Ezekiel 3:12

the spirit took me up See on Ezekiel 2:2. This "lifting up" by the spirit must be interpreted according to ch. Ezekiel 8:1-3, it was part of the trance. The great theophany or vision of God in ch. 1 was not an external phenomenon which the prophet beheld with his actual eyes, it was a vision which he saw, being in a trance. The same is true of all the words heard by him, and all the actions done in ch. 2, 3, they took place in the spirit, not outwardly. See after Ezekiel 3:21.

I heard behind me The prophet had been in the presence of the theophany (ch. 1) during all that has hitherto been narrated (ch. Ezekiel 2:1 to Ezekiel 3:12), and thus when he was lifted up and carried away it seemed to him that he left the theophany behindhim.

a great rushing The word is used of an earthquake, and of the roar of battle (Isaiah 9:5, confused noise); also of the rattling of chariots (Jeremiah 47:3; Nahum 3:2). In ch. Ezekiel 37:7 it is said of the sound of the coming together of the dry bones, but it appears nowhere employed of the noise caused by voices speaking.

Blessed be the glory of the Lord According to the present text these words were uttered with a sound like "a great rushing," though no intimation is given who they were who uttered the words. But (1) the phrase "blessed be the glory of the Lord" has no parallel; and it is hardly admissible to take the "glory of the Lord" as equivalent to "the Lord" or "the name of the Lord" or even his "glorious name" (Psalms 72:19). Even the fact that the "glory" is distinct from the divine chariot, which it may leave (ch. Ezekiel 9:3), and that a voice may come from where it is (Ezekiel 43:6) is hardly sufficient to justify such an expression. (2) It is natural to take the "great rushing" of this verse to be the same as that in Ezekiel 3:13, where it is the roar of the wings of the living creatures and the wheels when the chariot is in motion. (3) With the present text the exclamation "Blessed," &c., might come from the cherubim. There is no other passage in the prophet where the cherubim are represented as praising God, although the seraphim do so in Isaiah 6, and the living creatures in Revelation 4, and this might possibly be the meaning, particularly as the reading "Blessed," &c., is the only one known to the versions. Luzzatto, and independently of him Hitzig, proposed to read: whenthe glory of the Lord rose upfrom its place; cf. ch. Ezekiel 10:5; Ezekiel 10:19; Ezekiel 11:22-23. The reading implies a change of only one letter.