In spite of their obvious dissimilarities the two visions have enough in common to show that Ezekiel’s thoughts concerning God had been largely influenced by the study of Isaiah. Truths that had perhaps long been latent in his mind now emerge into clear consciousness, clothed in forms which bear the impress of the mind in which they were first conceived. The fundamental idea is the same in each vision: the absolute and universal sovereignty of God. “Mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.” Jehovah appears in human form, seated on a throne and attended by ministering creatures which serve to show forth some part of His glory. In the one case they are seraphim, in the other cherubim; and the functions imposed on them by the structure of the vision are very diverse in the two cases. But the points in which they agree are more significant than those in which they differ. They are the agents through whom Jehovah exercises His sovereign authority, beings full of life and intelligence and moving in swift response to His will. Although free from earthly imperfection they cover themselves with their wings before His majesty, in token of the reverence which is due from the creature in presence of the Creator. For the rest they are symbolic figures embodying in themselves certain attributes of the Deity, or certain aspects of His kingship. Nor can Ezekiel any more than Isaiah think of Jehovah as the King apart from the emblems associated with the worship of His earthly sanctuary. The cherubim themselves are borrowed from the imagery of the Temple, although their forms are different from those which stood in the Holy of holies. So again the altar, which was naturally suggested to Isaiah by the scene of his vision being laid in the Temple, appears in Ezekiel’s vision in the form of the hearth of glowing coals which is under the divine throne. It is true that the fire symbolises destructive might rather than purifying energy (see ch. x. 2), but it can hardly be doubted that the origin of the symbol is the altar‐hearth of the sanctuary and of Isaiah’s vision. It is as if the essence of the Temple and its worship were transferred to the sphere of heavenly realities where Jehovah’s glory is fully manifested. All this, therefore, is nothing more than the embodiment of the fundamental truth of the Old Testament religion—that Jehovah is the almighty King of heaven and earth, that He executes His sovereign purposes with irresistible power, and that it is the highest privilege of men on earth to render to Him the homage and adoration which the sight of His glory draws forth from heavenly beings.
The idea of Jehovah’s kingship, however, is presented in the Old Testament under two aspects. On the one hand, it denotes the moral sovereignty of God over the people whom He had chosen as His own and to whom His will was continuously revealed as the guide of their national and social life. On the other hand, it denotes God’s absolute dominion over the forces of nature and the events of history, in virtue of which all things are the unconscious instruments of His purposes. These two truths can never be separated, although the emphasis is laid sometimes on the one and sometimes on the other. Thus in Isaiah’s vision the emphasis lies perhaps more on the doctrine of Jehovah’s kingship over Israel. It is true that He is at the same time represented as One whose glory is the “fulness of the whole earth,” and who therefore manifests His power and presence in every part of His world‐wide dominions. But the fact that Jehovah’s palace is the idealised Temple of Jerusalem suggests at once, what all the teaching of the prophet confirms, that the nation of Israel is the special sphere within which His kingly authority is to obtain practical recognition. While no man had a firmer grasp of the truth that God wields all natural forces and overrules the actions of men in carrying out His providential designs, yet the leading ideas of His ministry are those which spring from the thought of Jehovah’s presence in the midst of His people and the obligation that lies on Israel to recognise His sovereignty. He is, to use Isaiah’s own expression, the “Holy One of Israel.”