in the visions of God. The fact is stated given the "coals of fire" in ver. 7. Each as explaining lbe mention of the "hand " in form, we must remember, had the four fo.ces, ver. 7. That, as in oh. i. 8, was one of their but the prophet names the faoe which 0110h members (see notes on eh. i. 15-17). All presented to him as he gazed. that had seemed most startling and awful to Vers.15-17.-As hege.zee,therecognition him on the banks of Chebar is now seen is complete. What he sees in the courts of 11gnin-the fom li"l"ing creatures, now named the temple is identical with the living cherubim. the wheel by each, the unswerving creature by the river of Chebar. It moves motion of the wheels in their onward course. as th9:t moved, wheels and wings and Ver. 11.-Whither the head, etc. The cherubim, e.11 as by one harmonious word has bMn taken, as in Job xxix. 25, for impulse. the "chief" or "principal" wheel, that Ver. 18.-Then the glory of the Lord, etc. which for the time determined the course of The chariot-throne was, os it were, ready for the others. With all the complex structure its kingly Rider. The '' glory "-cloud or of the cherubic chariot, all was simple Shechine.h. takes its place over them, ~ud in its action. The spirit of the living the departure begins. From that hour the creatures was in the wheels, and that gave temple was, in Ezekiel'e thoughts, to be, unit_,- (eh. i. 20). till the time of restoration contemplated in Yer. 12.-And their whole body. Here eh. xl.-xlviii., what Shiloh had been, 11 God- there is distinctly a new feature. In eh. i. deserted place. We are reminded of the voice 18 the "rings" of the wheels were "full of whioh Josephus tells us was heard before eyes." Here the eyes are everywhere. It the fine.I destruction of the second temple. is not hard to interpret this part of the exclaiming, "Let us depart hence," as the nsion. The prophet receives a new im- priests were me.king ready for the Pente- pression of the all-seeing eye of Jehovah. coste.l feast (' Bell. J ud.,' vi. 5. 3). Everywhere, as he stands face to face with Ver. 19.-The depe.rl;ure has the east the forces of natnre, he can say, m,u;t say, gate of the Lord's house for its etarting- within himself, "Thou God eeest me" point. By that gate, in the later vision of (Gen. xvi. 13). There is an eye that looks the restored temple, the glory of the Lord upon him where he least expects it. The we.a to return (eh. xliii. 4). For" every one" same thought appears in the etone with read" it," sc. the galgal, or complex structure seven eyes in Zecl;i. iii. 9. St. John repro- of the chariot. The Hebrew verb is in the duces it in the same form as Ezekiel, with singular, but, as the italics show, there is no the exception of the wheels, which form no word answering to '' every one." part of his vision, in Rev. iv. 6. Ver. 20.-Once more the prophet o.eeerts, Ver. 13.-As for the wheels, etc.; better, with fresh emphasis, the identity of the two with the Revised Version, they were called in visions which it had been given him to see. my hearing, the whirling wheels ; or better Now, e.e it were, hfl understands why the first still, to keep the collective force of the vision was seen as coming from the north. singular galgal, the chariot. He recognized He does not tell us whether the journey of that as the right name of the whole myste- which he saw the beginning was to end. rioue and complex form. It was nothing less For the present there was e. he.It, e.e we learn than the chariot-throne of the King of the from eh. xi. 23, "over the midst of the city." universe. There is no sufficient reason for Even when the vision ended, it he.d not te.king the noun, with the Authorized gone further than the Mount of Olives.. We Version, as a vocative. may conjecture, however, that he thought of Ver. 14.-The first face was the fe.ce of a its goal as that more sacred region of the oherub, etc. ; better, with the Revised heavens in which it had at first manifested Version, of the cherub. This takes the place itself (see note on eh. i. 4). It was, at ,any of" the face of an ox" in eh. i. 10, and it is rate, no longer in the temple. The banks first in order instead of being, as there, the of Chebe.r or any other place might become, third. It is all though, in this second as Bethel had been to Jacob (Gen. xxviii. vision, he recognizes that th.i,s was emphati- 17), as "the .LioW!e of God" and " the gate cally the cherubic form. Possibly the article of hea. ve11,"_ indicates that this was the form that had
HOMILETICS. Ver. 1.-The throne of God. The Greek conception of God wa.e intellectual; the Hebrew, moral. To the Hellenic thought he was the Supreme Mind; to the Jewish he was the Supreme Will and Authority. The one conceived him as the Architect of the um verse, displaying his intelligence in a vut design; the other, as the Sovereign Ruler OJI, X, 1-22.] THE IlOOK OF THE PTIOPHET EZEKIEL. 179