Ezekiel 10

1-22 God’s Glory Leaves Jerusalem

Continuation of Ezekiel’s Vision of Jerusalem, begun in Chapter 8

• Again, Ezekiel sees cherubim, and above them a brilliance on a throne, who tells the man in linen to fill his hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.
• As the man goes to the cherubim, on the south side of the temple, the “brightness of the glory of the LORD” fills the house, and Ezekiel hears cherubim’s wings, “like the voice of God Almighty” (El Shaddai) when he speaks.
• The man in linen stands beside a wheel, and a cherub (with a hand that looks human) gives the man some of the fire, and the man leaves.
  
• Ezekiel’s description of the cherubim:
• Four wheels, like beryl
• The cherubim look like wheels within wheels, each with four faces: cherub, human, lion, and eagle.
• They all follow the front wheel in any direction, without veering.
• Their bodies are filled with eyes.
• Though slightly different in appearance, Ezekiel says these are the same cherubim he saw at the beginning (1:4-14)
• The glory of the LORD lifts up above the cherubim, they rise up from the earth, and leave, stopping first at the east gate of the temple.
• “These were the living creatures I saw…by the river Chebar.” What Ezekiel saw as the face of an ox before he now describes as a cherub, and it’s in a different position. He says they are the same faces he saw (v. 22), so either Ezekiel’s perception is different – or he decides to describe it differently, which is the opinion of John Gill.