Ezekiel 10:9

And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone. BEHOLD, THE FOUR WHEELS - (note, Ezekiel 1:15). The things which, from to the end of the chapter, are repeated from Ezekiel 1:1 are expressed more decidedly, now that he gets nearer view: the words "as it were," and "as if," so often occurring in Ezekiel 1:1, are therefore mostly omitted. The "wheels" express the manifold changes and revolutions in the world; also that in the chariot of His providence God transports the...

Here the Prophet, as in the first chapter, says that wheels were added to each living creature. I have previously explained what the wheels mean. I will now only allude to them; concerning the living creatures I shall by and bye treat more fully. But the wheels are images of all the changes which are discerned in the world. No more suitable figure can be chosen; for nothing is stationary in the world, but revolutions, as we commonly call them, are continually happening. Since, therefore, they are so changeable, nay even tumultuous at times, profane men cannot understand how the world is governed by the fixed counsel of God; but they fabricate for themselves a blind fortune: hence God in concession to our weakness has represented to us, under the form of wheels, all changes of things, all accidents, as they are called, and all events; as if he were to say, that all things in the world are...

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....

Verse Ezekiel 10:9. _THE COLOUR OF A BERYL STONE._] אבן תרשיש _eben Tarshish_, "the stone of Tarshish." The _Vulgate_ translates it _chrysolith;_ _Symmachus_, the _jacinct_; the _Septuagint_, the _carbuncle_. In the parallel place, Ezekiel 1:16, it is כעין תרשיש _keeyn Tarshish_, "like the eye of Tarshish;" i.e., the _colour_ of tarshish, or the stone so called, which the _Vulgate_ translates _visio maris_, "like the sea," i.e., _azure_. The _beryl_ is a gem of a _green_ colour, passing from one side into _blue_, on the other side into _yellow_. The _chrysolith_ is also _green_, what is called _pistachio green_; but the _chrysolith_ of the ancients was our _topaz_, which is of a fine wine yellow...

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 I LOOKED, BEHOLD, THE FOUR WHEELS BY THE CHERUBIM,.... The churches by the ministers: of these "wheels", and why the churches are so called, and of their number "four", and their situation "by" the cherubim, Ezekiel 1:15; ONE WHEEL BY ONE CHERUB, AND ANOTHER WHEEL BY ANOTHER CHERUB: a minister to a church; every church has its own pastor, elder, or overseer, by it, and over it: AND THE APPEARANCE OF THE WHEELS [WAS] AS THE COLOUR OF A BERYL STONE; a precious stone of a sea green; Ezekiel 1:16. The Targum renders it in general, "a precious stone"; the Septuagint version, "a carbuncle"; and the Vulgate Latin version, "a chrysolite"....

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

BERYL STONE stone of Tarshish,...

_the four wheels_ Omit: _the_. The description is somewhat more exact than that given ch. Ezekiel 1:15. A "beryl stone," i.e. Tarshishstone, ch. Ezekiel 1:16....