Ezekiel 10:15

And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar. THIS IS THE LIVING CREATURE THAT I SAW BY THE RIVER ... CHEBAR. The repeated declaration of the identity of the vision with that at the Chebar is to arouse attention to it (so ; ). THE LIVING CREATURE - used collectively, as in ; ; ....

We shall afterwards explain in the proper place why he says _the cherubim ascended. _The first and principal scope of this vision was that God would no longer dwell in the temple, because he had determined to depart thence on account of the impious and wicked profanations by which the temple had been contaminated. Now for this reason he says, _the cherubim ascended; _but he adds, _that was the living creature, which he had seen near the river Chebar _He adds this for clearing up the vision, because if it had been offered only once, the Jews might doubt its tendency, and its obscurity would take away their taste for it, and render the prophetic teaching quite insipid. But since the vision is repeated, God confirms and sanctions what otherwise had not been sufficiently stamped upon the hearts of the people; for experience also teaches us this, that we increase in faith and make further pro...

8-22 Ezekiel sees the working of Divine providence in the government of the lower world, and the affairs of it. When God is leaving a people in displeasure, angels above, and all events below, further his departure. The Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, directs all creatures, in heaven and on earth, so as to make them serve the Divine purpose. God removes by degrees from a provoking people; and, when ready to depart, would return to them, if they were a repenting, praying people. Let this warn sinners to seek the Lord while he may be found, and to call on him while he is near, and cause us all to walk humbly and watchfully with our God....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 10:1, EZEKIEL 10:2 THEN I LOOKED, etc. There follows on the work of judgment another theophany, like that of Ezekiel 1:15. In the "expanse," or firmament, like the "terrible crystal," there is seen as before the likeness of a sapphire throne (see Ezekiel 1:26, note). The form of THE MAN who is the manifestation of Jehovah is implied, though not named. It is he who speaks to the captain of the six ministers of vengeance, himself the seventh, and bids him go in beneath the "whirling wheels" that are beneath the cherub

AND THE CHERUBIM WERE LIFTED UP,.... From the earth; Ezekiel 1:19; THIS [IS] THE LIVING CREATURE THAT I SAW BY THE RIVER CHEBAR: a river in Chaldea, where the prophet was when he had the vision of the living creatures recorded in the "first" chapter; and hence it is out of doubt that the living creatures and the cherubim are the same....

Ezekiel 10:1. Once more the glory vision appears. The linen clothed man who had done the marking in the previous chapter is now executing judgment. Who is He? Evidently more than an angel. That he is a supernatural being is clear. He held the place of pre-eminence among the other angels (Ezekiel 9:2). This angel is the Angel of the Lord, the same who appeared to the patriarchs, to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, and to others. It is the Son of God in the garb of an angel. In the same form he also appeared to Daniel on the banks of the river Hiddekel. “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz. His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet

This splendid passage is followed by a description of the Divine chariot (Ezekiel 10:9) which does little more than duplicate the description in Ezekiel 1:15, and which, to a modern taste, seems of the nature of an irrelevance and anticlimax. The point of the repetition, however, is suggested by Ezekiel 10:20; Ezekiel 10:22, which identify the chariot seen at Jerusalem with that seen in the former vision by the Chebar. It is as if Ezekiel said that the glorious God of Israel, whose glory had been trailed in the dust by His worshippers (Ezekiel 10:8), had

CHERUBIMS, Hebrew. _shervbim, plural;_ Eng. plural. cherubs. lifted up. To bear away the symbol of the Divine presence. living creature, Singular....

_were lifted up_ The prophet identifies the manifestation with that seen at the Chebar when he perceives its movement. The verse is resumed in Ezekiel 10:19....

C. The Throne-Chariot of God 10:9-17 TRANSLATION (9) And I looked, and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, a wheel beside one cherub, and another wheel beside another cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was as the color of a tarshish stone. (10) Now as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness as when a wheel is in the midst of a wheel. (11) When they moved, they moved unto their four sides; they did not turn as they moved, but to the place which the head turned, they followed; they did not turn as they moved. (12) And all their body, their backs, their hands and their wings, and the wheels were full of eyes round about, the wheels which the four had. (13) As for the wheels, to them one was calling in my presence, O wheel. (14) And each one had four faces. The first face was the face of the cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the...