Ezekiel 10: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Ezekiel watches a throne-like shape of sapphire above the cherubim, and hears the LORD tell the man dressed in linen to take burning coals from among them and scatter them over the city. As the man goes in and takes the fire, the cloud and the brightness of the LORD's glory fill the temple and its court, and the glory moves from above the cherubim to the temple threshold. Ezekiel then describes the cherubim and their wheels in detail, and recognizes them as the living creatures he saw earlier by the Kebar River. At the end, the glory of the LORD leaves the threshold, settles above the cherubim, and they rise and stop at the east gate of the LORD's house.

Claim by Claim

1. 10:1
   • Ezekiel looked
   • Above the firmament that was over the head of the cherubim something appeared
   • What appeared was like a sapphire stone
   • What appeared looked like the likeness of a throne
   • It appeared above the cherubim
2. 10:2
   • He spoke to the man clothed in linen
   • He told the man to go in among the wheelwork, under the cherub
   • He told the man to fill both his hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim
   • He told the man to scatter the coals over the city
   • The man went in while Ezekiel watched
3. 10:3
   • The cherubim were standing on the right side of the house when the man went in
   • The cloud filled the inner court
4. 10:4
   • The glory of the LORD rose up from over the cherub
   • The glory of the LORD moved to the threshold of the house
   • The house was filled with the cloud
   • The court was full of the brightness of the glory of the LORD
5. 10:5
   • The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court
   • That sound was like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks
6. 10:6
   • He commanded the man clothed in linen
   • He told the man to take fire from among the wheelwork, from between the cherubim
   • The man went in
   • The man stood beside a wheel
7. 10:7
   • One cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim toward the fire that was among the cherubim
   • The cherub took up some of the fire
   • The cherub put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen
   • The man took it
   • The man went out
8. 10:8
   • The form of a human hand appeared on the cherubim under their wings
9. 10:9
   • Ezekiel looked
   • There were four wheels beside the cherubim
   • One wheel was beside one cherub and another wheel beside another cherub
   • The appearance of the wheels was like the gleam of beryl stone
10. 10:10
    • All four wheels had one and the same likeness
    • Each looked as if a wheel were within a wheel
11. 10:11
    • When they moved, they went toward any of their four sides
    • They did not turn as they moved
    • They followed after the place toward which the head faced
    • They did not turn as they moved
12. 10:12
    • Their whole body was full of eyes all around
    • Their backs were full of eyes
    • Their hands were full of eyes
    • Their wings were full of eyes
    • The wheels were full of eyes all around
    • This was so of the wheels belonging to all four of them
13. 10:13
    • Ezekiel heard the wheels being called the whirling wheel
14. 10:14
    • Each one had four faces
    • The first face was the face of a cherub
    • The second face was the face of a man
    • The third face was the face of a lion
    • The fourth face was the face of an eagle
15. 10:15
    • The cherubim rose up
    • This was the living creature that Ezekiel had seen by the river Chebar
16. 10:16
    • When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them
    • When the cherubim lifted their wings to rise from the earth, the wheels did not turn away from beside them
17. 10:17
    • When the cherubim stood still, the wheels stood still
    • When the cherubim rose up, the wheels rose up with them
    • The reason was that the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels
18. 10:18
    • The glory of the LORD went out from over the threshold of the house
    • The glory of the LORD stood over the cherubim
19. 10:19
    • The cherubim lifted their wings
    • The cherubim rose up from the earth while Ezekiel watched
    • The wheels were beside them as they went out
    • It is not specified whether the one who stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD was the glory or each of the cherubim
    • The stopping place was the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD
    • The glory of the God of Israel was above them
20. 10:20
    • This was the living creature that Ezekiel had seen beneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar
    • Ezekiel knew that they were cherubim
21. 10:21
    • Each one had four faces
    • Each one had four wings
    • The likeness of human hands was under their wings
22. 10:22
    • The likeness of their faces was the same as the faces Ezekiel had seen by the river Chebar
    • Their appearances and they themselves were the same
    • Each one went straight ahead in the direction it faced

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1

"Firmament" translates Hebrew *raqia*, the same word used for the dome of the sky in Genesis 1; here it is a flat, gleaming platform stretched above the creatures' heads, with the throne resting on top of it. The stone the KJV calls "sapphire" (*sappir*) is most likely lapis lazuli, a deep blue stone prized across the ancient Near East, rather than the modern gem. Cherubim (singular "cherub"; the KJV's "cherubims" is a double plural) are winged attendant figures, closer to the winged bulls and lions carved beside Assyrian and Babylonian palace doors than to the plump infants of later European art; gold cherubim stood over the ark, and cherubim were carved on the walls of Solomon's temple.

10:2

The man dressed in linen is the figure introduced in the previous chapter, sent through Jerusalem to mark certain people. Linen was the fabric worn by priests and temple servants. "Fill thine hand" is literal: as much as the hands could hold. Scattering burning coals over a city is the ordinary language of setting it on fire.

10:3

The KJV's "the right side of the house" means the south side: Hebrew gives directions as though facing east, so the right hand is south and the left hand north. "The house" throughout this chapter is the temple in Jerusalem.

10:4

"The glory of the LORD" (Hebrew *kavod*) is the visible presence of God as Israel's writings describe it, a blaze of light wrapped in cloud, the same thing said to have filled the tabernacle and Solomon's temple when they were dedicated. "The threshold of the house" is the doorway of the temple building itself, where the porch opened into the sanctuary.

10:5

The temple complex had an inner court immediately around the building and a larger outer court beyond it, so a sound reaching the outer court carried across the whole enclosure. Hebrew uses a single word (*qol*) for both "sound" and "voice," which is why the same word appears twice here. "Almighty God" renders *El Shaddai*, an ancient title for God whose original meaning is no longer certain.

10:9

"Beryl" translates Hebrew *tarshish*, a stone named after a distant trading port. Which gem was meant is unknown; suggestions include yellow topaz, chrysolite, and beryl. The point being made is that the wheels gleamed like polished stone.

10:10

"A wheel in the midst of a wheel" describes two rims set at right angles to each other, one running through the other. A wheel built that way could roll in any of the four directions without having to be pivoted or steered first, which is exactly what the next verse says about how they moved.

10:11

"They went upon their four sides" means they could move toward any of the four directions without pivoting first. Where the KJV says "the head," the Hebrew simply says "the head" without specifying whose, whether a lead creature's head or whichever of the four faces was pointing forward is left unsaid.

10:12

The Hebrew word translated "eyes" (*ayin*) can also mean a gleam or sparkle, and some readers understand the bodies and wheels to have been covered with glinting points of light rather than literal eyes. "Their backs" is literally "their flesh."

10:13

The KJV's "O wheel" is a word-for-word rendering of the Hebrew *ha-galgal*. *Galgal* means a wheel, but also a whirl or whirlwind, so the phrase reads as a name for the whole rotating assembly, "the whirling thing", rather than as someone shouting at a single wheel.

10:14

In Ezekiel's first vision of these creatures (chapter 1) the four faces are those of an ox, a man, a lion, and an eagle. Here the first is called the face of a cherub instead of an ox, without explanation; ancient copies and translations differ at this point.

10:15

The Kebar (KJV "Chebar") was a large canal branching off the Euphrates near the city of Nippur in Babylonia, in the district where deported Judeans had been settled. Ezekiel's first vision of these creatures, described in chapter 1, took place there.

10:17

"Spirit" here is Hebrew *ruach*, which covers breath, wind, and animating life all at once; the same word is used for the wind that blows.

10:18

The presence is described as leaving the temple in stages: from above the cherubim to the threshold in verse 4, back above the cherubim here, out to the east gate in verse 19, and finally, in chapter 11, to the mountain east of the city. Ezekiel reports it as a slow departure rather than a single moment.

10:19

The temple faced east, so the east gate was its main entrance and the way out of the complex, opening toward the Kidron valley and the Mount of Olives beyond. Babylonia, where the exiles Ezekiel lived among had been taken, lay in that direction.

10:20

"Under the God of Israel" describes position: the creatures were beneath the platform on which the throne rested, holding it up, as in the opening vision of chapter 1.

10:22

"They went every one straight forward" follows from the four faces: with a face pointing each way, whichever direction the creature moved was already forward for one of them, so it never needed to turn around.