Ezekiel 10
Vision of God's Glory Departing from the Temple
Prophecies about Judah and Jerusalem before the Captivity1
Then I looked, and see, in the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
2
He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, "Go in between the whirling wheels, even under the cherub, and fill both your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city."He went in as I watched.
3
Now the cherubim stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.
4
5
The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
6
It came to pass, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, "Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim," that he went in, and stood beside a wheel.
7
The cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it, and put it into the hands of him who was clothed in linen, who took it and went out.
8
The form of a man's hand appeared here in the cherubim under their wings.
9
10
As for their appearance, the four of them had one likeness, like a wheel within a wheel.
11
When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn't turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it. They didn't turn as they went.
12
Their whole body, including their backs, their hands, their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes all around, even the wheels that the four of them had.
13
As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, "the whirling wheels".
14
Every one them had four faces. The first face was the face of the cherub. The second face was the face of a man. The third face was the face of a lion. The fourth was the face of an eagle.
16
When the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels also didn't turn from beside them.
17
When they stood, these stood. When they mounted up, these mounted up with them; for the spirit of the living creature was in them.
18
The LORD's glory went out from over the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.
19
20
This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim.
21
Every one had four faces, and every one four wings. The likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.
22
As for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves. They each went straight forward.
Eze 10:1-22. VISION OF COALS OF FIRE SCATTERED OVER THE CITY: REPETITION OF THE VISION OF THE CHERUBIM.
1. The throne of Jehovah appearing in the midst of the judgments implies that whatever intermediate agencies be employed, He controls them, and that the whole flows as a necessary consequence from His essential holiness (Eze 1:22, 26).
cherubim--in Eze 1:5, called "living creatures." The repetition of the vision implies that the judgments are approaching nearer and nearer. These two visions of Deity were granted in the beginning of Ezekiel's career, to qualify him for witnessing to God's glory amidst his God-forgetting people and to stamp truth on his announcements; also to signify the removal of God's manifestation from the visible temple (Eze 10:18) for a long period (Eze 43:2). The feature (Eze 10:12) mentioned as to the cherubim that they were "full of eyes," though omitted in the former vision, is not a difference, but a more specific detail observed by Ezekiel now on closer inspection. Also, here, there is no rainbow (the symbol of mercy after the flood of wrath) as in the former; for here judgment is the prominent thought, though the marking of the remnant in Eze 9:4, 6 shows that there was mercy in the background. The cherubim, perhaps, represent redeemed humanity combining in and with itself the highest forms of subordinate creaturely life (compare Ro 8:20). Therefore they are associated with the twenty-four elders and are distinguished from the angels (Re 5:1-14). They stand on the mercy seat of the ark, and on that ground become the habitation of God from which His glory is to shine upon the world. The different forms symbolize the different phases of the Church. So the quadriform Gospel, in which the incarnate Saviour has lodged the revelation of Himself in a fourfold aspect, and from which His glory shines on the Christian world, answers to the emblematic throne from which He shone on the Jewish Church.