upon it; the spirit which vivified the dry bones in the vision of Ezekiel came from 4 winds (Ezek 37:9). Being the number of spatial fullness, 4 is therefore also the symbol of completeness, conclusion, fulfillment, exhaustiveness, as 7 is of eternity, infinity (of space and time). As such these numbers are applied to the enumeration of the highest spirits – cherubim and archangels. Remarkable is not the great number of these nearest ministers of the throne of God, in contrast to the thousands of thousands and ten thousands of ten thousands of angels. – The creatures appearing to the prophet were “living creatures,” they were cherubim, as the prophet learned subsequently at a repetition of the vision (in ch. 1 he nowhere calls them cherubim), and learned perhaps from the fact that God Himself called these creatures cherubim before him (Ezek 10:2). The form of creatures for cherubim could be chosen in place of the human form because a creature should have a more complete, strong and concentrated sense of life and existence itself than a human, in whom this sense is weakened by consciousness, reflection; and as such an animal can be a symbol better than the human form of the most complete bearers of created life – cherubim. Moreover, the life of creatures is more mysterious to us than our life; therefore, serving as a symbol of life full and strong, creatures can also serve well as a symbol of life mysterious; hence the representation of Messiah in the form of a lamb, a bronze serpent, the Holy Spirit – in the form of a dove. The expression “and this was their appearance – the shape of them was like a man” means that in the creatures appearing to the prophet there was as much likeness to creatures as to man. The prophet expresses by this the general impression from the creatures which appeared to him. Therefore it is wrong to seek here indications of those or other particulars in their figure; so some say that the present expression of the prophet obliges one to think of everything in the figure of creatures as human, except what is enumerated further (wings, feet), – therefore for example the corpus of creatures should be imagined as vertical, not horizontal (Bertholet), the body as featherless and hairless (Hitzig). Since the cherubim were as much like creatures as like a man, the corpus should have been simultaneously vertical and horizontal; how such a union of positions is possible is shown by the winged figures of lions and bulls discovered in Assyro-Babylonia with human torso. The impression from such creatures could not be other than shattering, and sacred fear is felt in the lines of the prophet – fear unsurprising if one takes into account that the prophet touched the nearest sphere of Godhead and saw the highest angelic spheres (and angels could not be seen by a human without strong convulsion of his very being).

Ezekiel 1:6. and each one had four faces, and each one of them had four wings; The face – the most important part of the body, most distinguishing each creature from other creatures – a part so essential that in many languages the face serves as a synonym for the very creature itself. Therefore the bestowal of 4 faces to cherubim means first of all their transcendent exaltation over the limited human pointedness (“by the fourfoldness their faces cherubim denote something divine in cherubim.” Riehm, De natura et notione symbobica cheruborum, 1864, 21). With the uniqueness which serves as the distinguishing feature of our personality and consciousness, cherubim unite incomprehensibly multiplicity in their personality. Furthermore because of such a quantity of faces in cherubim there could be no difference of sides – there could be no before, behind and sides (Macarius the Great, discourse 1). Furthermore because of this they could look simultaneously in all directions and consequently always see everything by which was indicated the particular elevation of their knowledge reminding of the omniscience of God. Finally because of the fourfoldness cherubim could walk not turning in each direction of the cardinal points which gave them exclusive power also over the spatial limitations and signified a greater in comparison with other creatures freedom from spatial boundaries reminding of the omnipresence of God. Since the fourfold structure of cherubim was calculated so that they have the ability to walk without turning in whatever direction they might wish the goal to be achieved only if on each of their 4 sides they had not only a face in the proper sense but also wings and feet then by the word “face” here the prophet means not the front part of the head alone but the front part of the whole body (in Hebrew one said: the face of the earth, the face of the field, the face of the clothing Gen 2:6; Exod 10 and so forth). Wings in the creatures appearing to the prophet should have directed his thought to the sphere of their dwelling – the heavenly (for the wings of birds are called in the Bible heavenly: Gen 1:26; Ps 8:9 and others) and to show that it is their true own sphere as the sphere of birds – the air and of fish – water. Wings in seraphim and in cherubim have the purpose of showing that from heaven those and the other are not separated and are not thinkable without it that the earth is a completely alien sphere to them into which they can only temporarily descend whereas angels to whom in holy Scripture wings are nowhere attributed have a closer relationship to the earth. The wing serves the bird not only for flight but also as a covering from external influences both for it itself so especially for its chicks – a purpose to which the Bible particularly loves to dwell (Ruth 2:12; Ps 62:8 and others). And in the cherubim wings should have had such a purpose. With two lowered wings the cherubim covered their own body (verse 11 23); with two spread wings they covered doubtless the same which the cherubim of the tabernacle and temple covered with their spread wings and these latter covered with their wings the lid of the Ark of the Covenant as the place of revelation of the Glory of God (hence the epithet “cherub overshadowing” Ezek 28:14 and others); the cherubim of Ezekiel’s vision also with their spread wings covered from the earth that firmament on which stood the throne of God (verse 23). – The fourfold number of wings in cherubim by its non-correspondence to the usual number of wings in earthly creatures possessing them pointed to the special exaltation of the sphere of their dwelling. Unexpected such a quantity of wings appeared also in comparison with the image of the previous representation of cherubim and seraphim: the cherubim of the tabernacle and temple had 2 wings each while the seraphim of Isaiah had 6. According to the generally accepted explanation the cherubim have no third pair of wings because they have one sole purpose – the overshadowing of the Ark while not the movement of the Glory of God as in Ezekiel; on the other hand the cherubim of the Prophet Ezekiel being under the throne of God in the capacity of its bearers had no need for a 3rd pair of wings for covering of faces; in the Apocalypse the cherubim being not under the throne of God but round about it already have 6 wings each.

Ezekiel 1:7. and their feet were straight feet, and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot, and they sparkled like the luster of polished copper, (and their wings were light). The prophet points out three distinctive features of the mysterious creatures’ legs. 1) The first feature – the straightness of the leg – is commonly understood to mean that the creatures’ legs had no knee bends and indeed no vertebrae or joints at all; the Seventy (LXX) understood the expression this way as well, translating freely here: “and their shins (part for whole) were straight”; the fragile structure of all the joints that make up human and animal legs was unnecessary for those beings who could move without walking (they had wings and wheels); therefore the cherubim’s legs could possess the advantage of perfect straightness, which gave the legs special firmness and strength, much needed in view of the fact that their masters bore an enormous, unimaginable weight – the glory (in Hebrew, “kebod” – “weight”) of Jehovah. The cherubim’s legs did not bend and did not yield, and by this quality they directed the mind toward the spiritual steadfastness and power of those to whom they belonged. 2) The second feature of the legs, according to the Hebrew text, lay in their hoofs, which resembled the hoof of a calf. Thus the cherubim, in the very lowest and secondary part of their figure, had the likeness of a calf. In the Old Testament, the calf after the lamb is the first sacrificial animal – a sacrificial animal so to speak ad honorem, a sacrifice of special honor, which the high priest and “all the congregation” brought for themselves in cases of exceptional importance – for unintentional sin (Lev 4) and when both have the right and need for special closeness to God – on the day of atonement (Lev 16); therefore it is a sacrifice of bold approach to God, of special elevation toward Him, which only an individual from the people or all the people as a single whole can reckon on. Even all the congregation of the sons of Israel, to whom it is granted to atone for their sin, like the high priest, with a calf (Lev 4:14), when (precisely on the day of atonement) they atone for their sin with this sacrifice and enter into the terrifying closeness to God, the high priest brings for sin a goat instead (Lev 5:15). Slaughtered and ascending in the smoke of its burning to heaven, the calf is one of the sacrificial animals that seems to present the chosen of God before God’s very throne (in the highest heavenly sphere, that is, precisely where the realm of the cherubim’s action begins). The sacrificial victim of happy, gracious future, the Hebrew represented in the form of calves (Ps 50:21); let us also recall: “and it will be more pleasing to God than a young bull bearing horns and cloven hoofs” (Ps 68:32). It is mistaken to think that the calf’s hoof was necessary for the cherubim because of its round shape, by which it is always turned in all directions, whereas the human foot is turned in only one, which would make movement possible for the cherubim in all directions without turning to one side or the other. If one speaks of the advantages of movement in different directions, then the human foot, though turned in one direction, should take first place; if a round shape were required here for such considerations, on what basis should the calf’s hoof (not the ox’s!) be preferred over a multitude of similar hoofs? – The LXX in this place give a completely different idea: …and winged (πτερωτοι) were their legs. The Greek πτερωτοι can mean winged, with wings (aligerus), or feathered, plumed (pennatus). All interpreters unanimously consider the Hebrew reading here correct and declare the LXX variant to be the fact that the Alexandrian translators found the presence of cherubim with calves’ hoofs incredible and offensive in view of the sad significance that the calf was destined to have in Israel’s history. Although the Masoretic reading of the present statement, as we have seen, gives a meaning not only completely possible but also one breathing mystery and grandeur, one cannot say that the meaning given by the LXX was impossible and had no advantages of its own – especially when both meanings of “feathered” are taken. Wings on the cherubim’s legs could symbolize their swiftness, showing that the cherubim on their legs did not run, but flew (it is true that the cherubim were equipped with wings in the usual place for them – at the shoulders – v. 8, therefore wings on the legs would not seem necessary; Mercury has wings only on his legs). Similarly, featheredness of the legs in the cherubim could have the same meaning as featheredness of birds – to make the body light and give it the ability to hover in the air (it is true that this goal would be achieved to only the slightest degree by the featheredness of legs alone). And so the LXX reading, even from its internal aspect, from the aspect of its meaning, permits objections. Moreover, accepting it, one cannot explain the origin of the Masoretic reading, whereas the first can be more easily explained from the second. The LXX, finding the comparison with a calf inconvenient and improbable in the prophet’s words for certain reasons, could decide on a free rendering of the prophet’s thought here; they thought that by comparing the cherubim’s legs to the calves’ legs the prophet wished to denote their swiftness: to convey the idea of “swift” through πτερωτος they could do with the aim of strengthening and poetically adorning the thought. Besides the LXX, other ancient translations did not read “calf” here: the Targum and Aquila read “round” (hegel – calf they vocalized as hagol “round”): but Symmachus, Peshitta, and Vulgate agree with the Masoretes. 3) The third distinctive feature of the cherubim’s legs lay in the fact that they sparkled (notzekim; cf. Isa 1:31: σπινθηρες “sparks”; Russian translation imprecisely “gleamed”), like a metal of a special kind – kalal (Russian translation presumably: “gleaming”). To that sea of light and fire with which the cherubim were surrounded, having fire beneath them (v. 4) and between themselves (v. 13) and the unbearable radiance of Divinity above their heads (v. 27), the intermittent, unstable, and generally weak light of a spark could add nothing; therefore the spark is introduced here not for a light effect. Since sparks are produced by certain objects when other objects act on them, the sparks from the cherubim’s legs were a sign that the latter underwent alien influence. To approach the prophet, the cherubim needed to be on earth, to walk or fly above it, to enter its sphere, but this sphere was completely alien to them, more alien than to other angels, since their life and activity are the very throne of God and its footstool; contact of theirs with a completely alien earthly sphere can be compared to that crude touching of an object which produces from it a spark. The appearance of a spark from the cherubim’s legs was to testify both to the extraordinary power and swiftness of their movement, as well as to the special strength of their legs, which should not have yielded to the strength of metal or stone. The prophet adds that, judging by the sparks, one could have thought (“as”) that the creatures’ legs were made of a metal of a special kind. Usually one seeks in the comparison of the cherubim’s legs with metal an indication of the extraordinary gleam of these legs. But can metal, even the very best, give a gleam that would suit this vision, where everything shines with a light barely comparable to anything and gleams better than the finest sorts of precious stones? The prophet is not speaking of the gleam of the legs, but of their iron strength (hence also the straightness of the leg). At that time copper took the place of iron (Isa 45:2 and others). Not yielding to iron in strength, copper was always considered nobler, more refined than iron, and therefore was fitting for comparison here (as also in Dan 10:6; Rev 1:15). What is said foreshadows the approximate meaning of the more precise definition of copper “kapal,” which the Russian translation renders as “gleaming,” the Slavonic as “shining” (that is, lightning-like, evidently from v. 4); both are tentative, as in other ancient translations (Vulgate. aes candens, like the Targum; Peshitta and Arab. like the LXX). One should not seek, as interpreters usually do, in the word kapal the notion of gleam, radiance (for since kapal means “light,” some say it can also mean “bright,” because light is lighter than darkness (!), or “polished” from the meaning “to be light, mobile”), but the notion of hardness, strength, indestructibility; the basic meaning of the word kapal was “to make small, insignificant” (Gen 16:4-5 and others); in this meaning the word could easily apply to metal heated, that is, placed in fire, which destroys it, crushes it, but cannot annihilate it; such meaning of the word is confirmed by the meaning of the word “galil,” “crucible,” “melting pot” (cf. calere, “to heat”). – In the LXX the 7th verse has against the Hebrew an addition; “light (ελαφροι) were their wings,” that is, mobile. Since the wing is by its nature mobile, this remark can have sense only if this quality in the present wings reached a considerable, striking degree. The prophet in the LXX wishes to say that the wings of the cherubim were in constant motion; they were alien to that rest into which ordinary wings must sometimes sink for recovery. If such a quality of wings does not contradict vv. 24-25b, then they would be secretly indicating the sphere of habitation and action of the cherubim, which is not firm earth where one can stand and fold one’s wings, but superheavenly and supermundane spaces where one can only hover.

Ezekiel 1:8. And human hands were under their wings, on four sides of them; Since “hands” condition for man the possibility of activity and by this most sharply distinguish him from animals for whom, thanks to the absence of hands, activity is impossible, but only life (nourishment), the attribution of hands to the cherubim is aimed at denoting their capacity for activity similar to human activity. It could not fail to be terrifying and shocking to the prophet’s eye this union of the delicacy of human actions with the elemental force of an animal. In the definition “human,” as if superfluous with “hands,” one can see either a pleonasm or an echo of some amazement on the prophet’s part at the fact of the presence of hands here. Since the beings who appeared to the prophet Ezekiel were winged, the natural place for hands in their body was occupied by wings, and the prophet, anticipating the reader’s natural perplexity as to where the cherubim could possibly have hands, notes that they “were under their wings.” – In view of the prophet’s silence about the number of hands on each cherub, the question arose among interpreters, with hands counted from 1 to 16 on each cherub. More than two hands on each side of the four-faced cherub could not have been, otherwise the number of hands would have deviated from the human and the prophet would have had to say about it. But the question of how many hands in total there should be on the cherub in such a case cannot be posed, because the prophet could not see all four sides of the cherub simultaneously (and probably only one), and what he did not see did not exist, since we are dealing here with a vision, not with external reality.

Ezekiel 1:9. And their faces and their wings – for all four of them; their wings touched one another; in their going they did not turn around, but each went in the direction of its face. The words “and their faces and their wings – for all four of them” in their direct sense (that faces and wings were not absent in any one of the four cherubim) would contain a completely unnecessary thought; therefore the Targum renders them: “and their faces and their wings were the same for them four,” which would already be self-evident and superfluous for the prophet to say; Peshitta and Vulgate render the Hebrew “learbagtam” “for their four” as “on four sides of them,” which gives no new thought compared to v. 6 and is purchased at the cost of inserting a new notion “side” into the text. Best of all is to see in this expression the construction inherent in the Hebrew language and beloved by Ezekiel – the “absolute nominative”: “as for their faces and their wings, they were thus for all four (cherubim): their wings touched one another,” etc. After the prophet in vv. 5–8 spoke of the faces, wings, legs, and hands of the cherubim, he now describes the most important parts of the body – the faces and wings – more closely; “in this way the prophet from all the parts of the figure singles out especially faces and wings: in those is revealed predominantly the power of life, in these the being of the ‘creatures’” (Hävernick). “Their wings touched one another.” The expression appears to indicate the touching of the wings of one cherub to one another, since the touching between the wings of different cherubim should have been designated separately, that is, it would say that the wing of one cherub touched the wing of another. The meaning is also clear of what such touching of the wings of each cherub to one another should have had: joining one to another on the cherub’s body, the wings would cover that body, signifying by this the complete inscrutability for us of the cherubim’s being, inscrutability however less than that of Divinity, and perhaps also of the seraphim, whose very faces are inaccessible to human sight. But the Vulgate and almost all interpreters lean toward the opinion that this speaks of the touching of the wings of different creatures, and they lean toward this not without foundation. By the notion “their wings” the prophet could have designated the wings of all cherubim together without any distinction of the wings of one from the wings of another, therefore the touching is conceivable between all members of this equally-positioned union: the prophet does not say that the wings of only each (in Hebrew it would be “leish,” as in v. 11 and 23) touched one another, but all wings of all cherubim touched. According to v. 11, two wings of the cherubim were spread out – these wings could touch at the edges with the wings of other cherubim, and two wings were lowered, these wings could join one another on the body covering it. The touching of individual cherubim with their wings to one another 1) had the meaning that thanks to such joining of wings all the cherubim moved as if by one striving in the same direction with the same swiftness; 2) could remind the prophet of the two touching wings of the cherubim of the Holy of Holies and show him that on these wings also, as on the wings of the cherubim of the Holy of Holies, rested the Glory of God, the Shekinah. – In the LXX there is a different thought here: by omitting the second “their wings” of the Hebrew text, they connect the verb of the present statement (Hebrew “hoveret” “touched”) as a predicate with the beginning of the verse: and their faces “and their wings of four holding one another.” According to the LXX, the prophet wishes to say that the faces and wings of the beings he saw were always in the same relation to one another, as a result of which they constituted one whole (“holding together, participially” Ps 121:3). The four mysterious creatures thereby revealed a close bond with one another, a certain inalienability from one another. They were united with one another as individual and independent objects on earth cannot be united: they were united by their faces and wings, which could never depart from the same position toward one another. But to relate the verb “havar” not only to the wings but also to the faces of the cherubim, the LXX had the possibility only because they do not read “their wings” in v. 9. – The described position of the wings of the cherubim was so important that even the movement of the cherubim was subject to it, was aligned with it. To preserve such a position of the wings, the cherubim “in their going did not turn around.” But this did not hinder the freedom of their movements: having four faces, they were at every moment facing forward toward each of the four directions of the world and could go all without turning in any of these directions, going each in the direction of its face. Such a connection have the 3rd and 4th statements of the verse with the second. But in itself the circumstance of which the last part of the verse speaks had great importance. For the mysterious creatures, it was completely excluded by the very structure of their being to have the possibility of returning backward. Every movement of theirs was a movement forward. They moved only in a straight movement before themselves, not in a roundabout or circular way. This meant that the spiritual forces represented by these creatures, “are never impelled backward and do not retreat, but are directed further, forward” (Jerome). It was noted (Müller, Ezechiel-Studien 1895, 15) that with such a manner of movement of the cherubim they could move from place to place not always by a straight path: if the goal of their movement lay not on the radii extending from their location (o) to the four directions of the world, but at some point a, then to reach this goal the cherubim could move not by the shortest path along the diagonal oa, but in a roundabout way describing two sides oba or oса. But this is no defect in the construction of the Divine chariot: the vision could deliberately not reckon with the finest subdivisions of the compass rose, since the number four means in the Bible the entire aggregate of directions, and as a sign that the divine chariot was above earthly conditions and spatial boundaries. – The Vatican and some other Greek codices give such a reading of v. 9 which eliminates from it everything that so complicates its understanding, namely; “and their faces of four did not turn when they went; each went in the direction of its face.” But perhaps these codices “try here to come to the aid of Ezekiel’s somewhat unnaturally constructed exposition” (Kraetzschmar) by eliminating his roughnesses and supposed contradictions and repetitions compared to vv. 11 and 23.

Ezekiel 1:10. The likeness of their faces – the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side of all four of them; and on the left side the face of an ox for all four of them and the face of an eagle for all four. The prophet only now speaks of the faces of the beings who appeared to him, having already spoken of the wings, hands, legs, even the hooves; probably because the faces of these beings appeared to him later than other parts, emerging from the cloud and whirlwind with which the cherubim were enveloped as they came toward the prophet. Perhaps these faces never emerged with full clarity and distinctness to the prophet’s sight during the vision: enveloped in thick mist of cloud, they appeared only when flashes of the fire that burned between the cherubim broke through, and when the lightning that repeatedly rent the darkness of the vision flashed (v. 13). If man cannot see the face of God at all, then the face of a cherub, the being closest to God, could not be shown to man completely. Hence the reappearance in the prophet’s description here of the notion “likeness,” not used since v. 5. First the prophet calls “the face of a man,” either by comparison with the other faces in dignity or because this was the face turned toward all the cherubim toward him. It is understandable why the lion occupies the right side, the ox – the left, and the eagle – the last place. The appearance of such faces in the form of cherubim is usually explained in the following way: the face of a man expresses the rational nature of the beings who appeared, the face of a lion – their strength, the ox – strength and gentleness, and the eagle – majesty. But the strangeness of bringing animal and bestial forms into the images of the highest spirits is not weakened by this explanation; this is the mystery of prophetic contemplation, to which light can more likely be shed by the following considerations. The choice of animals was made so as to include representatives of all living creation: four creatures have pre-eminence in this world: among creatures man, among birds the eagle, among cattle the ox, and among beasts the lion (Schemoth rabba 23). The kingdom of creeping things (to which in a broad sense fish can also be assigned) is excluded for an understandable reason. Thus, from each realm of earthly life the best was taken as a likeness for the cherubim, as it were the flower of this life. If it was inevitable that there be the joining to the human image of the form of animals for a possible full expression of the idea of a cherub (see explanation of present v. 5), then truly there could be no better union than this. With these noble animals God Himself does not disdain to compare Himself (Hos 11:10; Exod 19:4; Deut 32:11 and others). The multiplicity and variety of animal forms here was required by “the fullness of the idea, which scarcely allows sensuous expression” (Hävernick), just as the Egyptian gods “had the appearance not of cattle, not of a bird, not of a beast, nor even of man himself, but a form especially artificially composed and arousing reverence by its very novelty” (Apuleius, Metam. XI).

Ezekiel 1:11. And their faces and their wings above were divided; but each had two wings touching one another, and two covered their bodies. The faces and wings of the cherubim were in such close connection that one could not speak of them otherwise than together, which is why the prophet from the description of faces again (cf. vv. 9 and 6) turns to the wings and their relation to the faces. Both of these, forming the top of the entire manifestation, represented as it were one orderly and strictly measured system in which not one member could move without setting another in motion. The description of this system of faces and wings of the cherubim occupies in the prophet’s speech a section of chapter vv. 9–12, which clearly divides into two parts: vv. 9–10 and 11–12, and each begins with the words “and their faces and their wings.” The prophet expresses the mutual connection of the members of this wonderfully harmonized system in v. 9 with the notion of hoveret (“touched,” “held”), and here with the verb perudot “were divided,” Slavonic “spread.” But in what sense could the prophet say of the faces and wings that appeared to him that they were divided? In that they were not fused into one mass? But this should have followed from the very nature of face and wing. Nevertheless, regarding wings, one could still expect such an expression: by this remark the reader would be forewarned against the representation that the joining of wings reached such a degree that they completely fused into one wing, one wing plane, but that on this area composed of wings one wing was clearly distinguished from another. But what meaning could such a remark have with respect to faces? Presumably that the faces did not pass imperceptibly one into another, but each was visible so completely and distinctly as if there were no others? Evidently here the verb parad, like havar of v. 9, which besides Ezekiel no one uses of faces and wings, and whose usual meanings with difficulty apply to both of these, in the prophet’s words has some special meaning, and we must confess that we do not understand the prophet in this place, and we do not understand him because what he describes in this section was, like much in this mysterious vision, difficult to convey in clear and precise description, as a result of which the prophet had to devise new notions for his description, adapting to them old words. The relation of faces and wings of the cherubim, like everything else in the latter, was inexplicable and inexpressible. The codices Alexandrian and Vatican, the Coptic and Ethiopian translations, do not have in this verse the first word “and their faces,” as a result of which the first statement of the verse for them relates only to the wings. And in such a case the verb perudot acquires a more understandable meaning; besides the meaning “were divided,” which applies to the wings, as we saw, more than to faces, this verb can have of the wings also the meaning “to spread” (to separate from the body the wings), ascribed to it here by the LXX. But one cannot vouch that the reading of the indicated codices here is correct (one might rather expect in the sacred text the omission of an incomprehensible word than the addition of such a word). “But each had two wings touching one another.” As in v. 9, the prophet here too, having begun to speak of faces and wings together, turns to the wings alone. He has already in v. 9 said of the wings that they touched one another; now this report is supplemented by the remark that touched only two wings of each “creature,” while two other wings were lowered onto the body. And in regard to a pair of touching wings the prophet in this verse makes an important addition to v. 9. He says that the wings touched not simply: “one to another” (as imprecisely in the Russian translation), but “to each one” (“leish,” properly “to a man,” Greek ΄ εκατερω), that is, of one creature, to another (“ish” “man”), whereas v. 9 allowed one to think of touching only between the wings of the same creature. Consequently, between the cherubim there was constantly a closed, fastened by their wings place; in v. 13 we learn what constituted the content of this terrible place. “And two covered their bodies.” Two functions which are performed by the natural wing – flight and covering the body – are divided in the cherubim among special wings, of course for more perfect performance of these functions: as the cherubim could not help but hover constantly in the air, so they could not leave their bodies uncovered. The covering of the body with wings by the cherubim is usually explained as a sign of reverence before God; according to Jerome (with whom blessed Theodoret also agrees), “by two wings with which the body is covered is portrayed the imperfection of knowledge”; more likely the covering of the body with wings could signify the inscrutability of the very being of the cherubim.

Ezekiel 1:12. And they went, each in the direction of its face; where the spirit wished to go, there they went; in their going they did not turn around. The first and third statement of v. 12 are literally identical with v. 9. Such literal repetitions are in the spirit of the prophet Ezekiel, who uses them as a means to draw the reader’s attention to this or that idea. Thus the fact that the cherubim in their walking did not turn around, the prophet considered very important, it struck him very much. But in the statements of v. 12 identical with v. 9, compared with v. 9 there is an essential difference. There the remark that each “creature” went in the direction before its face is preceded by the remark that the creatures in their going did not turn around; here these two remarks are placed in reverse order. In v. 9: “in their going they did not turn around, but each went in the direction of its face”; in v. 12: and they went each in the direction of its face; “in their going they did not turn around.” In v. 9 the main idea was that the creatures never turned around, because this made possible the constant and always identical touching between their wings, which constitutes the theme of v. 9. In v. 12 this idea is secondary, and the main one is that the creatures could go in the direction of each of their faces, thus in all directions; the main idea here for this reason, since the prophet wishes now to point out what determines their movement in that direction rather than another when such indifference and equal accessibility for the cherubim to all directions of the world exists. “Where the spirit was to go, they went” is how the Hebrew literally renders the prophet’s answer to this question; the LXX elucidate this expression: “wherever the spirit went, they went,” and the Russian translation “where the spirit wished to go.” Thus, “no special command to the four creatures in what direction there should be movement, was needed any more than in Isa 6 an expressive command to one of the seraphim to take a hot coal from the altar. One spirit and one will pervaded the entire chariot, which was communicated to the creatures without the mediation of words” (Kraetzschmar). What then is this “spirit” which determined the movement of the Divine chariot? The fact that the word “ruach” (“spirit”) had on the Hebrew language the most varied meanings, being used here without any explanation, equally as the article before it, leaves no doubt that here is meant “ruach” – “wind” (Slavonic “spirit”) of v. 4. In the fact that the movement of the cherubim and of the entire Divine chariot was determined by the movement of the wind there was nothing humiliating for either of them, for that wind was not an ordinary wind. As the cloud that went with that wind proved to be filled for the prophet’s sight with unearthly beings, so the wind that went before the Lord had to, so to speak, be worthy and capable of this; it had to contain something like what the cloud contained, if not higher and more excellent; in all parts and details of the present vision, even in such secondary ones as the wheels, was life, reason, and consciousness. But while the prophet speaks of the “inner content” so to speak of the cloud, he says nothing of such content of the wind “raising up,” going before the cloud: his spiritual sight could not penetrate the inner content of that extraordinary wind in the same way as it penetrated the content of the cloud. Evidently, in this wind was none other than the Spirit of God (“ruach elohim”), who in the book of Ezekiel, as often generally, is represented as acting through the wind: Ezek 2:2; 1 Sam 18:12; 2 Sam 2:16; Job 37:1; John 3:8; Acts 2:2. Of these instances particularly remarkable is the manifestation of the Spirit of God in the four winds at the quickening of dry bones in the vision of Ezekiel, and in the turbulent breathing at the descent on the apostles. The Old Testament knew so much about the Holy Spirit!

Ezekiel 1:13. And the appearance of these creatures was like burning coals, like the appearance of torches; fire went between the creatures, and there was brightness from the fire, and lightning issued from the fire. By their mutually touching wings the cherubim enclosed a certain place which, as could already be concluded from such extraordinary enclosure of it, had some special purpose. The description of this place is contained in v. 13. The beginning of the verse in the LXX is rendered differently from the Hebrew text: “and in the midst of the creatures was a vision,” thus according to the LXX the prophet in 13a already describes the place between the cherubim, while according to the Hebrew text and Russian translation he still speaks of the creatures themselves, and only in 13b says what was between them. Namely, the Hebrew text describes here the creatures from the side of their color, which was fiery, so that they appeared entirely fiery and gleamed like lamps. But now almost everyone gives preference to the LXX in this place: the prophet has already spoken of the appearance of creatures in v. 5, then he should have said that it was fiery; and how could the cherubim have the appearance of coals and lamps? They could only shine like both: and the shine of coal and lamp is too different to serve as a comparison for the same object; probably the Masoretes simply wanted to complete what the prophet left unsaid about the color of the cherubim. Thus one can consider it certain that those coals and lamps to which the Hebrew text wishes the cherubim to correspond were new data of the vision: they reminded of the place enclosed by the cherubim’s wings; the content for such a place is completely suitable. The coals between the cherubim are called burning to show that they were not black and extinguished, but red, still hot, and in the very process of burning. The presence of coals here is usually explained by analogy with the vision of Isaiah, in which a seraph takes a burning coal from the altar and which therefore presupposes, as do the apocalyptic visions (Rev 8:3; Isa 6:6), an altar with coals by God’s throne; although the prophet Ezekiel did not see a sacrificial altar under his mysterious coals, and he could be describing not that heavenly sphere which Isaiah and John the Theologian described, this does not prevent the giving of a sacrificial character to the coals between the cherubim: the cherubim appeared with the symbols of perpetual burnt offering to God; the absence of an altar could point to the most highest and pure spirituality of this burnt offering. If God is a consuming fire, then the place upon which He steps, sitting on the cherubim, that is, most directly the cherubim themselves, must burn, and the product of burning is coal. “Like the appearance of torches.” Lamps before God’s throne are found also in the visions of the Apocalypse and are explained by the seer himself as meaning that these are “the seven spirits of God” (Rev 4:5) and “the seven churches” (Rev 1:12-13). The lighting of a lamp before God is a rite of worship signifying the warmth and self-sacrifice of service to God. If the “spirits of God” and “churches” appear before God’s throne not with lamps but themselves become lamps, then the idea is magnified to extraordinary proportions. In Ezekiel, instead of this, the lamps appear in an obviously close but not more precisely defined relation to the cherubim, accompanying their manifestation. But the symbolism of them is the same as in the Apocalypse: the spiritual burning of all being before God. In the picture there is an obvious progression: coals, lamps, lightning; coals perhaps occupy the bottom, transitioning to the top to flame and even higher rarifying into lightning. “Fire went between the creatures.” In Hebrew literally: “she (‘gi’) went between the creatures.” Who is she? to what noun does the feminine pronoun refer? Earlier in the verse there are two feminine nouns: appearance (‘demut’) and fire (‘esh’; in Hebrew “burning coals” is expressed: “coals of fire burning”). The first stands too far away and its authenticity is questionable; moreover, how can the appearance of creatures go between creatures? The second occupies too subordinate a position: standing as a definition in “coals,” it in Hebrew constitutes with it one word (casus constructus). But as everything listed so far of the content of the space between cherubim was fiery, was fire in some form or another, it is not much amiss if the reader of the prophet (like the Russian translation) will understand “ga” – “she” as fire. Is the feminine here not used instead of the non-existent neuter in Hebrew? If the prophet wished to say: “this (that is, all previously mentioned – coals, torches) went between the creatures,” how could he express “this,” if not through “hinne” (“this,” “that”) or “ga” (“it”)? If grammatically such understanding of “ga” was impossible, then by the flow of speech and the substance of the matter nothing else but precisely all the previously mentioned ought to be that which “went between the creatures.” The prophet, at least up to this point, sees the cherubim only in movement; therefore everything that was between the cherubim, the place between them with all its extraordinary content – the coals, the torches, had to move, “go with” (‘mitgalleket’) them. The reflexive form of the verb “galak” – “to go,” placed here, indicates the precise relation between the movement of that which was between the creatures (the coals and torches) and the movement of the creatures themselves, as well as the mutual dependence of the movement of these fiery elements on one another: they moved not only in measure with the movement of the creatures and in dependence on their movement, but also in dependence on one another: the movement of one of these elements induced the movement of another; here all was movement and life. The LXX apparently give a different reading of this place: omitting “ga” (“she” or “it”), they agree the verb “mitgalleket” (“went”) with λαμπαδες and render it συστρεφομενων “revolving together”: “and like the appearance of torches revolving together in the midst of the creatures.” Συστρεφεσθαι means joint, mutually dependent revolving or turning; thus by this word the LXX point to the fact that the torches, to which it serves as a definition, revolve together or with one another, or with the coals, or with the creatures, or with all this together (which is more likely). We see that whether to relate the verb “mitgalleket” to the torches with the LXX or to read for it with the Hebrew text a special subject (“ga” “it”), the meaning will be the same, and this could have given the LXX the right to a free translation here. “And there was brightness from the fire.” From this remark one sees first of all that the coals and torches which were in constant movement fused for the prophet into one mass of fire which spread light around. At the same time the remark shows that the brightness issuing from this fire was of special force (otherwise there would be no need to speak of it, since every fire gives brightness), to which the Hebrew word “nogach” (‘brightness’) points, which serves as a poetic, and therefore especially forceful designation of light (Isa 4:4; Hab 3:11 and others) and is used of the radiance of the Glory of God (Ezek 10:4). This was that brightness to which the prophet had already drawn attention at the beginning of the vision (v. 4, where the same in Hebrew is “nogach”): the cloud that came toward him was illumined by it, since this cloud contained for the prophet unearthly beings, so this brightness, illumining the entire mass (“great cloud”) of it, served as an immeasurable halo, embracing the entire horizon (“around it” that is the cloud v. 4), worthy in its magnitude of those whom it surrounded. – The fire between the cherubim emitted not only a quiet, gentle radiance (“nogach” in Isa 62:7 of the dawn, Joel 2:10 of the radiance of luminaries). It continuously (“issued” in Hebrew a participle “issuing”) flashed with lightning. Of all kinds of earthly light lightning alone brings us besides admiration into a certain trembling and therefore can serve as the best likeness of the light in which Divinity shines. Moreover, lightning can be called inner, hidden light, only temporarily breaking through outward and visible to man, and in this it most resembles the invisible-to-man divine light (in the service of the Transfiguration: “bearing the hidden lightning beneath the flesh of Your being”). Thanks to this lightning in the Old Testament frequently appears as an attribute of theophany: lightning gleamed on Mount Sinai when God descended upon it; lightning is mentioned in the psalmlike descriptions of expected or besought theophanies (Ps 17 and others, cf. Hab 3:4); in the Apocalypse from God’s throne issue lightning (Rev 4:5). That the fire between the cherubim issues lightning testifies to the high degree of godlikeness of the cherubim: they shine with glory reminding one of Divine glory.

Ezekiel 1:14. And the creatures moved rapidly to and fro, like the appearance of a flash of lightning. The Russian translation of this verse is conjectural; the Slavonic does not correspond much more to the Hebrew text: “and the creatures ran and turned, like the appearance of a vision of fire.” The first half of the verse, in Hebrew literally, is “and the creatures ran and returned” “ratzo vashov.” The verbs are put in the infinitive absolute form, which here evidently replaces the finite form. The second verb is undoubtedly “to return,” but the first – απαξ λεγομενον and is considered an Aramaized form of the verb “rutz” “to run.” The replacement of the finite form with the infinitive absolute is not unfamiliar to Hebrew, both ancient: Gen 8:7, and especially later: Job 40:2; Dan 9:5; Zech 7:5; but in these places the infinitive does not stand without a finite form, serving sometimes only as a complement to it; and primarily in these places we are dealing with oratorical and poetical speech, where the infinitive could be used for the vivacity of speech; here though “it is not clear why the description should suddenly become so vivid” (Smend). This compels many interpreters to see in these verbs the finite form. But if “ratzo” can still somehow be made finite (reading “ratzu” which would be 3rd person masculine plural aorist from rutz, but the last letter – aleph – would be superfluous), “shov” cannot be without touching the text. Thus the infinitive absolute here remains a puzzle. – The meaning “to run” for the first verb is very problematic. Such an Aramaizing of the form as is supposed here with the verb “rutz,” “would have no analogue; the notion of running does not apply to cherubim” (Smend); and with such a meaning the word would not correspond directly connected to it “returned,” in which is contained the notion of direction in movement, not its swiftness (though besides the LXX and Peshitta has “ran” here). In view of this they propose to read instead of “ratzo” – “yetzu” – “went out,” which would accord with the Vulgate (ibant) and the Targum (“turned and went around and returned”) and would require changing only one letter; but such a mistake in the text is improbable (the Hebrew resh is very far from the small yod). – However, not knowing what the prophet wishes to say about the movement of the cherubim with the first verb, we extract from the second verb (“shov” “to return”) one quite significant feature of this movement, that it had at times a returning direction, a feature important for us in view of the earlier remark that the cherubim did not turn around backward; therefore this latter circumstance did not prevent their backward movement. The movement of the cherubim, characterized by the words “ratzo vashov,” is compared by the prophet to the movement as if of bezak (Russian translation “lightning,” Slavonic “appearance of fire”). And this new notion little clarifies the verse, since the word “bezak” – απαξ λεγομενον and its meaning must be sought from the root. Many, in view of the word’s unusualness in the Bible, suppose as the Russian translation does a mistake here: instead of “bezak” they think there stood “barak” – lightning. – By the substance of the matter, it is possible that the cherubim of Ezekiel chapter 1 had movement similar to the movement of lightning: the construction of the present chariot conditioned, as we saw in v. 9, that the cherubim could move from place to place not always by a straight line but sometimes had to go along the two sides of the triangle built on it; such movement would be a zigzag movement, and lightning has precisely a zigzag movement. But the possibility of such a mistake in the text is improbable: the letters resh and zayin are not close in appearance; and why in v. 13 would “barak” not be altered, but only in v. 14, where v. 13 would make one expect precisely a comparison with lightning? In the later Hebrew language and related languages, the root “azak” has the meaning “scatter” (Talmud), “disperse” (Arabic), “crush” (Syriac). Since the entire manifestation has a fiery appearance, probably “bezak” is here a special expression “about some scattering of fire, fiery sparks” (Hävernick), or about rays of light suddenly scattered over the widest space. The ancient translations converge in such understanding of this word – about rays, about light. While Theodotion (from which v. 14 is taken in the text of the LXX) leaves this word untranslated, transcribing it in Greek letters – βεζεκ, Symmachus renders it ακτις ν αστραπης, Aquila – ως ειδος απορροιας ΄ αστραπες, the Targum: “like the appearance of lightning.” Peshitta puts here a related Syriac word bezek, whose root meaning is “scattering,” and the present meaning is lost, and is indicated differently by various Syriac scholars and Peshitta interpreters: flame, lightning, meteor, falling star, shower of stars, whirlwind, even – hyacinth stone. Therefore, no matter how uncertain the meaning of the present comparison, it can be considered certain that the comparison is drawn from the realm of light phenomena. Thus, the only movement in nature to which the movement of cherubim could be compared is the movement of light. Judging by the verb “to return” used to characterize the movement of cherubim, the movement of light could serve as a likeness for the movement of cherubim in that aspect of it that light always returns to its source, does not abandon it. “As ether is illuminated by sparks of frequent fires and in the blink of an eye lightning suddenly disperses in different directions and returns back, not losing its receptacle and so to speak source and substance of fire, so these creatures, proceeding unobstructedly forward, hasten onward” (Jerome). The Targum renders the verse thus: “and the creatures (those), when sent to fulfill the will of their Lord, who placed His majesty on high above them, in the blink of an eye turned and went around and ran through the universe, and returned together, the creatures, and were swift as the appearance of lightning.” Thus the cherubim could move everywhere while not leaving God’s throne, and not drawing it to every place; they could have besides the general movement with God’s throne their own movement, which not coinciding in direction with that movement was simultaneous with it. Such union of seemingly so inseparable things, the prophet says, is given also in nature in one of its phenomena which he calls “bezakh.” – There are certain grounds to think that this verse was not in the text which the LXX used, and to agree with Jerome that in the LXX translation it was added from Theodotion: it is absent in the Vatican, Venetian, and one of Parsons’s codices; in codex Alexandrian, Marshallian (VI-VII c.), Chisian (IX-XI c.), in the Syriac hexapla (VII c.) it is under an asterisk, therefore added from the Hebrew text.

Ezekiel 1:15. And I looked upon the creatures, and behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside these creatures according to the four of their faces. Begins the description of a new composite part of the vision – the wheels – which will occupy a considerable section (vv. 15–21) of the chapter; hence the solemn “and I looked.” – The addition “upon the creatures,” which is not in the LXX, points to the close connection between the creatures and the wheels, such that the wheels are only as it were a part of the creatures. – “On the earth” in the proper sense, as is shown by v. 19, where the wheels sometimes rose from the earth (not “on the base of the heavenly arena,” or “on earth visible in heaven”). Wheels are by excellence a way of movement adapted to earth (as wings – to air, a ship – to water), therefore the present wheels can be looked upon as a connecting link of the heavenly vision with earth, of which the most perfect way of movement. Descending to earth, God must reckon with its fragility not permitting a better way of movement. The wheels are aimed at showing that God moves along the very earth itself, not above it. – “Beside these creatures.” “Beside” points to complete independence of the wheels in relation to the “creatures” – the cherubim. In the book of Enoch the ofannim (“ofan” in Hebrew “wheel”) are enumerated among the angelic ranks (chs. 61:10; 70:7). – “One wheel.” Literally: “one wheel,” but Ezek 10:9 shows that there were four wheels; cf. Ezek 1:16; the number is singular – distributive; therefore it is unjustly that some suppose there was one wheel. Between the cherubim and the Glory of the Lord or the throne of God borne by them in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel a new, independent, and judging by the attention devoted to it by the prophet, of great importance actor appears – the wheels. The wheels presuppose a chariot behind them; but the prophet does not point to it because the wheels destined in this vision as also in Daniel’s vision (Dan 7:9) for the movement of God’s throne did not need material connection with this latter and had to mediate the movement of such an exceptional object without this connection; the cherubim themselves were the chariot in this case. Yet, presupposing such or another chariot (in this case – spiritual) behind themselves, the wheels give the present theophany the character of a ceremonial-majestic and swift ride in place of simple and slow walking, as any theophany until now had seemed. In God’s work of providence from now on is not a special swiftness introduced, usual at the completion of each work, inevitable also in God’s works at the end of times? “Before four of their faces.” Hebrew “learbagatpanav,” literally, “for the four of his faces.” The pronoun is singular (according to sense – against grammatical agreement, for “creatures” to which the pronoun refers is in the plural) because the speech is of one wheel which can be at the faces of only one creature. After the prophet’s remark that the wheels were beside the creatures, the reader expects from him a more precise indication of on which of its sides the four-faced being had a wheel beside itself. In the words in question is to be given such indication. “For all four faces,” answers the prophet to this question. The indication is already fully precise and definite, but at first sight containing something unthinkable: one wheel was at one time in four different places. No wonder the LXX omitted this “precise” indication! But one should not forget that we are dealing with a vision. As four wings and two hands could at one time be on four different sides of the creature, so could it be with the wheel; in visions the violation of the laws of space and time which have force in the sphere of being touched by visions is permitted.

Ezekiel 1:16. The appearance of the wheels and their construction – like the appearance of topaz, and the likeness of all four was one; and according to their appearance and construction it seemed that wheel was in the midst of wheel. The verse contains a description of the external appearance and structure of the wheels. Since the first half of the verse speaks of the external appearance of the wheels (that they were like topaz), the words in it “and their construction” appear superfluous, as also the words “according to their appearance” in the second half of the verse speaking of the construction of the wheels; therefore the LXX do not read these words. – “Appearance” – Hebrew “gen,” see v. 5. – “Topaz.” Hebrew “tarshish”; from Ezek 10:9 we learn that this is a precious stone; it is mentioned among the precious stones also in Ezek 28:13; in the high priest’s breastplate it was the 1st in the 4th row (Exod 28:17-20); according to Dan 10:6 the body of Him who appeared to the prophet was like “tarshish.” The name comes from the Phoenician colony in Spain on a river with the same name, the present Guadalquivir, like the way a known sort of gold was called Ophir gold (Job 22:24). The LXX here leave this word untranslated (“pharssis”), while in a completely identical place Ezek 10:9 they render χρυσολιθος, and in Exod 28:20 they render χρυσολιθος (the Vulgate here “tage” on the basis of the epithet “ships of Tarshish,” but in Ezek 10:8 and Ezek 28:13 – “chrysolite”; the Targum: “a good stone”; Peshitta – a transcription; Symmachus – υακινθος; Arabic translation – “yastis”). Thus most voices are for chrysolite; to chrysolite of the ancients, by Pliny’s description, would most correspond our topaz of a golden color. Such a color of the wheels corresponds also to the wheels of Daniel’s vision which were “burning fire,” and to the fiery content between the present wheels (Ezek 10:12) and the harmony of colors in the vision: golden-red wheels, crystal-white expanse and sapphire-blue footstool of the throne. “And the likeness of all four was one.” Even without such a remark, this would have followed of itself from the fact that the prophet nowhere indicates difference between the wheels; therefore the remark wishes to draw special attention of the reader to the similarity of the wheels. The wheels were as similar to each other as the creatures, and just as the creatures their number was four. Thus the wheels, like the creatures, were directed at once and equally in “all the ends of the earth.” All directions of the world with completely equal ease were accessible to the Divine chariot. It had no front and back, characterized in an ordinary chariot by the difference of wheels and their size. – Besides complete similarity to each other, the indifference of the wheels in relation to different directions of movement was also achieved by their special structure of which the prophet speaks immediately after. “Wheel in the midst of wheel.” Most interpreters rightly understand this expression to mean that wheel was in wheel perpendicularly to one another. In the following verse it is said that the wheels could go on their four sides without turning; therefore they had four sides; by a side of a wheel can be called only a semicircle of it; so the wheel of the vision should have consisted of four semicircles or two intersecting circles. Against this apparently speaks the form of expression: the article with the word “wheel,” “ofan,” twice, requiring one to think of being within each other of the wheels already mentioned. Therefore it is supposed that those or others of the four wheels were within each other, and this being within was either only apparent in perspective or actual. But the article with “ofan” can give also such a thought that the intersecting circles of which each wheel was composed should be represented not in the form of only component parts of one wheel but in the form of independent though interconnected wheels; this relative independence of the component parts of the wheel would correspond to the union in the creatures of several faces.

Ezekiel 1:17. When they went, they went on their four sides; in their going they did not turn around. The wheels had the same wonderful ability of movement in all directions as the cherubim. In the cherubim the ability of such movement was conditioned by their four-facedness, in the wheels by their four-sidedness; “They did not turn around in their going” represents an intentional literal repetition of what was said of the creatures; for the sake of complete similarity even the pronoun is placed in the feminine (in Hebrew), though wheel in Hebrew is masculine. This expression, thus, is already the third time repeated by the prophet (vv. 9, 12). Sounding like a refrain (a part of oratorical speech corresponding to the chorus in a song), it by its repeated repetition draws special attention of the reader to this peculiarity in the movement of the entire manifestation – that for it there was no need to turn around in its going. In regard to the wheels this peculiarity was still more wonderful and therefore deserved to be specially noted: movement to the sides for ordinary wheels is even more impossible than for living creatures with sufficient flexibility of legs.

Ezekiel 1:18. Now their rims – high and awesome they were; and the rims of all four around were full of eyes. The beginning of the verse literally from Hebrew will be: “and the rims and their height.” Consequently the words “and the rims” (in Hebrew this is one word) stands completely independent grammatically from all that follows, which is why the LXX connect it with the preceding verse and render: “and neither their rims”: “they did not turn (that is the wheels) always in their going, and neither their rims”; but in such connection this word gives no new thought and appears idle: if wheels did not turn in their going then neither would their rims turn. Meanwhile, in what follows the discussion is precisely about rims. Consequently the grammatical independence of this word from what follows must be explained as an absolute nominative. As in vv. 9 and 11 with this nominative absolute the prophet points out the theme of the whole verse. And this was necessary because the prophet both before and after speaks generally of wheels; now though he wishes to occupy himself with only one part of them – the rims. Such an episodic transition in description is well marked by this construction. – Having warned that he will now speak of rims, the prophet indicates three peculiarities in them, like three peculiarities were at the legs of the cherubim. The first is that they were “high.” Literally from Hebrew “and height they had,” an expression which can be understood to mean that the rims those “presented an exalted and majestic appearance, which is usually not proper for wheels rolling in the dust of earth” (Kraetzschmar). The expression “rims had height” in Hebrew sounds as unusual as in Russian; it would have been possible simply to say “and they were high or – great.” Moreover if speaking of height then sooner it should be spoken of the height not of the rims but of the wheels themselves; such a quality would have had for them an understandable meaning: by great height of wheels speed of movement of the chariot is achieved. But on the other hand to suppose here a corruption of the text or to give the Hebrew word “govah” (rendered “height”) another meaning, for instance, “upper side” (“rims had an upper side”) forbid the unanimous transmission of this place in all texts and the unanimous translation of “govah” as height by the ancients. “And awesome they were.” Literally: “and awe they had.” What this awe or awesome quality of the rims consisted in is immediately said: they had eyes. Is this not awesome: eyes on wheels! Therefore one cannot say with some interpreters that there remains incomprehensible why the wheels or their rims were awesome, and there is no need to seek here another meaning, for example: “and I looked at the rims” (“yire” awesome is similar in sound to “ree” “looked”), as does the Slavonic translation: “and I saw them” (so also most Greek codices; but the Venetian and 5 minuscule, that is written in cursive, codices have: και φουεροι σαν, as also one old Slavonic manuscript of Explanatory Prophecies: “and fearsome they were”). “And the rims of all four around were full of eyes.” Not simply furnished with eyes but “full” (Slavonic translation) of them, overflowing with them (γεμοντα δφθαλμων Rev 4:8). – And so it was “for all four” wheels – a refrain addition (vv. 8, 10, 16; about the refrain see explanation of v. 17), but at the same time strengthening the impression of the picture: four wheels and all sown with eyes. – The equipping of wheels with eyes is one of those purely Eastern symbols in which thought of special force seeks its expression, an idea not fitting into natural representations and notions. And of course what is represented in this symbol “is represented somewhat coarsely and bodily according to human weakness” (Theodoret). Since the eye is the expression of inner activity, vital power, perception and wisdom, eyes in the wheels point to life and reason. The wheels are animated because a dead object cannot be an instrument of God’s Glory. The eyes of course were not idle on the wheels: by them the wheels could look (“and they saw” has the Peshitta instead of “awesome they were”); the wheels looked where they rolled; they rolled consciously: “the wheels were full of knowledge” (Theodoret). The wheels are equipped with eyes “for the expression of the unfailing certainty with which the Divine throne moved” (Smend); “with looking eyes the wheels could not go astray from the road” (Bertholet). Since the wheels moved the throne of God, one can say that by the eyes of the wheels God Himself looked upon the earth over which He moved. This symbol apparently had a special place among the exiled and post-exiled prophets: Dan 7:8; Zech 3:9; Zech 4:10 and was perhaps a consequence of the Eastern environment and symbolism, “as the ancient sculptured image of Jupiter in Larissa had three eyes and is traced back to a Trojan, in any case Asian origin (Pausanias I, 24). (Hävernick); “the wheels,” says Jerome, “were such as the fables of poets depict as the hundred-eyed or many-eyed Argus”; cf. the eyes and ears of the king (satrap) in Xenophon Cyrop. VIII, 2; Mithra according to the Zend Avesta has 1000 ears and 10,000 eyes.

Ezekiel 1:19. And when the creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the creatures rose from the earth, the wheels also rose. The prophet has now finished the description of the wheels: having enumerated all the peculiarities of their appearance and structure in comparison with ordinary wheels, he also described their movement. Now the question arose about the relation of the wheels to the creatures: was there any connection between them such as between the creatures bearing a chariot and the chariot itself? In vv. 19–21 the prophet gives the answer to this question which he could give. The relation between the creatures and the wheels was for the viewer completely incomprehensible. There was no visible connection between them: “no shaft or yoke lay on the creatures: the divine chariot moved of itself: before it the creatures, behind them moved the wheels moving in all directions without turning” (Theodoret). Nevertheless “when the creatures went, the wheels went beside them.” Such simultaneous movement of creatures and wheels of course presupposed between them a connection. This connection was even more clearly confirmed by the fact that the wheels followed the creatures not only in their movement along the earth but also in the rising of the creatures from the earth, “the wheels also rose.” A wheel is a device for movement exclusively along the earth; the presence of wheels in the air was an unnatural position for them, and if they took on this position it proved the especially close connection of theirs with the creatures.

Ezekiel 1:20. Wherever the spirit wished to go, there they went; wherever the spirit went, the wheels were lifted up with them, because the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels. Forced to return to the movement of the creatures, the prophet repeats the most important of what was said about this movement. It differed from any other movement in many ways, but most of all in that its direction was determined in a mysterious way. The determiner of it was “spirit.” Hebrew “where was the spirit to go” Slavonic translates: “where there was the cloud, there was also the spirit”; thus a new notion “cloud” fits into the verse; in the parallel v. 12 there is no such word and therefore the LXX are suspected of an addition here: they could have read the preposition “al” “on,” “to” as “av” “cloud,” or substituted for it with this latter notion “ruach” “spirit” which indeed is incomprehensible why the Hebrew text puts twice (this substitution could have been made on the basis of 1 Sam 18:45 where a cloud appears in a storm preceding the wind); putting “cloud,” the LXX evidently understood that cloud which the prophet saw in v. 4, and under spirit the wind opening the vision; the meaning of the Slavonic translation is thus: where the cloud went there was the wind, and thither also went the creatures and the wheels. – Why is it said of the wheels “were lifted up” rather than “went”? “Lifted up” here scarcely has its precise meaning – a lifting from the earth: in vv. 19 and 21 where it has such meaning the addition “from the earth” is made to it; here it means “to lift from place” “to leave place” “to move” (Num 23:24 and others); if however this verb carries here its usual meaning as in vv. 19 and 21 then it gives the thought that the creatures with the wheels more hovered in the air than walked along the earth. – The prophet also indicates the cause of such agreement in the movement of the wheels and creatures: “because the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.” “Spirit of the creatures” more precisely: “spirit of the creature” – singular (hajaya). “By creatures the prophet means four inseparably connected with each other and moving absolutely identically creatures” (Smend). The prophet repeatedly assigns to the four creatures such a collective designation (calls them all – in singular “creature”): Ezek 1:22; Ezek 10:15, as also the wheels in him too are designated by a collective name “galal” (Ezek 10:2). The creatures were so closely connected to each other that the prophet in v. 11 considers it necessary to warn that their faces and wings were still separated. In general the cherubim are thought of in such inseparability from each other that separately they are scarcely spoken of and the singular of this name is almost not used. – Since regarding the cherubim the speech cannot be of spirit as their soul then evidently here is meant the spirit which according to v. 12 determined their movement. The LXX, Peshitta, Vulgate translate here “spirit of life,” but “haya” instead of “haim” in the meaning “life” is used only in poetry; this word in such meaning cannot stand with the article as here stands; then – if the wheels have only in general a living soul, then from this does not follow that they must move in accordance with the creatures.

Ezekiel 1:21. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose with them, because the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels. The harmony in the movement of the wheels and the living creatures was so remarkable that the prophet once again draws attention to it through a brief repetition of all that had been said about it. He supplements this repetition by noting that when the living creatures stopped, the wheels stopped with them—a circumstance far from obvious in itself, given that the wheels were in no way connected to the living creatures. Thus, “verse 21 unites, with the addition of something new, the two preceding verses and concludes them” (Hitzig). Besides this aim—serving as a conclusion to the description of the remarkable harmony in the movement of the living creatures and wheels—the verse has another purpose: it presents to us a picture of the overall motion of the entire phenomenon. From it we learn that the phenomenon was not always moving but sometimes came to a halt, and that it sometimes moved across the earth but at times hovered above the earth, “rose from the earth”—information of no little importance and until now not communicated by the prophet with such completeness and clarity. The verse ends with a literal repetition of the concluding words of the preceding verse: “for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels,” one of Ezekiel’s literary devices (refrain; see verse 17), which aims to call attention to the thought repeated with such exactness. “This causal statement stands twice because the main force lies in it” (Kraetzschmar). “It is stated twice: ‘for the spirit of life was in the wheels’ so that we might never think of the wheels as something like what we see in the lower parts of carts, wagons, and chariots, but rather as living creatures, even higher than living creatures” (Jerome).

Ezekiel 1:22. And above the heads of the living creatures was something like a vault, like the appearance of a crystal that was awesome in its beauty, stretched out above their heads. “Living creatures,” in Hebrew again, as in verses 19 and 21, “strangely” (Cornill) singular (though three Hebrew manuscripts in Kennicott’s collection, the LXX, Targum, Peshitta, and Vulgate have the plural) the four cherubim, and here, as in those verses, are regarded as one organic being. The word “likeness” warns the reader of the mysterious character of what is about to be described. The prophet again (verses 5, 10, 13) sees something to which he can point only with a likeness on earth: of the wheels it is not said that likenesses of them were visible; later this word will be used only in the description of the throne and the One sitting upon it. “Vault,” Slavic “firmament.” Hebrew “rakia” (στερεωμα, firmament) in the Old Testament is used in no other sense than that of the heavenly vault, the firmament. True, the absence of the article makes it possible that here this word does not mean the heavenly vault; but since Jehovah has His throne in heaven, “rakia” here can mean only heaven, the heavenly firmament. But it was not the firmament we ordinarily see, but only a likeness of it, far superior to its prototype. The LXX before “firmament” have also the particle “like” (ωσει); if this particle is authentic, then the resemblance of the firmament that appeared to the prophet to the visible becomes even less and amounts to only a weak likeness. About the heaven that is invisible, what is visible and sensible can give a very inadequate representation. Moses and “the elders of Israel,” who saw the place of God’s standing, found that in its pure and transparent light it resembled the heavenly firmament: “as if seeing the purity of the heavenly firmament” (Exod 24:10). The prophet Ezekiel, for the vault that he saw above the heads of the cherubim, does not find it sufficient to compare it only with the firmament and compares it also with “kerah,” in Russian “crystal.” “Kerah” means both cold, frost (Gen 31:40; Jer 36:30), and ice (Job 37:10); the second meaning is rarer and appears to be later, yet must be recognized as the primary one, because the root of this word means “to be smooth,” and therefore originally it should have been applied to water that had become smooth from freezing. But since the appearance of ice, however clear and transparent it might be, is not at all so splendid as to serve as a strong comparison for this case, the LXX and almost all the ancients (only the Targum—“ice”) settled on crystal or crystalline as the object that would better suit here than ice. Although in the sense of crystal “kerah” is used nowhere else (in Job 28:17 “crystal” is used to translate “gavish”), it is thought that crystal might have been called this either from its resemblance to ice or because, in the opinion of the ancients, it was produced by frost (Pliny, Hist. nat. XXXVII, 8, 9). It is supposed that even blessed John, having in mind Ezek 1:22 in Rev 4:6, inclines to such a meaning of this word; though he rather combines both meanings when he speaks of “a sea of glass, like crystal” before God’s throne. In the book of Job crystal (if it must be translated thus for “gavish”) is placed, it seems, below Ophir gold, but alongside ordinary pure gold (Job 28:17-18); consequently it was in antiquity a great treasure and perhaps worthy of being included in the composition of the magnificent vision where even the wheels seemed made of the finest precious stones. Crystal or glass covered the floors in the most luxurious palaces of the ancient East; in the Quran (sura 25, verse 44) the crystal platform before Solomon’s throne the Queen of Sheba mistakes for water. But if by “kerah” we understand crystal, it is unclear why the prophet calls it by such an unusual name. The prophet needed a mineral that would represent the finest combination of complete transparency with stone-like strength and could serve as a good symbol of heavenly purity and clarity. Perhaps “kerah” was a native name (Assyrian kirgu—“strength”) for a mineral that represented as though frozen pure water, like our diamond of pure water (but the Hebrew word for diamond is “shamir,” and in polished form it was scarcely known then). To the enigmatic object called “kerah” by the prophet, he assigns no less enigmatic a definition “hannora” (Russian “awesome”), which the LXX lack in the Alexandrian and Vatican codices, in the Coptic and Ethiopian translations. The root meaning of this word is “terrible” (Vulgate and Peshitta horribilis, but the Targum—“mighty”), but in the two places in the Old Testament where it is used (Judg 6:13; Job 37:22), it means fear and trembling inspired by the appearance of God or an angel. And in such a specialized meaning the word is here fitting: that crystal which in the form of a vault hung above the heads of the cherubim certainly inspired reverence in the prophet by making him feel its high, unearthly purpose; the prophet suddenly felt himself before the actual, opened heaven, and this sensation could not but fill him with awe. “Above their heads.” Instead of this tautological indication, the LXX in most of the best codices have the more natural: “upon their wings,” by which the prophet more precisely determines the position of the vault: it was not directly above the heads but above the wings, which were somewhat raised above the heads (verse 11).

Ezekiel 1:23. And under the vault their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another; and each had two wings covering them, each had two wings covering their bodies. The description, which one might already expect—what was on the vault—the prophet dramatically defers to the end and again returns to the description of the appearance in which the cherubim were approaching him with thunderous wing-beats; to the picture of this deafening flight (see verses 23–25) verse 23 serves as an introduction, in which the prophet reminds us of the mutual position of the wings already described in verses 9 and 11. The prophet, thus, speaks of this a third time, thereby showing the importance of this detail of the vision. But verse 23 does not simply repeat the data of verses 9 and 11; it more precisely defines the manner in which the wings of the cherubim were stretched toward each other: they were stretched straight toward each other, that is to say, they formed one horizontal plane lying at the base of the vault; such a position of the wings was the more remarkable in that, even during flight, they did not abandon this constantly maintained, mathematically precise position in relation to each other. From the Hebrew literally: “the wings were straight (yesharot) toward each other,” an expression somewhat strange (as before, in verses 9 and 11, the position of the wings was determined by barely intelligible words “hoveret” and “perudot,” as if the wings were in a hard-to-convey position in relation to each other), which is why the LXX substituted the expression from verse 11 “spread out,” supplementing it from Ezek 3:13 πτερυσσομενον “flying” (but there in Slavic, “being winged”), that is to say flying, beating (old Slavic translation “fluttering”), rather than calmly just stretched out. The prophet considers it necessary to note again, as in verse 11, that it was only two of the cherubim’s wings that were stretched out; the other two were lowered because their purpose was to cover the body. In Hebrew this thought is expressed as a distributive clause: “each (ish) of them two (wings) covered and the other (u-leish) of them two covered their body”; compare Isa 6:2. In the LXX the thought here is conveyed in one clause with the addition of the concept “joined” (the covering-body wings were joined together); but in the Chisian codex and Syrian hexapla there is also a second clause (και δυο καλυπτουσαι αυτοϊς) under an asterisk. Although the final thought of verse 23 is not new, yet its repetition, besides emphasizing it, sheds new light on it, placing it in such a connection as it has here; the cherubim, therefore, covered only the body (literally “torso”) because they were under the vault and the throne of God, and not before it, as the seraphim were.

Ezekiel 1:24. And when they moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a mighty sound, like the sound of an encampment; and when they stood still, they lowered their wings. Even the flight of large birds produces a considerable sound; but here were flying winged lions and oxen. The rumbling from this flight occurred right under the vault; as a result, that entire place was positively thundering; the footstool of Jehovah was destined to strike all the senses with its greatness—not sight alone but hearing as well. The prophet finds no sufficient comparison for the sound coming from there; hence this accumulation of comparisons. But the comparisons used here the Hebrew text and Russian translation unjustly apply to the same object. Several Greek codices (the Venetian, five minuscules, blessed Theodoret, and the Slavic translation) make a fortunate addition to the Hebrew text, placing with the first two comparisons “when they flew”: when the cherubim flew, the sound of their wings was like the sound of many waters and like the voice of the Almighty. But the cherubim were not always flying; sometimes they walked or moved in some other manner across the earth, and sometimes came to a complete halt. In either case their wings could not produce sound, or at least not such as during flight; the prophet notes that when the cherubim walked (“when they walked” in the Hebrew text stands not where the Russian translation places it, but before the third comparison), from their wings was heard “a mighty sound” (“qol hamula”; compare Jer 11:16; perhaps “haman” Ezek 7:11; 1 Sam 18:41; probably a kind of dull sound), like the sound in an encampment. When the cherubim came to a halt, their wings were at rest and of course could not produce sound. “Like the sound of many waters.” A favorite comparison of biblical writers for a loud sound: Ezek 43:2; Isa 17:12; Jer 10:13; Rev 1:15; Ps 92:4. By many waters might be understood rain, the sea, or more likely the frequent mountain torrents of Judea with their waterfalls; all of these produce a loud but undefined and confused sound, most fitting here. The rumbling heard by the prophet did not at all resemble “the sound of many waters” in full: it was stronger. If one seeks a comparison for it, the prophet continues, it could only be likened to the voice of God Himself (“like the voice of the Almighty”). “Why vainly seek a likeness worthy of the thing and find it nowhere? It suffices to point out the very Agent and thereby show the force of the sound” (blessed Theodoret). By “the voice of the Almighty” may be understood both an actual voice of God (heard, for example, at Sinai); such understanding is favored by the addition to this comparison in Ezek 10:5: “when He speaks.” But among biblical writers such an expression (“God’s voice”) is the usual circumlocution for thunder: Ps 28:3-5; Job 37:2-5; Rev 19:5-6. Finally, “God’s voice” can mean any great, piercing, and terrible sound, as “the cedars of God” and “the mountains of God” mean great cedars and mountains. All these understandings can be united: the prophet’s comparison wishes to name the loudest sound possible on earth, reaching the degree which the Hebrew designated in various qualities with the high definition “of God”; but no sound can be compared in strength to the deafening rolls of thunder, at which the universe seems to tremble; if anything can be stronger on earth than this sound, it would be theophanic thunder, which was certainly stronger than natural thunder and which is meant by the passages in the Psalms, Apocalypse, and Job cited above. Whatever “the voice of the Almighty” means, in any case this epithet points to a stronger sound than the first comparison; moreover, the second comparison supplements the first, determining the sound heard by the prophet by another aspect—by its degree and strength, whereas the first comparison determines it by quality. Not without purpose is God here called by the rare name Shaddai (Russian “Almighty,” Slavic “Saddai”). By this name God is called especially in weighty and solemn cases: Gen 17:1; Num 24:4; in the book of Job this name occurs thirty times. This is some mysterious divine name expressing perhaps the elemental, worldwide force of Godhead; see Gen 17:1. As a noun Shaddai is found only in poetry; in prose it has El before it, and on the basis of Ezek 10:5 some Greek codices and the Slavic translation read it here before it as well “God.” The sound produced by the cherubim’s wings during their walking, the prophet compares with the noise of an encampment, such as is produced by vast armies, both prepared from either side for battle. Compare Gen 32:3; therefore the Targum: “like the voice of the angels on high.” Naturally, the procession of the heavenly host is accompanied by the sound of a military march. And this loud military sound, reminiscent of the sound of an entire encampment, comes forth from only four beings! The sound of the cherubim’s wings should cease when they were standing: then they did not beat their wings but lowered them. Instead of “lowered,” the Slavic has “rested” (making “wings” the subject, not “creatures,” as the Russian translation does), which is correct, because according to verses 12 and 23, two pairs of wings in the cherubim were constantly spread. In seven Hebrew manuscripts (six in Kennicott’s collection and one in Rossi’s) and in some copies of the Peshitta the verse 24 is completely absent. In the Vatican codex from this verse only is read: “And I heard the voice of their wings when they walked, like the voice of many waters; and when they stood, their wings rested”; thus from the series of comparisons the Vatican codex gives only one; all the rest stands against this and in the Masoretic codex under an asterisk with the notation θε (from Theodotion). Given that the reading of the Vatican codex stands alone (confirmed only by the Masoretic codex, and in other cases agreeing with it), one may suspect this codex, generally inclined to avoid difficult passages through omission, of emending the verse according to Ezek 43:2, where only one comparison is given—with the sound of waters.

Ezekiel 1:25. And a voice came from above the vault that was over their heads; when they stood still, they lowered their wings. What this “voice from the vault” was, various conjectures are made. The first suggestion that comes to mind is that this voice belonged to the One who was above the vault, who was directing where the creatures should stop. The second half of the verse then might mean that “at the call from above the chariot finally stopped before Ezekiel and now the prophet could give a description of the throne and the One sitting upon it.” But such an understanding is hindered by the fact that 1) in Ezekiel speaks for the first time in Ezek 2:1; 2) the chariot was already standing when the voice sounded; 3) it cannot be said of the creatures, obedient to the voice from the vault and having at last stopped, thus: “when they stood, their wings lowered.” Likewise baseless are other suppositions about this voice. It “could not be an echo coming from below, neither by the nature of things, nor because Ezekiel by his location could not have heard it. It could not originate from the throne that was resting. It could not issue from Jehovah Himself, be the sound of His footsteps, because Jehovah does not tread but sits. If it had been thunder, it could have been defined more precisely, called by its name” (Hitzig). This enumeration must be supplemented with the clever guess of Kraetzschmar that by the voice from the vault should be understood “the sound caused by the imagined circle of Jehovah, the host of the Lord; for the One sitting on the throne, Jehovah, who thus appears as a king, should be, as such, surrounded by an innumerable multitude of servants, without which an Oriental cannot picture a king; ‘a mighty sound, like the sound of an encampment’ must be transferred from verse 24 to verse 25, where it will designate the full-of-awe whisper that ran through the multitude of heavenly hosts when the Divine chariot came to a halt and Jehovah was about to speak; Ezekiel does not dwell at greater length on the description of the Divine court but hastens past the surrounding beings to the principal Person. Too tortuous a thought would the prophet assume in the reader, who from the existence of the sound around the Lord should draw the conclusion of the host surrounding Him. The enigmatic character of the voice of which the verse speaks, and the complete impossibility of establishing any connection between the two halves of the verse, as well as the literal similarity of 25b with 24c, led even the ancient interpreters to the thought of corruption of the text here. This thought is favored also by the history of the text: nine Hebrew manuscripts and some copies of the Peshitta omit the entire verse; the Chisian codex marks it with an asterisk; the second half of the verse is absent in thirteen Hebrew manuscripts, in the Alexandria and Vatican codices, in the Coptic and Ethiopian translations, by which means the verse there receives this form: “and there was a voice from the vault.” This reading is smooth, but this very smoothness is suspicious: how could it have become the roughness that the present Hebrew text and the Greek codices agreeing with it represent? Strictly speaking, only the second half of the verse is not subject to explanation, presenting such a jarring repetition of verse 24 that had just been read. But such repetition of concluding expressions is in the spirit of Ezekiel and the first chapter represents more than one example of this authorial device (“did not turn when they went,” “for the spirit of life was in the wheels”). Such repetition replaces in the prophet what in our time is underlining. So the repeated expression cannot stand in a very close connection with neighboring sentences (verses 9, 12); its purpose is not in another sentence but in itself: the prophet uses a distant occasion to remind the thought expressed earlier. One can ignore these concluding repetitions and the thread of the description will not be broken; and this is what should be done here; one must see in the first half of the verse a continuation of the description and in the second—an interruption of it, caused by the desire to return to the thought expressed earlier; “there was a voice from the vault—it could be heard because when the creatures stopped, their wings produced no sound.” If so, then the first half of the verse can be explained completely independently of the second. Remarkable is the absence of any immediate definition for “the voice from the vault.” No less remarkable is that this voice is for the first time referred to by a finite verb: and a voice was. By these two circumstances the voice from the vault is given an exclusive and very exalted place: “above the vault”—truly a Divine place. Together with this, the voice through the absence of any definition given to it is invested with a certain mystery and incomprehensibility. For the sound from the wings of the cherubim the prophet with difficulty could find a likeness among earthly sounds. For the voice from the vault he does not even attempt to present any comparison. All this proves the Divine nature of this “sound.” And indeed, why could God in His appearance not produce, in addition to everything else, a special Divine sound? Such a sound (“voice”—“qol”) accompanied already the first appearance of Him described in the Bible (in paradise); about the astounding sound from His appearance (“voices”—“qolot”) it is said also in the description of the Sinai theophany. God first of all and most directly manifests Himself in the world through “qol,” voice, His Word. And the cherubim “could not bear the voice of God the Almighty, sounding in heaven, but stood, and were amazed, and by their silence pointed to the might of God seated upon the vault” (blessed Jerome).

Ezekiel 1:26. And above the vault that was over their heads there was something like a throne in appearance like sapphire stone; and above the likeness of the throne was something like a human form, seated above it. “Likeness as if of a throne in appearance as if of sapphire stone.” Literally: “As if likeness of sapphire stone, likeness of a throne.” Thus the original text leaves it unknown whether the throne was sapphire or the sapphire was something separate from the throne. The LXX incline toward the latter thought: “as if seeing a stone of sapphire, likeness of a throne upon it”; “upon it,” superfluous in the Hebrew text, clearly says that the throne was situated on the sapphire and that consequently it was not the throne that was sapphire but something beneath it—the footstool of the throne or something else, unknown. But whether the throne was sapphire or something else, the appearance of this stone here is significant. This stone, which bears the name of brilliance itself (“saphar”—“to shine”), was regarded as one of the most beautiful stones (Isa 54:11; Rev 21:19), not yielding in price to gold (Job 28:6), a stone blue in color in any case (if it is not identical with our sapphire) according to Pliny (Hist. nat. 87, 9) it is blue sometimes with red and glimmers with golden points (scarcely our lapis—lapislazuli). To the bright blue of the sky, the sapphire adds impermeability, for which reason it is attracted here for comparison. “As the crystal points to all that is fully pure and shining in the heavens, so the sapphire—to the hidden, concealed, and unattainable mysteries of God, ‘who made darkness His dwelling’ (blessed Jerome). “This likeness points to a nature mysterious and invisible” (blessed Theodoret). The prophet sees a throne, about which there could be no doubt whose it was. Rising at an unattainable height (compare Isa 6:1), enveloped in flame and flooded with unbearable light for the eye, the heavenly throne surely scarcely allowed itself to be distinguished, and the prophet had now to mentally complete what he saw. Hence “likeness” with such a definite object as a throne; hence also the silence about the light and material of the throne (if not counting it as sapphire). A throne presupposes a king. Thus God appears to the prophet Ezekiel, first of all, as a king. God did not appear to the prophet Ezekiel as a king for the first time; but appearances of God in such a form began shortly before Ezekiel. The concept of God on a throne arose in the times of kings: Moses received a vision of Godhood in the form of a burning fire in the bush, Elijah in the wind of the wilderness, Samuel heard the calling voice of God. God’s appearance in the form of a king was first introduced by Micaiah: 1 Sam 22:8, followed by the vision of Isaiah. The development of such a concept could not but be influenced by the appearance and strengthening of royal power: there could be no better image on earth for God than an absolute king in all the splendor of his majesty. The splendor of Nebuchadnezzar’s court could indirectly have influenced the revival of the idea of God as King, and in the prophet Daniel we find an even more complex, than in Ezekiel, representation of the Heavenly King and His holy Court (Dan 7:9-10). “And above the likeness” (repetition of the concept to intensify the thought) “of the throne was something like a human form,” literally: “a likeness, as if the appearance of a human.” This image could scarcely be delineated in that sea of light by which it was flooded. If even the throne was indistinctly visible (“likeness”), then to the One sitting upon it the concept of visibility hardly applied. Hence this accumulation of limiting words: “likeness,” “as if,” “appearance.” In this respect the prophet Ezekiel, however, received no less than what was given to other God-seers. “The elders of Israel with Moses were shown only the place of God’s standing; Isaiah saw the seraphim surrounding God’s throne; Ezekiel sees the very bearers and the direct bearers of God’s throne” (Kraetzschmar). Properly speaking, “no one has ever seen God anywhere” (John 1:18). If Moses, Isaiah, and Daniel say that they saw the Lord (for example, sitting on a throne), then this brief expression of theirs should probably be understood in light of Ezekiel’s precise and detailed description: they did not see the face of the appearing God (which could not be shown even to Moses: Exod 33:23), but seeing only vague outlines of the form of God.

Ezekiel 1:27. From the appearance of His waist upward I saw as if a gleaming metal, and as if a vision of fire within it all around; and from the appearance of His waist downward I saw as if fire, and brightness was all around Him. In the setting of the King who appeared to the prophet, even precious stones, ordinarily adorning kings and their crowns, obviously took a secondary position: they retreated to such parts of this setting as the wheels of the throne, its base. The One sitting on the throne was not adorned with them. All their beauty and brilliance could add nothing to the light by which the One sitting shone, and with which one could compare only the brilliance of the unknown to us hashmal (from this alone is it clear what precious substance hashmal was and how wrong are the interpreters who suppose it to be, for instance, amber or some kind of copper). “Notably the prophet is very restrained in this final part of his picture: he barely sketches the contour of the divine appearance; the brilliance that it cast seems to blind him and obscure details from him” (Reis). “And I saw.” For the first time after verse 4, and twice in this verse: the extraordinary importance of the moment. “As if a gleaming metal.” Literally, “as if appearance of hashmal”; thus “hashmal” in Russian is rendered here inconsistently with verse 5; where it is translated (equally presumptuously as here): “light of flame,” Slavic in verse 5 and here equally: “as if the appearance of electron.” As the hashmal shone, the One sitting on the throne; but the prophet replaces the direct description of His form (for instance, “and His appearance was like the appearance of hashmal”) with this cautious expression. On the throne was barely visible a human form; what could actually be seen from it was only the light of hashmal. Admittedly, from the throne came not this light alone. To the light of hashmal was added a fiery light. The relationship in which the second, pure fiery light stood to the first is expressed by the following unclear phrase: “as if appearance of fire within (“bet”—an unusual word not used anywhere else unless it be equivalent to “bayit” “house”) it (properly “her,” that is, either the human form on the throne or hashmal; both in Hebrew are feminine) around.” The phrase might have either this sense: she (the human figure? hashmal?) seemed to be entirely on fire, or inner meaning: within the hashmal a circular fire was visible. In the subsequent words of the verse the shining of the One sitting on the throne is described more precisely. Described in this way, like hashmal and fire, the One sitting “from the appearance of His waist and above” shone; but “from the appearance of His waist and below” the prophet “saw as if... fire,” one without hashmal. All this description is much clearer in Ezek 8:2, where the same Image shines below the waist only as fire, and above as hashmal and radiance (consequently, in the Russian translation a semicolon should be moved to “his”). The prophet expresses himself with extreme caution. The light-bearing body of God divides into two parts; if one were to imagine God in human form at all, in that case what is called in human beings the waist (“appearance of the waist”) would be the boundary between both parts, which shone unequally. Since the image was in a sitting position, the vertical part of it from the waist upward shone like hashmal and fire, and the lower part only like fire. The lower part of the image, situated closer to the earth and first opened to the human eye, shines with a more moderate light—as fire (but not as simple fire, but “as if appearance,” something like fire), perhaps because it is enveloped in garment, falling in wide folds around (compare Isa 6:1); the upper, probably imagined as unclothed, or at least in part, at the neck, breast, shines with the most dazzling brilliance imaginable (this was the bright radiance which the prophet noticed earlier when the cloud only arose on the horizon—verse 5); but even the upper part, alongside the radiance of hashmal, had the radiance of fire: perhaps the One sitting on the throne, shining Himself with light similar to the brilliance of hashmal, was clothed in fire as in a garment. “And brightness all around Him,” that is, the One sitting on the throne. By a personal pronoun the speech returns to the main subject of the verse, to which it is indicated without any explanation by the pronoun in “His waist.” All around the light-bearing form of God is a bright light sphere, the appearance of which is more fully described in verse 28 as a rainbow.

Ezekiel 1:28. Like the appearance of a rainbow that appears in the clouds during a rainstorm—such was the appearance of the brightness all around it. “Like a rainbow (and indeed in all respects like a real one) in what form it appears in the clouds during a rainstorm. The Inaccessible separates Himself from the surrounding sphere. While He Himself shines with extraordinary light, the circle outlined around Him glimmers, as it should, with more softened, gentle light” (Hitzig). Bright light from the throne of God is refracted in the colorful radiance of the rainbow, which tempers it. Representing a diversity of colors and the most beautiful, and gradually transitioning to others, constituting as it were the greatness of God reflected in the sky, the rainbow enters also into other theophanies: Rev 4:3; Rev 10:1—mainly on account of the significance it acquired after the flood. “Such appearance” Slavic: “thus standing,” probably the translator took δρασις as στασις; so only, besides the Slavic translation in the Venetian codex and in blessed Theodoret. The meaning and sense of Ezekiel’s vision on the Chebar remain until now, and probably will remain for a long time, as much a secret as the closely connected with this vision and even more enigmatic vision in this prophet of the new temple (chapters XL-XLIV) and apocalyptic visions. Nevertheless, exegetics presents many attempts to unravel the mystery of the Chebar vision, the most important of which are as follows: 1) the holy Fathers, though not passing over in complete silence the mysterious vision of Ezekiel’s first chapter, speak of it little, dwelling more on individual dark words and expressions of the prophet than on the revelation of the thought of the entire vision. Nevertheless, in them we find an attempt, true though hesitant, to point out the idea of the vision. In the four mysterious creatures of the vision some of them saw the image of the four evangelists, and considered the entire phenomenon a foretelling of the universal spread upon earth of the kingdom of Christ. The grounds for such understanding were presented as follows: there are also four evangelists as creatures in the vision; they have as many faces as each is destined to go into the whole world; they look at each other as each agrees with the rest; they have four wings as they are dispersed to different lands and with such speed as if they were flying; in the sound of the wings they saw the gospel that went forth to all the earth; and in the four different faces of the creatures they saw an indication of the character and content of each of the Gospels. Besides blessed Jerome (who accepts this explanation of Ezekiel’s first chapter in the preface to his commentary on Matthew, and in his commentary on Ezekiel fears to follow it entirely) and Gregory the Dialogist, from whom we find a detailed development of this explanation, it was already known to holy Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies III, 16, 8). From the latter it acquired rather wide distribution in the Western church, where it was dominant throughout the Middle Ages. As for the Eastern church, in the Fathers of it who occupied themselves with the interpretation of Ezekiel’s first chapter (holy Ephrem the Syrian and Macarius the Great, blessed Theodoret), we do not encounter any indication of this explanation. That it was not entirely unknown in the Eastern church can perhaps be served only by certain testimony, besides holy Irenaeus, the monuments of iconography, sometimes depicting the evangelists in the form of the four “creatures” of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. Our church charter, appointing in Passion week at the hours, when the four-gospel is read, Paremias from Ezek 1-2 chapter, also has in mind this explanation of Ezekiel’s first chapter. This explanation merits attention already for its antiquity. At its foundation lies that true thought that the vision of the prophet Ezekiel could not but indicate, though in part, the Christian times, which were separated from it only by several centuries. The God dwelling in the temple among the Hebrew people upon the cherubim was now, as it were, changing His dwelling place on earth, not wishing to limit it to one people and one country. He had to reveal Himself also to the gentiles, which was accomplished through the preaching of the Gospel. All this could be expressed by the removal of the Glory of God upon the cherubim from the Jerusalem temple, described in chapters X and XI of Ezekiel, to which the first chapter serves as a preparation. But, on the other hand, in the image of the mysterious creatures the prophet beholds, as he himself says in Ezek 10:20, nothing other than cherubim. To choose these images for the representation of the evangelists was a right of church art, but this choice does not oblige us to follow such a distant allegorical explanation. It is now preferred to explain Ezekiel’s vision from the nearest historical circumstances and to find in it indications mainly of the prophet’s era and of the content of his predictions and book. Since this appearance of God to Ezekiel was for him a calling to prophetic preaching, the general content of the preaching determined the form of the appearance. The preaching of Ezekiel revolved around two chief subjects: the destruction of the old temple (chapters VIII-XI) and the creation of a new one in the renewed Jerusalem (chapters XI-XLIII). Hence God appears to Ezekiel in a setting reminiscent of the temple—upon cherubim. But since God is to perform judgment over His people, as a result of which the temple will be destroyed and captivity will follow, He appears at the same time as an awesome judge. Since this judgment will not result in the complete destruction of the chosen people but in their restoration, God in His appearance surrounds Himself also with symbols of mercy. From these three principles are explained all the details of Ezekiel’s vision. It revealed itself with signs of an awesome, destructive character—a stormy wind, a great cloud, fire, which indicated the impending invasion of Judea by the Chaldeans (hence the appearance of the vision from the north). The gentle radiance of electron and the rainbow could serve as a sign of God’s placation, the cessation of wrath. Appearing as an awesome but merciful judge, God appears to the prophet at the same time as the God of the covenant, though avenging for the violation of this covenant, but destined at some point to restore it. For this purpose God appears sitting upon the cherubim, between whom He had His dwelling in the temple above the Ark of the Covenant. Among the cherubim were burning coals, which presuppose beneath them an altar—that chief property of the temple. From the temple setting the even such a secondary object as the laver is not forgotten: in Solomon’s temple it was mobile, furnished with wheels; therefore the wheels that were in Ezekiel’s charge beside the cherubim point to it. Thus, even to Ezekiel, as to Isaiah, God appears in the temple, but this temple is made mobile in the sign that Jehovah is to temporarily leave the Jerusalem temple. This explanation of Ezekiel’s vision with insignificant variations is repeated by the majority of old and new interpreters. Although the main positions established by this explanation are true, it does not issue from one principle; all the thoughts extracted from the vision by this explanation, if they are given by the vision, are not the thoughts of the whole vision but of its separate parts, and should be united in some higher, basic thought. Besides, these thoughts, though high and important, are not new in prophetic literature; meanwhile the Chebar vision in the book of Ezekiel produces such an impression that it wishes to say something new, to give a new revelation. From this perspective, more sympathetic are those attempts to explain Ezekiel’s vision that try to find one thought throughout the entire vision. Thus Kimchi (the rabbi of the 13th century) and Maldonado (the Jesuit † 1583) think that the four living creatures in the prophet Ezekiel, as also in Daniel, denote the four great successive kingdoms; but this explanation obviously reduces the cherubim to the status of mere symbols. The same shortcoming characterizes Schroeder’s explanation, by which the creatures of the vision represent the life of the world in all the wholeness of its forces, and God appears in the present vision as the living God in His glory, which is the life of the world (cf. ch. XXXVII and XLVII and 1 John 1:2). It is interesting to consider the interpretation of Ezekiel’s vision given by the Jesuit Nebrans in Revue biblique October 1894, which can be called astronomical. The chief constituent parts of the vision by his account symbolize the movement of the heavenly vault and the various phenomena upon it. The very heavenly vault is represented in the vision under the image of a tremendous wheel, “galgal” (Ezek 10:13), which, as the places where this word is used show, is not a wheel in the ordinary sense of the word, but denotes something having the spherical form of a globe (Nebrans on the basis of Ezek 1:15 according to the Hebrew text concludes that in the vision there was only one wheel). The stars in the vision are represented by living eyes, by which the high and terrible rims of the wheels looked upon the prophet (according to Nebrans, the rim of one wheel). The creatures of Ezekiel’s vision are the signs of the zodiac, invented, as is known, by the Chaldeans. To complete the analogy, the fire that walked between the creatures corresponded to the sun and its visible movement across the heavenly vault along the signs of the zodiac. The purpose of Ezekiel’s vision was to show Israel that its God is the true master of that heaven, stars and lights which the Chaldeans deified (God in the vision sits above the firmament and the creatures). But quite apart from the fact that there are four wheels indicated in the vision (Ezek 1:16), not one, as Nebrans requires, “galgal” (the name of the wheels in the vision according to Ezek 10:13) means a kind of whirlwind (see explanation for X:13), not a sphere in general; the heavenly vault could not be personified by the wheels, and also because this vault appears later in the vision as a separate independent part of it (v. 22). If, therefore, the wheels in the vision did not mean the heavenly vault, then the eyes on them are not stars. Furthermore, the signs of the zodiac with the creatures of Ezekiel’s vision have in common only that the former, and not all of them, as well as the latter, are creatures, figures of creatures; the signs of the zodiac carved on one Babylonian tablet of the 12th century B.C. scarcely resemble the creatures of Ezekiel’s vision: so on this board there is one depiction of a two-headed creature, “and the creatures of Ezekiel,” says Nebrans, “had four heads; in another creature legs are extended — and the legs of the creatures of the vision are “straight” (1). Finally, if the Babylonians deified the creatures depicting constellations (they even called them “lords of the gods”), then it followed that the God of Israel surrounded Himself in this manifestation with the images of pagan gods; is such a conception permissible? But the part of truth that this explanation may contain is this: under the movement of the cherubim, which is so detailed in the vision (v. 9, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19–21, 24–25), one cannot fail to understand some activity of these highest beings; and their activity, by virtue of the position of the cherubim at the throne of God, cannot fail to be cosmic activity, cannot fail to affect the world in its very foundations, cannot fail to influence the course of all the life of the world. With certainty about the thought of Ezekiel’s vision one can say the following. The manifestations of God, to which the Chebar vision of the prophet Ezekiel belonged, took place generally at the most important moments in the history of the covenant established by God with the Hebrew people. They marked its beginning (the theophany to Abraham, especially Gen 15:1, Jacob’s vision of the ladder); then theophany repeated when God’s covenant was renewed with the people of Abraham, when the small family of that patriarch had become a numerous people (the appearance in the burning bush, the Sinai revelation), and then every time when the covenant is threatened with danger. In this the magnitude of danger and generally the importance of one or another moment in the history of the covenant determines the greater or lesser magnificence of the theophany; so one of the most magnificent theophanies after the Sinai revelation was with the prophet Elijah — this prophet — when one might have thought that only one person remained faithful to the covenant with God in all Israel. Since the manifestation of God to Ezekiel at the Chebar was distinguished among theophanies by its magnificence, it means the time of this theophany — the epoch of Ezekiel — was an especially important moment in the history of the covenant, perhaps not less important than the epoch of Moses, a critical moment. At the Sinai covenant God promised to give part of mankind what He had once deprived all mankind of for the violation of His commandment, the gift to the Hebrews of the Promised Land had such deep meaning, in this one can become convinced by comparing everything that was connected with such a gift: not only that Palestine by nature flowed with honey and milk, but God promised by special acts of providence to influence its abundance and fertility before the sabbatical year, and so forth. In a word, a new paradise was planted for man, though no longer in Eden: Lev 26:4 and further, Gen 13:10; Hos 2:18 and so forth Ezek 36:35; Isa 51:3; Joel 2:3. God wanted to return to Israel almost everything that He had taken from Adam, to bring about a change in the very conditions of human life created by sin, even in the purely natural realm. Many centuries of experience showed that Israel, like Adam, could not fulfill the obligations undertaken by the covenant with God. The time came, and for God, if not to annul, then at least to limit His great promises to His people, to a second time expel man from paradise. During the time of Ezekiel this turning point took place: God was taking from His former people the Promised Land. It was to be turned into a desert by the invasion of the Chaldeans (Ezek 6). And it could never afterwards completely recover from this invasion; at least, after the exile it never struck everyone, as before, with its fertility and abundance. Ezekiel lamented the end of the land of Israel (ch. VII). God was depriving His former people also of His direct nearness: from the time of the exile Israel had few prophets; it also did not have the former temple with the Ark of the Covenant and the Glory of the Lord over it. Such an important change occurred with the Sinai covenant during the time of Ezekiel. It is understandable why God now appears so magnificently, as at Sinai, and in surroundings reminiscent of the Sinai theophany. Among other theophanies the Chebar vision stands out by the presence of cherubim, which in it occupy a very prominent place — they are the chief agents of the entire manifestation. Although the cherubim in the economy of human salvation here appear not for the first time and not as the only occasion, nevertheless their appearance in the history of this economy is extremely rare. It is not difficult to list all the cases known from the Bible of this appearance: the first took place at the moment of the fall of mankind, when cherubim (Gen 3:24: in the Hebrew and Greek plural) were entrusted with guarding the paradise taken from men; then after the conclusion of the Sinai covenant the cherubim overshadow the Ark of this covenant and are present in the tabernacle, which should be concluded on the basis of their depictions over the one and in the other; finally, after appearing in the visions of the prophet Ezekiel, they appear again only in the visions of John the Theologian, which, as is known, have as their subject the final struggle of the church with the forces of the world and its ultimate victory, that is, the end of time. What is common to all these cases is that they take place at particularly important moments of the providential action of God upon the earth, at moments of such or similar importance as the end of the world or that profound upheaval which mankind was to experience through the fall. What the prophet Ezekiel contemplated at the Chebar thus stood in some relation to the early history of fallen mankind and to the end of that history and of our world. This is proven also by the undoubted connection of this vision with the last vision of the prophet Ezekiel in chapters XI–XLVII. And this vision relates to those times when Israel, restored to its former rights, renewed and holy, will dwell in the Promised Land, completely unlike the former land, with a new temple. Since the salvation of Israel will take place in the last times, when the fullness of the nations enters in, then in the last chapters of his book the prophet Ezekiel describes obviously that new earth and that new Jerusalem, of which the Apocalypse also speaks. And so into the new temple, which this earth will have, enters the Glory of God in the very form in which it manifested itself at the Chebar and in which it departed from the old temple, destroyed by the Chaldeans. Thus the manifestation of God, described in chapter I of the book of Ezekiel, is so exceptional that it will have its analogy only in that mysterious time when “time... shall be no more” (Rev 10:6). At the same time this theophany had great analogy with what was accomplished through Moses at Sinai. But this analogy is an analogy of opposition: the Glory of God, which had rested in Israel since the time of the Sinai legislation, in the times of Ezekiel was transitioning “from the threshold of the House to the cherubim” (Ezek 10:18) for removal from the transgressing people. Israel could console itself with the hope that it would return to him in the time described in chapters XL–XLVIII of Ezekiel. For such a turning point in the direction of providential activity, as took place during the time of Ezekiel, God needed to “raise up His strength,” “to shake the heaven and the earth,” and for this to appear on the cherubim, which “shake the world when they move” (Targum on Ezek I, 7). * * * Notes The Peshitta in Ezek 1:4 omits this word, and in verses 27 and Ezek 8:2 puts in its place (quid pro quo) “divine appearance,” apparently counting this mysterious word a full designation of God or an angel; the rabbis derived it from roots meaning “swiftness” and “rest” (or “speech” and “silence”) and considered it the name of an angel, the teacher of Ezekiel; others of them thought it was the Angel who took on the form of fire or the Spirit of God in the form of fire. Maldonatus and Gerard (Roman Catholic interpreters of the 17th century) draw attention to the fact that if this word is read in reverse order of letters, it becomes the word “Messiah” with the preposition “le”—“for” in front. The images of Ezekiel’s first chapter have remarkable parallels in Eastern mythology. Until recently the creature in mythology most closely resembling the cherub was considered to be the griffin; bearing also a name consonant (γρυφ—“kerub”), it resembles the cherub both in external appearance and in functions: griffins are winged creatures with the talons of lions, the beaks of eagles, and flaming eyes, which guard gold in the far north at the Arimaspi (Herod. III, 16; IV, 13, 27) in the land of the gods. But the most striking parallel to Ezekiel’s cherubim is provided by the figures of winged bulls (Sticrcolossen) and lions found during excavations of Assyro-Chaldean cities. These are bulls and lions with human bearded heads in headdresses, and some of them with four wings (compare Jer 1:6), of which two are stretched upward and two are lowered (Ezek 1:9). Most of them have been found in Kuyunjik and Khorsabad, in the ruins of ancient Nineveh; the colossi of Khorsabad are bulls, and those of Nimrud are lions; sometimes lions alternate with bulls (in Persepolis). Some specimens have been brought to the Louvre and British museums. These figures were placed at the entrances of temples and palaces, serving as caryatids: their vaults and roofs seemed to rest upon them (compare Ezek 1:22). Their symbolic purpose was, as shown by certain cuneiform inscriptions, to guard the entrances of palaces and temples. But a drawing on a cylinder discovered by Tornkins gives grounds to suppose that the beings depicted by these colossi were considered not only guards but also bearers of the divinity; Lenorman describes this drawing thus: “on the waves, depicted as usual by trembling lines, floats a magical living vessel, which ends at the stern and bow with a human bust protruding half out of the body; on this vessel are visible two kiroubi or winged bulls standing back to back in profile, turned by their human faces toward the viewer; these two cherubim necessarily presuppose the existence of two others, not visible but necessary to bear the other side of the vault which they support on their shoulders; on this vault the throne or seat of a bearded god in a long robe with a straight pair or kidaris on his head, with a short scepter and a broad unadorned ring in his hand” (Les orig. d. hist 1, 120). The coincidence of mythological representations of cherubim with biblical ones (especially Ezekiel’s) is explicable by the fact that the former came from the first revelation itself, but essentially altered by human imagination. For more details on Ezekiel I see Skabalanovich M. The First Chapter of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Mariupol, 1904.