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Context No. 1928 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 10:6-14: in context

6It came to pass, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” that he went in and stood beside a wheel. 7The cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it, and put it into the hands of him who was clothed in linen, who took it and went out. 8The form of a man’s hand appeared here in the cherubim under their wings. 9I looked, and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside one cherub, and another wheel beside another cherub. The appearance of the wheels was like a beryl stone. 10As for their appearance, the four of them had one likeness, like a wheel within a wheel. 11When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it. They didn’t turn as they went. 12Their whole body, including their backs, their hands, their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes all around, even the wheels that the four of them had. 13As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, “the whirling wheels”. 14Every one of them had four faces. The first face was the face of the cherub. The second face was the face of a man. The third face was the face of a lion. The fourth was the face of an eagle.

Ezekiel describes his vision of God's glory in terms that strain language: cherubim with four faces, wheels within wheels gleaming like beryl, their whole form full of eyes all around, moving instantly wherever the Spirit directed, never turning as they went. Fire is taken from among the wheels. It is a vision of the moving throne of God's glory, and Ezekiel can only reach for it in halting comparisons, likenesses, and approximations, describing what he saw as a wheel within a wheel, the appearance of, the likeness of.

What strikes us in this vision, beyond its strange details, is how hard Ezekiel labors to describe what he saw, and how he never quite manages it. He piles up comparisons and approximations, it was like, the appearance was as, the likeness of, because what he beheld exceeded his ability to put into words. The glory of God he glimpsed was beyond his categories, beyond plain description, and he could only stammer toward it in figures and likenesses. And this itself teaches us something: that God's glory and majesty exceed our comprehension, that the God we worship is greater and more awesome than our minds can grasp or our words can capture. There is a needed corrective here for how we think of God. We are prone to domesticate God, to reduce him to something manageable, comprehensible, fitted to our categories, a God we have figured out and can describe adequately. Ezekiel's stammering vision resists this. The God whose glory he glimpsed could not be reduced to plain description; he exceeded every category, overwhelmed the prophet's powers of speech, left him reaching for likenesses that fell short. When Ezekiel saw the glory of the LORD, he fell on his face. This is the response that the true majesty of God draws: not the casual familiarity of one who has God figured out, but the awe and worship of one who has glimpsed a glory beyond comprehension. Isaiah, seeing the Lord high and lifted up, heard the seraphim cry, holy, holy, holy, and was undone. The vision of God's glory is meant to enlarge our sense of him, to break us out of a domesticated, manageable idea of God and restore the awe that his true majesty deserves. We do not worship a God we have mastered and can adequately describe, but one whose glory exceeds our categories and our words, before whom the right posture is not casual familiarity but reverent awe. Ezekiel could only stammer toward the glory he saw; and the God whose majesty overwhelmed the prophet's speech is the God we are called to worship with awe, not to reduce to something we have figured out.

Have I domesticated God, reducing him to something manageable and comprehensible, a God I have figured out and can adequately describe, or can Ezekiel's stammering vision of a glory beyond his words restore my sense of God's true majesty, drawing me from casual familiarity to the reverent awe that the God whose glory exceeds all our categories deserves?

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