[donaldscrankshaw] Donald: Ezekiel's Vision of God's Glory

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Posted by Donald:
Ezekiel's Vision of God's Glory
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1180130374.shtml


   So last Thursday, I got into work and suddenly remembered that I was
   supposed to be leading the Bible Study for my Thursday night small
   group. As I hadn't even thought about what I would be presenting, my
   Bible study got to see "whatever Donald's currently reading in his
   personal quiet time," which happened to be the beginning of Ezekiel,
   and his vision of God's glory. I guess I should be glad it was
   something easy ;) This post is based on that Bible study, complete
   with some of the illustrations I shared with my group.
   Let's begin by reading Ezekiel Chapter 1 (NIV):

     1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day,
     while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were
     opened and I saw visions of God.
     2 On the fifth of the monthâit was the fifth year of the exile of
     King Jehoiachinâ 3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest,
     the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians.
     There the hand of the LORD was upon him.
     4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the northâan
     immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant
     light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in
     the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance
     their form was that of a man, 6 but each of them had four faces and
     four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those
     of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on
     their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had
     faces and wings, 9 and their wings touched one another. Each one
     went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.
     10 Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a
     man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the
     left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. 11 Such
     were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two
     wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side,
     and two wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead.
     Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as
     they went. 13 The appearance of the living creatures was like
     burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth
     among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of
     it. 14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.
     15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground
     beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the
     appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like
     chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made
     like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go
     in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels
     did not turn about as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high
     and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.
     19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved;
     and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also
     rose. 20 Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the
     wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living
     creatures was in the wheels. 21 When the creatures moved, they also
     moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and
     when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with
     them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
     22 Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what
     looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome. 23 Under
     the expanse their wings were stretched out one toward the other,
     and each had two wings covering its body. 24 When the creatures
     moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing
     waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army.
     When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
     25 Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads
     as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the expanse over their
     heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on
     the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what
     appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if
     full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and
     brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow
     in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
     This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.
     When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one
     speaking.

   Ezekiel's vision of God's glory is one of the stranger visions in the
   Bible. There are a few in Revelation and Daniel that might be
   stranger, but it's a near thing. It's so strange, in fact, that some
   people don't think that Ezekiel actually saw what he claimed to see.
   Some of these folks think that what Ezekiel actually saw was a UFO
   that he simply mistook for God. The picture on the left is a NASA
   scientist's idea of what Ezekiel might have actually seen. (From Josef
   Blumrich's The Spaceships of Ezekiel.)
   Christians, of course, believe that it is a prophecy of God, which is
   backed up by the fact that the next forty-seven chapters of Ezekiel
   contain rather straightforward Biblical prophecy directed at the
   nation of Israel: predicting its judgement for disobeying God, then
   the judgement of the other nations, and finally Israel's restoration.
   Not exactly what you'd expect from space aliens. No, Christians have a
   different problem, namely that their eyes glaze over when they read
   all the wheels within wheels covered with eyes stuff, so they ignore
   it. This can be seen even in Renaissance paintings of the event, such
   as Raphael's The Vision of Ezekiel shown on the right, which pictures
   God reclining on some very Renaissance cherubs, who lack any of that
   distracting plethora of wings or heads. Eyed wheels and crystal
   expanses are likewise missing, giving us a vision in the Renaissance
   style which has little resemblance to the one described by Ezekiel.
   Once you give an artist modern software and the ability to do lighting
   effects, you tend to get [1]illustrations that focus on the brightness
   of it all, sometimes making it hard to see the actual details. While
   that may have been the case even to Ezekiel, it's still not very
   helpful in visualizing it. Maybe one of the closest illustrations is
   this one, from a woodcut in the Bear Bible, on the left. It does a
   decent job of illustrating the perpendicular wheels within wheels, the
   four headed angels covering their bodies with wings, and God in his
   throne atop an expanse, even if the expanse looks more like a cloth
   canopy than crystal and it's atop what looks like a wagon. It's not
   the prettiest of the illustrations, and there's some additional stuff,
   but it gets more of details correct than most of the others. And
   confusing details those are, too.
   What most people seem to be missing is that while Ezekiel's version is
   extreme, the symbology employed is not unique to him. Ezekiel is
   describing an encounter with the throne of God, such as that described
   in Isaiah 6, who also mentions creatures with a multitude of wings,
   and in Revelation 4, where we get not just lots of wings, but plenty
   of eyes and also the same four animals: ox, lion, eagle, and man.
   Neither vision is identical to Ezekiel's, but then, all three are
   visions. There is, we may take for granted, symbolism involved, and a
   message in the symbols that relates not just to the nature of God, but
   also to the condition of the one receiving it. And here, I think, is
   the key to understanding Ezekiel's vision.
   The Book of Ezekiel opens by describing the where and the when of his
   vision, which occurred shortly after the first group of exiles was
   taken from Judah into Babylon. Ezekiel was among them, and had this
   vision while in Babylon. Jerusalem, and most importantly the temple
   there, had yet to be destroyed, but it would be happening soon.
   Ezekiel himself was of the priestly line, so he would have been
   intimately familiar with the temple, where the presence of God dwelt,
   specifically in the holy of holies on the mercy seat, between the two
   cherubs of the Ark of the Covenant. The vision in chapter 6 of Isaiah
   takes place there, with God's throne filling the temple. While God's
   presence had traveled with his people in the Exodus, it had dwelt with
   the Ark of Covenant since it had been built, first in the tabernacle
   and later in the temple. This fact was central to the identity of the
   Jewish people at the time: God dwelt among them, in their temple. The
   temple was where they went on their pilgrimages, to make their
   sacrifices and to celebrate their holy days. Only now they were in
   exile, banished to Babylon and unable to return to Jerusalem, denied
   their pilgrimages and their holy days. Had they left God behind when
   they came to Babylon? Was he still in the temple while they were
   there? Did he even see them or hear their prayers any more? Those are
   the questions this vision was intended to answer.
   The first thing to notice about this vision is movement. It fills this
   passage: it's central to it. The rushing wings and gigantic wheels are
   symbols of movement, and they come and go with tremendous speed, like
   lighting (Ezekiel 1:14). They move from side to side, even lift aloft
   (Ezekiel 1:19), but they don't turn (Ezekiel 1:12,17). The wheels
   within wheels are perpendicular, so that the wheels may move in any
   direction without turning. The creatures likewise have four heads,
   looking in every direction, so they too can move without turning. The
   idea conveyed here is effortless, natural, and fast movement. And
   above those wheels and the angelic beings, between their outstretched
   wings, is the throne of God, just as he dwells between the
   outstretched wings of the cherubs atop the Ark of the Covenant. The
   idea here is actually pretty easy to see. Whereas in Isaiah's vision,
   God's throne had been fixed in the temple, here we're shown a mobile
   throne. God is not confined to the temple. He goes where he wills with
   the speed of thought, even to visit his people in Babylon, to let them
   know that he was there too. Although it's not clearly stated, the
   suggestion of omnipresence, the fact that God is everywhere, echoes
   through this passage.
   The second thing that stands out in this passage is the eyes. Each of
   the four creatures has eight eyes, two for each head, and all four
   living creatures are looking in the four cardinal directions at once.
   The wheels themselves are covered with eyes, and since the wheels
   within wheels are perpendicular, they too look in all four directions.
   Eyes are one of the most common symbols throughout literature, both
   ancient and modern. They indicate seeing and knowledge. The message is
   that God is not ignorant of anything. His fast-moving chariot is
   filled with eyes which see all, so he fully knows the plight of his
   exiled people in Babylon. Aside from omnipresence, we also get an
   indication of omniscience.
   The creatures themselves have four heads: man, eagle, ox, and lion.
   Although it may not be obvious to our modern sensibilities, these four
   represent four types. To the ancient Near East mind, at least, the
   eagle was chief among the birds of the sky, the ox the strongest of
   the domesticated animals, the lion the most powerful of the wild
   animals. And man was the noblest of all, created in God's own image
   and given dominion over all the Earth. So the four faces of the living
   creatures can be seen as four lords, each with a separate dominion.
   And yet these four living creatures are under the control of the
   figure on the throne. The spirit unites them and their wheels, guiding
   them as one unit, and the figure on the throne dwells above and
   separate from them, an expanse like crystal between. The word
   "expanse" is the same one used in Genesis 1:7-8. for the sky. God on
   his throne is exalted in dominion not only over the creatures of
   dominion, but also above the sky itself (an important point, as
   astrology played an powerful role in Babylonian culture).
   And surrounding God is a rainbow, the symbol of his first covenant
   with man, made to Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:8-17). It was not a
   two-way covenant like the one made with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai,
   but a promise motivated by nothing more than simple mercy on God's
   part, and thus a promise that could never be broken, for it depended
   on God's faithfulness rather than man's.
   There are, of course, numerous other symbols that I could discuss (the
   fire and lightning, for example, or the hands hidden by the wings),
   but I think this is sufficient to understand the central message of
   the passage, and while the vision itself was awesome and frightening,
   its message was one of reassurance. God had not been left behind in
   Jerusalem. His presence and perception were with the exiles in
   Babylon, and his dominion extended there as well. And while his people
   had broken their covenant and were being punished for it, God still
   intended to keep his promise, one of mercy that reached them even
   there, and which in the fullness of time would bring them back.

References

   Visible links
   1. http://aartisticaffinity.com/various_artwork.htm

   Hidden links:
   2. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-07-28.html
   3. http://www.abcgallery.com/R/raphael/raphael84.html
   4. http://www.levity.com/alchemy/amcl_astronomical_material.html