The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 21

use by Ezekiel is in 2 Sam. xxii. 9, 13. For sent the forces and laws that sustain the mani- "lflmps ," read, with the Revised Version, fold forms of life represented by the" livin.,. "torches." Here the vision of Ezekiel, in creatures" and the " Spirit." In each cas~ which the living creatures wero thus incan- the number four is, as elsewhere, the symbol descent, bathed, as it were, in the fire that of completeness. A wheel in the midst of played around them, yet not consumed, (within, Revised Version) a wheel; i.e. wit.h followed in the path of previous symbols-of an inner and outer circumference, the space the burning bush (Exod. iii. 2), of the pillar between the two forming the " ring" or of fire by night (Exod, xiii. 22), of the fue felloe of ver. 18. on Sinai (Exod. xix. 18), of the "fire of Ver. 17.-When they went, etc. The the Lord" (Numb. xi. 1-3), and the " fire of meaning seems to be that the relative po- God" (2 Kings i. 12). Speaking generally, sition of tho wheels and the living creature. "fire," as distinct from "light," seems to be was not altered by motion. On " they the symbol of the power of God as mani- turned not," see note on ver, 9. All sug- fested against evil. "OnrGod is a consuming gests the idea of orderly and harmonious Fire" (Deut. iv. 24 ; Heb. xii. 29). The red working. light of fire has in it an element of terror Ver. 18.-As for their rings, etc. The which is absent from the stainless white of " rings" or " felloes" of the wbeels im- the eternal glory, or from the sapphire of the pressed the prophet's mind with a sense of visible firmament. Lightning (comp. Exod. awe, partly from their size, partly from their xix. 16; xx. 18; Dan. x. 6; Rev. iv. 5 ; being" full of eyes." Tueile were obviously, viii. 5; xi. 19; xvi. 18). as again in eh. x. 12, and in the analogues Ver. 14.-Ran and returned. Compare of the "stone with seven eyes" in Zech. iii. the "to and fro" of Zech. iv. 10. The com- 9; iv. 10, and the" four beasts [i.e.' living parison implies at once suddenness (as in creatures'] full of eyes," in Rev. iv. 6, symbols Matt. xxiv. 27) and overwhelming bright- of the omniscience of God working through ness. the forces of nature and of history. These Ver. 15.-Behold one wheel, etc. As the were not, as men have f!ometimes thought, prophet gazed, yet another marvel presented blind forces, but were guided as by 11, supreme itself-a" wheel" was seen. It is "by" or insight (comp. 2 Chron. xvi. 9). "beside" (Revised Version) the living Ver. 19.-The wheels went by them; creatures, ond "for each of the four faces better, with Revised Version, be.,ide them; thereof" (Revised Ver,,ion); i.e. ns the next i.e. moving in parallel lines with them. And verse states definitely, there were four wheels. when thelivingoreatures went, etc. The truth We may compare the analogues of the embodied in the coincident movements of "wheels" of fire in the theophany of Dan the "livina creatures" and the "wheels" is vii. 9, and the chariot of the cherubim in the harmo~y of the forces and laws of nature 1 Chron. x.xviii. 18. with its outward manifestations of migl1t. Ver. 16.-Like unto the oolour of a beryl. In the two directions of the movement, The Hebrew for" beryl" (tarshish) suggests onward o.nd upward - when the living that the stone was called, like the turquoise, oreatures were lifted up-we may see (1) from the region which produced it. Hel'e the operations of the two when they are and in Dan. x. 6 the LXX. leaves it un- within the range of man's knowledge, nn,I, translated. In Exod. :x.xviii. 20 we find as it were, on the same plane with it; and (2) xpvcr671.,9os; in eh. x. 9 and xxviii. 13 li,9pa(, those which are as in a higher region beyond i.e. carbuncle. It is obvious, from this variety his ken. of renderings, that the stone was not easily Ver. 20.-Whithereoever the spirit was to identified. Probably it was of a red or go, etc. The secret of the coincidence of the golden colour, suggesting the thought of movements of the "Ii ving creo.tures " and of fire rnther than the pale green of the aqua- the" wheels" wa.s found iu the fact, which murine or beryl (see especially Dan. x. 6). the prophet's intuition grasped, that the They four had one likeness, etc. A closer phenomena of life and law had one and the gaze led tbe prophet to see that there was a so.we originating source. For "the spirit or plurality in the unity. For the one "wheel" tbe living creature" (singular, becauso the we have four; perhaps, as some have thought, four are regarded as one complex whole), the two wheels intersecting at right nnglcs, per- LXX., Yulgato,_and Revised Version margin, haps, one, probtlbly seen behind, perhaps also give" the epirit of life," a rendering tenable below, each of the living creatures. They in itself, but tbo contextual weaning of tho ore not said actually to rest upon it, and the word is in favour of the Authorized Version word " chariot " is not used as it is in and the Revised Version text. I Cbron. xxviii. 18. They would seem Ver. 21.-When those went, these wont. rather to ho.ve hovered over the wheels, The words, strictly speaking, add nothing m_oving eiurnltaneously and in full accord to the previous description; but the prophet with them, The" wheels" obviously repre- appears to have wished to combine wbe.t he  THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [err, t. 1-28.