Ezekiel 10:16

And when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them. WHEN THE CHERUBIM WENT, THE WHEELS WENT BY THEM ... THE SAME WHEELS ... TURNED NOT FROM BESIDE THEM - (note, ; ). WHEN THE CHERUBIM LIFTED UP THEIR WINGS - to depart, following "the glory of the Lord," which was on the point of departing ()....

The Prophet here confirms what he had said before, namely, that there was no intrinsic motion in the wheels, but that they were drawn by a secret instinct wherever the cherubim moved themselves. Hence we gather that the events of things are not accidental, nor excited in various directions by _any _blind impulse, but directed by the hidden energy of God, and that too by means of angels. First he says, _when the cherubim set out, the wheels set out at the same time: _then _when the cherubim raised their wings upwards, the wheels followed the same course, and did not return; _that is, were not drawn aside from that agreement of which he had spoken before; but how the wheels were not reversed, we shall explain more clearly to-morrow....

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....

are a repetition of the general description of the nature and connection of the various parts of the vision, and this is the more appropriate as showing why they were regarded as “one living creature” Ezekiel 10:15. The attributes here assigned to them show that they were pervaded by one will - “the spirit of the living creature” (others, as in the margin, “the spirit of life”) “was in them.”...

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 WHEN THE CHERUBIM WENT, THE WHEELS WENT BY THEM,.... Ministers being guides to the churches in doctrine, worship, devotion, and conversation; Ezekiel 1:19; AND WHEN THE CHERUBIM LIFTED UP THEIR WINGS TO MOUNT UP FROM THE EARTH, THE SAME WHEELS ALSO TURNED NOT FROM BESIDE THEM; ministers and churches go together; if the one remove, the other do also; they cannot long subsist without each other; and, generally speaking, as are the light, knowledge, zeal, affection, and devotion of the one, such are those of the other; Ezekiel 1:19....

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

Cf. ch. Ezekiel 1:19....

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...