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Henry Neufeld - Religion, Philosophy and Politics
Ezekiel 1
A Glimpse of the Glory of Yahweh
Copyright © 1979 Henry Neufeld. All Rights Reserved
Exegetical Commentary - Part II
How are we to interpret these wheels. If the being above the vault is a representation of God, and the living creatures are heavenly, the wheels must be something much more close home to Ezekiel, possibly the affairs of earth. They have life; they have perception, and it is stated that because of these two factors they moved along with the living creatures. E. G. White,76 supports this view, and it seems to fit into the vision rather snugly. One notices, however, a step away from arbitrariness in this control: the wheels moved along with the living creatures because there was a living spirit (spirit of life) in them.
gleam of Chrysolite - Identification of this stone is not presently possible, but most opinion would make it either a transparent or a translucent substance, adding to the beauty of the scene.77
the form of a vault - Vault translates raqiy;a the same Hebrew word which is used in Genesis 1:6 of the "vault of heaven." The Septuagint translates it with stereoma which indicates the firmament, or a solid part.78 Perhaps we can view this as a sort of solid vault(78) placed over rather than on the heads of the living creatures.
the appearance of crystal - A vault of crystal, spreading itself over the fire and lightning of the area of the living creatures would produce a dazzling and awesome sight, so that the word "awesome" following, is very much in context, contrary to Eichrodt.79 And under the vault their wings were straight - Perhaps we can see an indication of how their wings were both joined together, and also that the creatures "went out and returned". While under the vault, their wings were straight, which implies another condition, namely, not under the vault.
And I heard the sound of their wings - One would not hear the sound of the wings of living creatures which were stationary. This therefore provides weight to the idea that the creatures moved at times out from under the vault, Ezekiel has quite some difficult finding something adequate to compare to the sound of these creatures wings. It seems that they sounded like a greater number of beings than were apparent to Ezekiel's eye. The possibility suggests itself that there were more than four, some off on missions, with four always under the vault, which would be the only ones that could be described.
As they stood ff - Eichrodt80 considers these verses to be later glosses, which he says contradict the rest of the chapter. We have already seen how verses 23 and 24 fit in with the picture. Verse 25 presents a different problem. Verse 23 states that the creature's wings are straight, but here they are stated to let them drop. The picture is of the entire scene approaching. At this point they have arrived near enough to Ezekiel to proceed with the call, and so they stop, and Ezekiel notes that they let their wings drop.
The sapphire stone - Ezekiel first perceives a sapphire stone, which then resolves itself into the form of a throne. The sapphire is a deep blue, so that above the crystal firmament, already lighted, this would add an even more dazzling touch.
On the throne is the form of the appearance of a man. Notice how carefully Ezekiel makes his description. There is here no attempt to describe God anthropomorphically. This entire section is marked by this care in his description of the "appearance of the glory of Yahweh."
This "form of a man" appears to be burning below His thighs, and gleaming like brass above them. The entire scene is one of dazzling majesty. There is a "gleaming" around it, which Ezekiel describes as similar to the rainbow. G. R. Driver sees the imagery of a brass furnace here81 but that image does not seem adequate to the scene.
Even after all his care in description, he does not state that this was the appearance of Yahweh. He says, rather, that it was the form of the appearance of the glory of Yahweh. And seeing all this glory, he did the natural thing and fell on his face.
Conclusion
What would this vision indicate to the prophet. The first item to note is the arrival of the glory of Yahweh in a cloud. Ezekiel and his people were under a cloud at the time. They were discouraged, thinking that God had forsaken them. And here, coming from the north was a cloud, but there was a gleam around the cloud, and in the very storm was the glory of Yahweh Himself. Even in their trouble, the God of Israel was present. However, the vision indicated more than this. It showed that God was not tied down to one country. He could be with the exiles as well as with the people in the land of Israel. He ruled all creation, And it was He who was directing the affairs of earth.
Appendix
The Uses of ;eyn, demuth and mar'eh in Ezekiel 1
In the textual comments (see note p on verse 13) I made an emendation of the text in which I stated that a scribe, reading the chapter and seeing demuth used in verse 13 would tend to wish to correct it to mar'eh as more appropriate to the context of the verse. As the King James Version uniformly translates each of the three words above with English words which are essentially similar, it is necessary to demonstrate that this use is indeed correct. The KJV has translated them as color, likeness, and appearance respectively.
;eyn appears four times in the chapter, Holladay suggests simply "look" or "appearance", but Eichrodt (OTL) suggests "sparkle". Elsewhere, gleam is suggested. The latter seem most appropriate in the context here, In verses 4 and 27 the Chashmal gleams, In verse 7 the polished bronze. In verse 16 the wheels, probably of a translucent or transparent color gleam. So gleaming or sparkling here appears to be the best translation.
demuth appears 9 times. We have the demuth of the four living creatures who have the demuth of a man. Their faces have the demuth of various creatures. The demuth of a vault is above the creatures' heads. The sapphire stone resolves itself into the of a throne. Upon the demuth of a throne is the demuth of the appearance of a man. Finally the glory of God is said to have demuth. The only one of these which is neutral is verse 28, "the form of the glory of Yahweh", although even here reference is being made to the form which was on the throne. Holladay suggests form as a translation for demuth. It appears to be the best translation in this chapter.
Lastly we have mar'eh which appears 11 times. It is used as a general reference to the four creatures, immediately followed by the statement that they had the form of a man, four faces, four wings, etc. In verse l3 there is the mar'eh of lightning, which does not have "form" as such. In verse l4 we have the mar'eh of lightning again. The mar'eh of the wheels was as the sparkle of tarshish, etc. The mar'eh of the wheels was as if a wheel were within a wheel. Ezekiel sees the mar'eh of sapphire which resolves itself into the form of a throne. There is the form of the mar'eh of a man, and the mar'eh of fire, the mar'eh of a rainbow, and the mar'eh of a gleaming. In only one of these cases would "form" be an appropriate translation. That is verse 16, with regard to the wheels.
In verse 13, however, the situation is reversed. The "coals of fire burning like lightning" could hardly be described as having "form". The scribe, seeing Ezekiel's normal use of the words could easily have added mar'eh in the margin to indicate that this would be a better word to employ here.
Notes
1 2 Chronicles 34:8,14.
2 2 Chronicles 34:24,25. Revised Standard Version.
3 2 Chronicles 34:26-28.
4 2 Kings 24:32.
5 "Nabopolassar," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
6 "Mesopotamia and Iraq, History of," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
7 Ezekiel 1:2.
8 2 Chronicles 34:1-4.
9 "Jehoiakim," Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary.
10 "Jehoiachin," Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary. Ezekiel 1:2. For the authenticity of the dating, see commentary section of this paper.
11 Note that this is the dating system used by Ezekiel in his hook. He would be likely to use a system familiar to the people.
12 Walther Zimmerli, "The Message of the Prophet Ezekiel," Interpretation, April, 1969, p. 131.
l3 Anthony D. York, "Ezekiel 1: Inaugural and Restoration Visions?" Vetus Testamentum, January, l977, p. 86.
14 Walther Zimmerli, "Deutero-Ezechiel?" Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, No. 4, 1972, p. 502.
15 Eberhard Baumann, "Die Hauptvisionen Hesekiels," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, No. 1-2, 1955, passim.
16 R. Tournay, "A propos des babylonismes d'Ezechiel," Revue Riblique, July, 1961, p. 393. "Particularly numerous in his book, these "Babylonisms" may be explained most easily if the prophet lived, spoke, and wrote in a definitely Babylonian environment."
17 Walther Zimmerli, "The Special Form- end Traditio-Historical Character of Ezekiel's Prophecy," Vetus Testamentum, October, 1969, p. 515.
18 Walther Zimmerli, "Deutero-Ezechiel?" p. 503.
19 Walther Zimmerli "The Message of the Prophet Ezekiel," p. 133.
20 G. A. Cooke, The Book of Ezekiel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937), xl.
21 Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970).
22 G. A. Cooke, op. cit.
23 York, 83, 84.
24 Paul Auvray, "Ezechiel I-III: Essai d'Analyse Litteraire," Revue Biblique, October, 1960, p. 498. "The difference between sheloshim and shelosh ;esreh is not very great."
25 Cooke, p. 7. York (p. 84) describes both of these men as "trying to maintain continuity with the radicals."
26 Brockington, L. H. The Hebrew Text of the 0ld Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 219.
27 Auvray, passim.
28 York, passim. Why Auvray is "radical" (declared so by York) and York is not remains to be explained. Such terms often prove meaningless when examined.
29 Eichrodt, 50, 51. All further notes from Eichrodt come from these pages of textual notes unless otherwise noted.
30 Cooke, 3. All further notes from Cooke come from the appropriate verse in pp. 3-28 unless otherwise noted.
31 Kenneth S. Freedy, "Glosses in Ezekiel I-XXIV," Vetus Testamentum, April, 1970, p. 132. The gloss is mar'eyhem.
32 Brockington, 219.
33 William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1971), Art. bazaq.
34 Holladay, Art. raba;
35 York, 83-91.
36 In this connection, York has suggested a good idea for those who solve textual problems by emendation: Put forward at least a hypothesis as to how the text became corrupted.
37 York, 85.
38 York's own idea enters troubled waters on this point.
39 Cooke, 4.
40 Edwin R. Thiele, A Chronology of the Hebrew King's (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1977) passim.
41 W. K. Lowther Clark, Concise Bible Commentary (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953), p 568.
42 Frederick Carl Eiselen, Edwin Lewis, and. David G. Downey, eds. The Abingdon Bible Commentary (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929), p. 715.
43 All views noted in this paragraph are from York's summary unless otherwise noted.
44 York, passim.
45 Baumann, 61.
46 Auvray, 494 "Vision du Livre"; pp. 495, 496 "Vision du Char"
47 Auvray, passim.
48 Francis D. Nichol, ed. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary Washington, DC: The Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1955), p. 574.
49 Charles Gore, Henry Leighton Goudge, and Alfred Guillaume, A New Commentary on Holy Scripture (New York; The Macmillan Company, 1958), p. 524.
50 To be fair, it must be noted that of those cited, only Eichrodt supports the latter assertion.
51 York, 88,89.
52 See introduction.
53 SDABC, etc. Opinion is practically uniform.
54 Eichrodt, 52.
55 R. H. Charles, The Revelation of St. John (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1920), p. 107.
56 SDABC, p. 574.
57 Auvray, 495.
58 T. Housel Jemison, A Prophet Among You (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1955), pp. 124-129.
59 James Luther Mays, Amos: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969), p. 8. Many other references, Biblical as well as non-Biblical could be given here.
60 Jeremiah 24 records a vision given to Jeremiah in answer to this same problem.
61 Walter Zimmerli, "The Special Form- and Traditio-Historical Character of Ezekiel's prophecy," pp. 31-33.
62 Andrew Blackwood, Jr. The Other Son of Man: Ezekiel/Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1966), pp. 29,30.
63 Cooke 10.
64 SDABC, 575.
65 Ibid.
66 W. Bauer, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, eds, W. R. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), Art. exastrapto.
67 G. R. Driver, "Ezekiel's Inaugural Vision," Vetus Testamentum January, 1951, passim.
68 The statement by Ellen G White, in Prophets and Kings (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1917}, pp. 535, 536, seems to me, contrary to the position taken in the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary to refer to Ezekiel 10:8. The imagery is different. In 1:8 Ezekiel sees "hands of a man". In the other, "the form of a man's hand". The latter is clearly the type of statement Ezekiel makes when he is referring to heavenly things, while the former clearly is not.
69 Eichrodt, 55.
70 Cooke, l4.
71 SDABC, 576, 577.
72 Leslie Hardinge, Twenty-four Studies in the Book of Revelation (Glendale, California: Sermons to Live By), No. 5. To his credit, he is interpreting Revelation, but he is giving this interpretation to Ezekiel in order to pass it on to Revelation.
73 "Ezekiel," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible.
74 Blackwood, 33.
75 Baumann, 59.
76 E. G. White, 535, 536.
77 See SDABC, 578. "Chrysolite," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
78 W. Bauer, Art. stereoma.
79 Eichrodt, 51.
80 Eichrodt, 51.
81 G. R, Driver, passim.
Bibliography
Some books have been included here, though not cited in the text, as they were read as part of preparation for writing, and undoubtedly influenced the author's thought in some way. Auvray, Paul. "Ezekiel I-III: Essai d'Analyse Litteraire." Revue Biblique, October, 1960, pp. 481-502.
Bauer, W. A Greek English Lexicon to the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. W. R. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich, eds. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957.
Baumann, D. Eberhard. "Die Hauptvisionen Hesekiels." Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, No. 1-2, 1955, pp. 56-67.
Blackwood, Andrew V. Jr, The Other Son of Man: Ezekiel/Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1966.
Brockington, L. H. The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
Buttrick, George Arthur, ed. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Abingdon Press, 1962.
Calvin, John. Commentaries on the First Twenty Chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Trans. Thomas Myers. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849.
Charles, R. H A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John. 2 Vols. S. R. Driver, A. Plummer, and C. A. Briggs, eds. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920.
Christian, Lewis Harrison. Modern Religious Trends in the Light of the Messages of Ezekiel, the Forgotten Prophet. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1941.
"Chrysolite," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
Clarke, W. K. Lowther. Concise Bible Commentary. New York: Abingdon- Cokesbury Press, 1929.
Cooke, G. A. The International Critical Commentary: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Ezekiel. 2 Vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937.
Davidson, A. B. and A. W. Streane. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Ed. A. F. Kirkpatrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916.
Driver, G. R. "Ezekiel's Inaugural Vision," Vetus Testamentum, January, 1951, pp. 60-62.
Eichrodt, Walther, Ezekiel: A Commentary. Trans. Cosslett Quinn. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970.
Eiselen, Frederick Carl, Lewis, Edwin, and Downey, David G. The Abingdon Bible Commentary. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929.
"Ezekiel," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
"Ezekiel, Book of," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
Freedy, Kenneth S, "Glosses in Ezekiel I-XXIV," Vetus Testamentum, April, 1970, pp. 129-152.
Gore, Charles, Groudge, Henry Layton, and Guillaume, Alfred, eds. A New Commentary on the Holy Scripture. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958.
Hardinge, Leslie. Twenty-four Sermons in the Book of Revelation. Glendale California: Sermons to Live By. (A series of taped sermons.)
Horn, Siegfried H. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary. Ed. Don F. Neufe1d. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1960.
Kittel, Rudolf. Ed. Biblia Hebraica. Stuttgart: Priv. Wurtt. Bibelanstalt, 1937.
Mays, James Luther. Amos: A Commentary. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969.
"Mesopotamia and Iraq, History of," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978. "Nabopolassar," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978.
Nichol, Francis D. ed. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 1st ed. 7 vols. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1960.
The Septuagint Version in Greek and English, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970. Reprinted from the edition of Samuel Bagster and Sons, Ltd., London.)
Thiele, Edwin R. A Chronology of the Hebrew Kings. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1977.
Tournay, R. "A propos des babylonismes d'Ezechiel," Revue Biblique, July, 1961, pp. 388-393.
White, Ellen G. Prophets and Kings. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1917.
York, Anthony D. "Ezekiel I: Inaugural and Restoration Visions?" Vetus Testamentum, January, 1977, pp. 82-98.
Zimmerli, Walther. "Deutero-Ezechiel?" Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, No. 4, 1972, pp. 501-516.
"Special Form- and Traditio-Historical Character of Ezekiel's Prophecy." Vetus Testamentum, October, 1965, pp. 515-527.
"The Message of the Prophet Ezekiel." Interpretation, April, 1969, pp. 131-157.
Copyright © 1979 Henry Neufeld. All Rights Reserved
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