Ezekiel 10:21

Every one had four faces apiece, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. EVERY ONE HAD FOUR FACES APIECE. The repetition is in order that the people about to live without the temple might have, instead, the knowledge of the temple mysteries, thus preparing them for a future restoration of the covenant. So perverse were they that they would say, Ezekiel fancies that he saw what has no existence. Therefore, he repeats it over and over again....

The Prophet appears to dwell on points by no means doubtful: he has already spoken of the four heads, then why does he repeat it? Because he was dealing with a dull and perverse people: they were also slow in receiving the Prophet’s doctrine: and they added this vice worse than all the rest, namely, a constant and open endeavor to detract from the authority of all the Prophets. For this reason the Prophet says, that there were _four heads and four wings to each living creature, _lest the Jews should scoffingly deride it as an empty specter and delusion of the Prophet, because he thought he saw what had no existence. For this reason he inculcates more frequently what. was sufficiently clear by itself had the Jews been docile and obedient. It follows —...

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

EVERY ONE HAD FOUR FACES APIECE,.... Every one of the four living creatures, or cherubim, had four faces; which were the face of a man, of a lion, of an ox, and of an eagle, Ezekiel 1:10; AND EVERYONE FOUR WINGS: the Septuagint version reads eight wings; and the Syriac version "six"; so many in all indeed they had, Ezekiel 1:23; AND THE LIKENESS OF THE HANDS OF A MAN [WAS] UNDER THEIR WINGS; Ezekiel 10:8....

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

D. The Departure of the Divine Presence 10:18-22 TRANSLATION (18) And the glory of the LORD went out from over the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim. (19) And the cherubim lifted their wings and they went up from the earth in my presence; when they went out, the wheels were beside them; and it stood at the entrance of the eastern gate of the house of the LORD, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. (20) These were the living creatures which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim. (21) Each had four faces, and each had four wings, and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. (22) And the likeness of their faces were the faces which I saw beside the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves; each went straight forward. COMMENTS The throne-chariot was ready for the Royal Rider. The glor...

§ 3. A VISION OF JERUSALEM'S SIN AND DOOM (EZEKIEL 8-11) Date, August-September, 591 b.c. A year and two months after his call to be a prophet, Ezekiel was visited in his house by the elders of the Jewish colony at Tel-abib, and in their presence he fell into a trance, during which he was transported in spirit to Jerusalem, and witnessed, as in a dream, a remarkable drama being enacted there. The glory of God was present during this vision in the same symbolic form, and accompanied by the same living chariot, as in Ezekiel 1, but with this difference, that it sometimes left the chariot and took up its position elsewhere. Ezekiel witnessed first the idolatries practised in the Temple (Ezekiel 8), then the slaughter of all the idolaters in Jerusalem ...

EZEKIEL: ‘THEY SHALL KNOW THAT I AM GOD’ THE *SIN OF JUDAH AND THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD EZEKIEL CHAPTER S 1 TO 24 _IAN MACKERVOY_ CHAPTER 10 COALS OF FIRE OVER THE CITY – EZEKIEL 10:1-8 V1 I looked in the sky above the *cherubim’s heads. There I saw what seemed to be a *throne. It was blue like a *sapphire stone. V2 The *LORD spoke to the man who wore good clothes. ‘Go in among the wheels beneath the *cherubim. Fill your hands with coals of fire from between the 4 *creatures. Then scatter the coals over the city.’ As I watched, the man went in. V3 The *cherubim were standing o