Ezekiel's vision of God's throne
So on Thursday, I got into work and suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be leading the Bible Study for my Thursday night small group. As I hadn't even thought about what I would be presenting, my Bible study got to see "whatever Donald's currently reading in his personal quiet time," which happened to be the beginning of Ezekiel, and his vision of God's glory. I guess I should be glad it was something easy ;) This post is based on that Bible study, complete with some of the illustrations I shared with my group.
Let's begin by reading Ezekiel Chapter 1 (NIV):
Ezekiel's vision of God's glory is one of the stranger visions in the Bible. There are a few in Revelation and Daniel that might be stranger, but it's a near thing. It's so strange, in fact, that some people don't think that Ezekiel actually saw what he claimed to see. Some of these folks think that what Ezekiel actually saw was a UFO that he simply mistook for God. The picture on the left is a NASA scientist's idea of what Ezekiel might have actually seen. (From Josef Blumrich's The Spaceships of Ezekiel.)
Christians, of course, believe that it is a prophecy of God, which is backed up by the fact that the next forty-seven chapters of Ezekiel contain rather straightforward Biblical prophecy directed at the nation of Israel: predicting its judgement for disobeying God, then the judgement of the other nations, and finally Israel's restoration. Not exactly what you'd expect from space aliens. No, Christians have a different problem, namely that their eyes glaze over when they read all the wheels within wheels covered with eyes stuff, so they ignore it. This can be seen even in Renaissance paintings of the event, such as Raphael's The Vision of Ezekiel shown on the right, which pictures God reclining on some very Renaissance cherubs, who lack any of that distracting plethora of wings or heads. Eyed wheels and crystal expanses are likewise missing, giving us a vision in the Renaissance style which has little resemblance to the one described by Ezekiel.
Once you give an artist modern software and the ability to do lighting effects, you tend to get illustrations that focus on the brightness of it all, sometimes making it hard to see the actual details. While that may have been the case even to Ezekiel, it's still not very helpful in visualizing it. Maybe one of the closest illustrations is this one, from a woodcut in the Bear Bible, on the left. It does a decent job of illustrating the perpendicular wheels within wheels, the four headed angels covering their bodies with wings, and God in his throne atop an expanse, even if the expanse looks more like a cloth canopy than crystal and it's atop what looks like a wagon. It's not the prettiest of the illustrations, and there's some additional stuff, but it gets more of details correct than most of the others. And confusing details those are, too.
What most people seem to be missing is that while Ezekiel's version is extreme, the symbology employed is not unique to him. Ezekiel is describing an encounter with the throne of God, such as that described in Isaiah 6, who also mentions creatures with a multitude of wings, and in Revelation 4, where we get not just lots of wings, but plenty of eyes and also the same four animals: ox, lion, eagle, and man. Neither vision is identical to Ezekiel's, but then, all three are visions. There is, we may take for granted, symbolism involved, and a message in the symbols that relates not just to the nature of God, but also to the condition of the one receiving it. And here, I think, is the key to understanding Ezekiel's vision.
The Book of Ezekiel opens by describing the where and the when of his vision, which occurred shortly after the first group of exiles was taken from Judah into Babylon. Ezekiel was among them, and had this vision while in Babylon. Jerusalem, and most importantly the temple there, had yet to be destroyed, but it would be happening soon. Ezekiel himself was of the priestly line, so he would have been intimately familiar with the temple, where the presence of God dwelt, specifically in the holy of holies on the mercy seat, between the two cherubs of the Ark of the Covenant. The vision in chapter 6 of Isaiah takes place there, with God's throne filling the temple. While God's presence had traveled with his people in the Exodus, it had dwelt with the Ark of Covenant since it had been built, first in the tabernacle and later in the temple. This fact was central to the identity of the Jewish people at the time: God dwelt among them, in their temple. The temple was where they went on their pilgrimages, to make their sacrifices and to celebrate their holy days. Only now they were in exile, banished to Babylon and unable to return to Jerusalem, denied their pilgrimages and their holy days. Had they left God behind when they came to Babylon? Was he still in the temple while they were there? Did he even see them or hear their prayers any more? Those are the questions this vision was intended to answer.
The first thing to notice about this vision is movement. It fills this passage: it's central to it. The rushing wings and gigantic wheels are symbols of movement, and they come and go with tremendous speed, like lighting (Ezekiel 1:14). They move from side to side, even lift aloft (Ezekiel 1:19), but they don't turn (Ezekiel 1:12,17). The wheels within wheels are perpendicular, so that the wheels may move in any direction without turning. The creatures likewise have four heads, looking in every direction, so they too can move without turning. The idea conveyed here is effortless, natural, and fast movement. And above those wheels and the angelic beings, between their outstretched wings, is the throne of God, just as he dwells between the outstretched wings of the cherubs atop the Ark of the Covenant. The idea here is actually pretty easy to see. Whereas in Isaiah's vision, God's throne had been fixed in the temple, here we're shown a mobile throne. God is not confined to the temple. He goes where he wills with the speed of thought, even to visit his people in Babylon, to let them know that he was there too. Although it's not clearly stated, the suggestion of omnipresence, the fact that God is everywhere, echoes through this passage.
The second thing that stands out in this passage is the eyes. Each of the four creatures has eight eyes, two for each head, and all four living creatures are looking in the four cardinal directions at once. The wheels themselves are covered with eyes, and since the wheels within wheels are perpendicular, they too look in all four directions. Eyes are one of the most common symbols throughout literature, both ancient and modern. They indicate seeing and knowledge. The message is that God is not ignorant of anything. His fast-moving chariot is filled with eyes which see all, so he fully knows the plight of his exiled people in Babylon. Aside from omnipresence, we also get an indication of omniscience.
The creatures themselves have four heads: man, eagle, ox, and lion. Although it may not be obvious to our modern sensibilities, these four represent four types. To the ancient Near East mind, at least, the eagle was chief among the birds of the sky, the ox the strongest of the domesticated animals, the lion the most powerful of the wild animals. And man was the noblest of all, created in God's own image and given dominion over all the Earth. So the four faces of the living creatures can be seen as four lords, each with a separate dominion. And yet these four living creatures are under the control of the figure on the throne. The spirit unites them and their wheels, guiding them as one unit, and the figure on the throne dwells above and separate from them, an expanse like crystal between. The word "expanse" is the same one used in Genesis 1:7-8. for the sky. God on his throne is exalted in dominion not only over the creatures of dominion, but also above the sky itself (an important point, as astrology played an powerful role in Babylonian culture).
And surrounding God is a rainbow, the symbol of his first covenant with man, made to Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:8-17). It was not a two-way covenant like the one made with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, but a promise motivated by nothing more than simple mercy on God's part, and thus a promise that could never be broken, for it depended on God's faithfulness rather than man's.
There are, of course, numerous other symbols that I could discuss (the fire and lightning, for example, or the hands hidden by the wings), but I think this is sufficient to understand the central message of the passage, and while the vision itself was awesome and frightening, its message was one of reassurance. God had not been left behind in Jerusalem. His presence and perception were with the exiles in Babylon, and his dominion extended there as well. And while his people had broken their covenant and were being punished for it, God still intended to keep his promise, one of mercy that reached them even there, and which in the fullness of time would bring them back.
Let's begin by reading Ezekiel Chapter 1 (NIV):
1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
2 On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— 3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the LORD was upon him.
4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, 9 and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.
10 Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. 11 Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. 13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it. 14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.
15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.
19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. 20 Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. 21 When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
22 Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome. 23 Under the expanse their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body. 24 When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
25 Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Ezekiel's vision of God's glory is one of the stranger visions in the Bible. There are a few in Revelation and Daniel that might be stranger, but it's a near thing. It's so strange, in fact, that some people don't think that Ezekiel actually saw what he claimed to see. Some of these folks think that what Ezekiel actually saw was a UFO that he simply mistook for God. The picture on the left is a NASA scientist's idea of what Ezekiel might have actually seen. (From Josef Blumrich's The Spaceships of Ezekiel.)Christians, of course, believe that it is a prophecy of God, which is backed up by the fact that the next forty-seven chapters of Ezekiel contain rather straightforward Biblical prophecy directed at the nation of Israel: predicting its judgement for disobeying God, then the judgement of the other nations, and finally Israel's restoration. Not exactly what you'd expect from space aliens. No, Christians have a different problem, namely that their eyes glaze over when they read all the wheels within wheels covered with eyes stuff, so they ignore it. This can be seen even in Renaissance paintings of the event, such as Raphael's The Vision of Ezekiel shown on the right, which pictures God reclining on some very Renaissance cherubs, who lack any of that distracting plethora of wings or heads. Eyed wheels and crystal expanses are likewise missing, giving us a vision in the Renaissance style which has little resemblance to the one described by Ezekiel.Once you give an artist modern software and the ability to do lighting effects, you tend to get illustrations that focus on the brightness of it all, sometimes making it hard to see the actual details. While that may have been the case even to Ezekiel, it's still not very helpful in visualizing it. Maybe one of the closest illustrations is this one, from a woodcut in the Bear Bible, on the left. It does a decent job of illustrating the perpendicular wheels within wheels, the four headed angels covering their bodies with wings, and God in his throne atop an expanse, even if the expanse looks more like a cloth canopy than crystal and it's atop what looks like a wagon. It's not the prettiest of the illustrations, and there's some additional stuff, but it gets more of details correct than most of the others. And confusing details those are, too.What most people seem to be missing is that while Ezekiel's version is extreme, the symbology employed is not unique to him. Ezekiel is describing an encounter with the throne of God, such as that described in Isaiah 6, who also mentions creatures with a multitude of wings, and in Revelation 4, where we get not just lots of wings, but plenty of eyes and also the same four animals: ox, lion, eagle, and man. Neither vision is identical to Ezekiel's, but then, all three are visions. There is, we may take for granted, symbolism involved, and a message in the symbols that relates not just to the nature of God, but also to the condition of the one receiving it. And here, I think, is the key to understanding Ezekiel's vision.
The Book of Ezekiel opens by describing the where and the when of his vision, which occurred shortly after the first group of exiles was taken from Judah into Babylon. Ezekiel was among them, and had this vision while in Babylon. Jerusalem, and most importantly the temple there, had yet to be destroyed, but it would be happening soon. Ezekiel himself was of the priestly line, so he would have been intimately familiar with the temple, where the presence of God dwelt, specifically in the holy of holies on the mercy seat, between the two cherubs of the Ark of the Covenant. The vision in chapter 6 of Isaiah takes place there, with God's throne filling the temple. While God's presence had traveled with his people in the Exodus, it had dwelt with the Ark of Covenant since it had been built, first in the tabernacle and later in the temple. This fact was central to the identity of the Jewish people at the time: God dwelt among them, in their temple. The temple was where they went on their pilgrimages, to make their sacrifices and to celebrate their holy days. Only now they were in exile, banished to Babylon and unable to return to Jerusalem, denied their pilgrimages and their holy days. Had they left God behind when they came to Babylon? Was he still in the temple while they were there? Did he even see them or hear their prayers any more? Those are the questions this vision was intended to answer.
The first thing to notice about this vision is movement. It fills this passage: it's central to it. The rushing wings and gigantic wheels are symbols of movement, and they come and go with tremendous speed, like lighting (Ezekiel 1:14). They move from side to side, even lift aloft (Ezekiel 1:19), but they don't turn (Ezekiel 1:12,17). The wheels within wheels are perpendicular, so that the wheels may move in any direction without turning. The creatures likewise have four heads, looking in every direction, so they too can move without turning. The idea conveyed here is effortless, natural, and fast movement. And above those wheels and the angelic beings, between their outstretched wings, is the throne of God, just as he dwells between the outstretched wings of the cherubs atop the Ark of the Covenant. The idea here is actually pretty easy to see. Whereas in Isaiah's vision, God's throne had been fixed in the temple, here we're shown a mobile throne. God is not confined to the temple. He goes where he wills with the speed of thought, even to visit his people in Babylon, to let them know that he was there too. Although it's not clearly stated, the suggestion of omnipresence, the fact that God is everywhere, echoes through this passage.
The second thing that stands out in this passage is the eyes. Each of the four creatures has eight eyes, two for each head, and all four living creatures are looking in the four cardinal directions at once. The wheels themselves are covered with eyes, and since the wheels within wheels are perpendicular, they too look in all four directions. Eyes are one of the most common symbols throughout literature, both ancient and modern. They indicate seeing and knowledge. The message is that God is not ignorant of anything. His fast-moving chariot is filled with eyes which see all, so he fully knows the plight of his exiled people in Babylon. Aside from omnipresence, we also get an indication of omniscience.
The creatures themselves have four heads: man, eagle, ox, and lion. Although it may not be obvious to our modern sensibilities, these four represent four types. To the ancient Near East mind, at least, the eagle was chief among the birds of the sky, the ox the strongest of the domesticated animals, the lion the most powerful of the wild animals. And man was the noblest of all, created in God's own image and given dominion over all the Earth. So the four faces of the living creatures can be seen as four lords, each with a separate dominion. And yet these four living creatures are under the control of the figure on the throne. The spirit unites them and their wheels, guiding them as one unit, and the figure on the throne dwells above and separate from them, an expanse like crystal between. The word "expanse" is the same one used in Genesis 1:7-8. for the sky. God on his throne is exalted in dominion not only over the creatures of dominion, but also above the sky itself (an important point, as astrology played an powerful role in Babylonian culture).
And surrounding God is a rainbow, the symbol of his first covenant with man, made to Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:8-17). It was not a two-way covenant like the one made with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, but a promise motivated by nothing more than simple mercy on God's part, and thus a promise that could never be broken, for it depended on God's faithfulness rather than man's.
There are, of course, numerous other symbols that I could discuss (the fire and lightning, for example, or the hands hidden by the wings), but I think this is sufficient to understand the central message of the passage, and while the vision itself was awesome and frightening, its message was one of reassurance. God had not been left behind in Jerusalem. His presence and perception were with the exiles in Babylon, and his dominion extended there as well. And while his people had broken their covenant and were being punished for it, God still intended to keep his promise, one of mercy that reached them even there, and which in the fullness of time would bring them back.
