Ezekiel 10
God abandons Jerusalem to invaders
God orders Jerusalem set on fire
1I saw a brilliant sparkling area above the heads of the cherubim. [1] And above it, I saw something that looked like a gemstone sapphire throne. [2]2God said to the man wearing linen, “Go down to the chariot-throne [3] wheels beneath the cherubim. You’ll find some burning coals. Scoop them up and scatter them all over Jerusalem.” [4] 3The four cherubim stood on the south side of the Temple sanctuary while the man gathered the coals. A bright cloud filled the Temple’s inner courtyard.
4The glowing and glorious presence of the LORD rose above the gold-covered lid of the Box of the Law. [5] Then it glided to the doorway that leads in and out of the Temple sanctuary, filling the building with bright light. 5Cherubim wings were pumping loud enough for people to hear them in the outer courtyard, much like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
6God told the man in linen, “Go get the fire from near the wheels.” The man went there and stood by a wheel. 7A cherub reached down into the fire and pulled out some of the coals and gave it to the man wearing linen. 8The cherubim had what looked like human hands beneath their wings.
Spinning wheels on God’s mobile throne
9There were four wheels, one beside each cherub. The wheels seemed to be made from the shiny gemstone beryl. [6] 10All four looked alike. And they looked like a wheel inside a wheel. [7]11When the creatures moved, the wheels rolled along with them—shifting into any direction, without having to turn left or right. The back wheels followed wherever the front wheels led: left, right, forward, or backward. 12The wheels were covered in what looked like eyes. [8] So were the entire bodies of the cherubim: backs, wings, and hands. 13The wheels were called “spinners.”
14Each creature had a blockhead of four faces: ox, [9] human, lion, and eagle. 15The cherubim lifted off the ground. These were living creatures. I saw them at the Chebar Canal.
16When the cherubim moved, the wheels followed in the same direction. And when the cherubim left the ground, the wheels went with them. 17When the cherubim stopped, the wheels stopped. When the cherubim climbed into the air, so did the wheels. The wheels responded to the spirit of the cherubim. [10]
God leaves the Temple
18The glowing glory of the LORD left the Temple through the doorway and stopped above the cherubim. 19The cherubim lifted off the ground, and the wheels went with them. They flew over to the eastern gate and stopped there at the end of the Temple courtyard. [11] The glowing glory of the LORD of Israel went with them.20These were the same cherubim I saw under Israel’s God at the Chebar Canal. 21Each one had four faces, four wings, and human hands under their wings. 22These were the same faces I saw on the cherubim at Chebar. The cherubim always moved in a straight line without turning their bodies. [12]
Footnotes
These cherubim seem to be the four living creatures that Ezekiel said pulled God’s mobile throne (Ezekiel 1:19).
Ezekiel 1:24, 26.
The Hebrew text simply says “wheels,” but Ezekiel elsewhere talks about the wheels in conjunction with the mobile throne of God (Ezekiel 1:15-21; 10:16-17).
It appears that God has ordered the man to set Jerusalem on fire, which is something the Babylonian invaders did about six years after this prophecy. They destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC and exiled survivors to what is now Iraq.
The text says only that the LORD’s glory rose above “the cherub.” Most scholars seem to agree that Ezekiel was talking about the twin figures of cherubim on top of the chest that held the Ten Commandments. The chest is more commonly known as the Ark of the Covenant.
Emeralds are one of many forms of beryl, a mineral composed of beryllium aluminum cyclosilicate. It’s colorless in its pure state, but it’s often mingled with other minerals that produce various brilliant colors.
See note for Ezekiel 1:17.
See note for Ezekiel 1:18.
The Hebrew clashes a bit with Ezekiel 1:10, which says “ox.” But here the word is more literally a “winged creature” or a “cherub.” Still in Babylon there were figures of winged creatures called Lamassu that had eagle wings and the body of a bull or a lion and the head of a human.
This is a vague and awkwardly phrased verse in the original Hebrew language. It just has nine Hebrew words which can literally mean (among many possible meanings): “stand, stand, rise, rise, for, spirit, living, in.” Scholars have to try to make sense of that. The sentence could be interpreted to say that the wheels had a spirit within them: “When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living beings was in them” (New American Standard Bible). But most scholars say it was the cherubim’s spirit that controlled the wheels.
It was a short flight of roughly 50 yards/meters.
How did they move in a straight line without turning? We can only guess. But the four faces pointed in four directions and the wheels seemed circular like a round caster wheel. So, there’s no reason to turn the head left or right and no reason to steer the mobile throne left or right. They could move forward and backward without turning their bodies or the chariot-throne. And they could shift left and right without turning.
Discussion Questions
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