Ezekiel 1

NotesDivision 1 (Ezekiel 1:1-28; Ezekiel 2:1-10; Ezekiel 3:1-27; Ezekiel 4:1-17; Ezekiel 5:1-17; Ezekiel 6:1-14; Ezekiel 7:1-27; Ezekiel 8:1-18; Ezekiel 9:1-11; Ezekiel 10:1-22; Ezekiel 11:1-25; Ezekiel 12:1-28; Ezekiel 13:1-23; Ezekiel 14:1-23; Ezekiel 15:1-8; Ezekiel 16:1-63; Ezekiel 17:1-24; Ezekiel 18:1-32; Ezekiel 19:1-14; Ezekiel 20:1-49; Ezekiel 21:1-32; Ezekiel 22:1-31; Ezekiel 23:1-49; Ezekiel 24:1-27).Israel’s rebellion brought into the presence of Jehovah’s unchangeable righteousness. How little can those who are away from God measure the distance they have gone from Him! Away from Him who is Light, and the only light, the soul is in necessary darkness. And even with one who has a memory of the light, there is a lack of responsive energy to overcome the oppression of the existing darkness. For this God Himself must come in, and this is one meaning of the opening vision. Even then we are reminded of the Lord’s words that “to them that are without, all these things are done in parables.” It is what they complained of in the prophet’s speech (Ezekiel 20:49), and there was so much truth in this as to enable them to put away the conviction it should have forced upon them. The Lord’s answer to a somewhat similar thought on the part of His disciples did not ignore the fact of the parabolic form, but asserted the competence they should have had to understand it: “Know ye not this parable?” He asks, “and how then will ye know all parables?” (Mark 4:13).

Yet He adds, To you is it given to know;" which does not deny their responsibility, for God’s gifts are not arbitrarily withheld, but casts us upon Himself for competence. It is good for us to realize all sides of truth like this when we take up Ezekiel. Though it be all of grace, yet we must remember that to see what Ezekiel saw we must be in some sense where Ezekiel was. Grace does not release from the conditions which holiness demands, but enables for them. Oh then that we might realize this vision as He who searcheth the deep things of God can give ability! Subdivision 1 (Ezekiel 1:1-28; Ezekiel 2:1-10; Ezekiel 3:1-27; Ezekiel 4:1-17; Ezekiel 5:1-17; Ezekiel 6:1-14; Ezekiel 7:1-27).The charge given to the prophet. The charge is given to the prophet, as we have seen, by Jehovah Himself, and in a marvelous revelation of Himself as the holy Governor of the world which He has made The awful solemnity of wills in opposition to such an One is here emphasized. The glory of Jehovah is revealed, though in terms necessarily symbolical, as in fact all visions of divine glory apart from “Christ come in flesh” must be. How blessed to have here the deepest revelation, in the sweet and tender speech of Him who has become Man in order to bring it to us! Yet, even in Ezekiel, as we have already seen, there is, as it were, “the appearance of a Man upon the throne.” God is drawing near in a way which in many respects cannot fail to remind us of the vision of Patmos. Ezekiel himself is truly in Patmos -in a place of isolation in the midst of a world hostile to God; and here with the awful sorrow added of the just judgment of God upon a people in revolt from Him. All the more do we see here how all creation works in harmonious obedience to Him.

This is what the living creatures speak of; and not only they, but the cycles of earthly history, as represented by the wheels, show fully the same thing. All creation, all events, display His glory, and it is in the presence of such an One that Israel’s sin must be brought in order to give it its full character.

Yet for the soul of the saint what comfort in such a revelation! No wonder that Ezekiel is strengthened by it to stand under the weight of his commission. How thus, in times of greatest failure and apostasy, God comes near to those who have a heart for Him! Thus it is with Ezekiel; thus it is with Daniel; and even the beloved John in his blessed vision stands amid a people who have already begun to depart from God. Ephesus, to whom is committed the highest view of the Church which is given us, has left its first love, and the voice now is to overcomers -not merely with regard to the world, which opposes its darkness to the divine light, but in the Church over which the same darkness is ominously stealing. Yet, in the face of all, it is the God of all encouragement who always speaks to us. To hear His voice indeed is to receive “not the spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Ezekiel 1:1-28

Section 1 (Ezekiel 1:1-28).Jehovah the Almighty whom all creation, all events, harmoniously obey.

1. The opening verses, as an introduction to the whole book, should be of the deepest significance. As we look at them, at first they may seem but a mere record of dates and places; but we may be sure that underneath we shall find a true introduction, every word of which bears upon that which is to follow. It is thus only that we can read these scriptures aright when we willingly pass over nothing, assured that everywhere the word of God will vindicate itself as that, and that to make one word from the divine mouth idle, is the insult of unbelief to Him who speaks in it. There is a studied emphasis here, manifestly put upon that which we might overlook. This 30th year, this 4th month, this 5th day of the month, are manifestly specifications full of purpose.

The 30th year is, no doubt, as it is generally considered, the year of the prophet. It was the period at which the priest entered upon his office; it was the year in which it pleased Christ, Himself the true Priest, to begin His public ministry. This 30th year has in it as one of its factors that number 5 which we shall find accompanying us remarkably through the book: We have thus the 5th day, the 5th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. Five is the number of man in relation to God. It is the number, therefore, which speaks of responsibility under His government, and that is most suited in the book of Ezekiel. Yet we must not forget that there is another side to it, and that the weak with the strong, the 4–1–1, we have found many times to speak of Immanuel.

The New Testament is thus a 5th Pentateuch, and of what does it speak? Certainly the burden of its message is not responsibility, but the blessed way in which the weakness of humanity and the strength of Deity have come together in the Person revealed. Then let us notice that 10 is but a twice 5, and that this number 2, which is the additional factor, is the number which speaks directly of, and therefore emphasizes, relationship. Here is a 3X10, the number of manifestation and of the Spirit alike, and in connection with man, thus in company with God. And when the Lord came up from Jordan, in His 30th year, from His pledge to that ministry in which the river of death was indeed the point to which it guided, and the end for which it marked Him out, it was to be manifested and approved of God as the perfect Mediator, His beloved Son, upon whom then the Dove from heaven descends. Thus He becomes in full reality the Christ, anointed for His work of bringing God and man together. And here also, in what is now before us (though we must modify a good deal the proper force of the words), we may say that the prophet is anointed for the work upon which he enters, where man’s relationship to God is that which is in question, which he is to realize in his soul in its tremendous consequences, yet where in the end God will indeed be seen to unite Himself to man in His own manner, and according to what has been ever in His heart. This 30th year is now in its 4th month, speaking manifestly of that season of trial to which everything under God must come, which for mere fallen man proves necessarily disastrous, but which for those who accept the searching out is but “for a season, if need be,” and the end, blessing. Meanwhile the prophet is one among a band of captives by the river Chebar -the “great” or “abundant” river -evidently reminding us of Isaiah’s language when God declared by him that He would bring upon Israel “the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory” (Isaiah 8:7). Here it is indeed another spoiler, for the land of Israel is already a land that the rivers have spoiled (Isaiah 18:2). Babylon has succeeded Assyria, but with no relief in the oppressing hand; yet, though the judgment be not removed, here it is, that over the head of one who, bowed under it, accepts the divine judgment, the heavens are opened and there are “visions of God.” How blessed to know, by the voice of nature itself, that it is night and not day that opens the heavens; and here, whatever the message that may be given, the first thing for the prophet’s soul is that there are “visions of God” With God coming in, how everything changes, even though nothing may be changed! For there is no desolation like the absence of God; and there is nothing to lack with His presence realized. Thus the end is, as it were, seen from the beginning. These visions of God will be, at the end, visions of exceeding comfort The word that is to come is yet unspoken. First of all God is seen, and by and by there will be His word. But the sentence closes for a moment here, that the sweetness of the vision may be taken in without distraction, for here we have something that had never before occurred.

Never before could it be said that the heavens were opened. Over this poor, lone man they opened, into whose soul the pang of the captivity of the people of God had entered in a way unrealized by his fellows around him. Isaiah had seen the glory of the Lord in the temple, and everywhere of course it is the same glory. That vision had closed, and the sanctuary on earth was desolate; but God remained and is seen in the higher sphere where His throne abides untouched by all the sin and sorrow of earth It is the preparation for that which we find in Daniel, where in contrast with that which was said when the ark, the throne of “the God of all the earth,” passed through the dry bed of Jordan to its place in the land, it is now “the God of heaven” who is constantly before us. A higher point of view, and therefore a wider view also, is reached; and these opened heavens have now disclosed for us things that were in the time of the prophet a secret in the heart of God. Yet he who has reached the vision of God Himself has reached that beyond which there can be no height higher.

He Himself is the realized pledge of all blessedness to come, and there can be nothing else but this. Thus Ezekiel may well be strengthened for all further disclosures. They can only disclose Him more whom the soul knows and recognizes as its security and rest. And now we are carried on to look at another side of things; for on this “5th day of the month, which was in the 5th year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar; and the hand of Jehovah was there upon him.” Notice the change of person. We have here, so to speak, the official account, as before we had the personal; and the message is necessarily one of sorrow and judgment. This 5th year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity shows us how Israel’s present relationship to God ha. been marked by the taking away of him whose name falsely prophesied of “establishment by Jehovah.” “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with Thee, which frameth mischief by a law?” (Psalms 94:20). The false confidence must be taken away before God can come in for blessing, and when His “judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). These are principles of God’s very nature which no grace that He shows can ever alter. Grace itself can only reign through righteousness, and the word that now comes is the word of Jehovah, this unchangeable God, to Ezekiel the priest, whom “the Mighty One makes strong” to proclaim it.

The son of Buzi, “my contempt,” marks the fruit of that contempt of God which all that had passed and was passing now in Israel, so completely manifested on the part of the people. Thus he was in the ]and of the Chaldeans (perhaps “the robber-like” or “the encroachers”), by the river Chebar; and now, molding him to His will, while sustaining him for all that that will may involve, the hand of Jehovah is there upon him. 2. He looks, and now, out of the north, there comes “a stormy wind,” “a great cloud and a fire infolding itself” with a brightness round about it, “and out of the midst, as the look of brass and gold. out of the midst of the fire.” The north is not simply the quarter f, om which the invaders come -though the judgment of God it truly is which is executed by them -but it is rather, as always in its deeper meaning, the place of darkness, of mystery therefore, but a mystery which the coming in of God must needs dispel. The judgment itself declares Him -vindicates His nature, answers the questioning suspense of the righteous perplexed by His long patience in the presence of evil. Thus it is a storm-wind, a whirlwind, in fact, as we see by the fire infolding itself, “taking hold of itself,” as it is literally, something which answers to what we shall see in the whirling wheels afterwards; and, as fire is ever sustained by that on which it takes hold, here it takes hold upon itself -it is sustained by its own nature. This fire is not pure wrath; it is rather, as a symbol, the holiness of God of which it speaks, a consuming fire indeed, therefore, to iniquity, but judgment is not its essence, not what it seeks or delights in, but what is necessitated by the perfection of God Himself. Judgment is rather seen in the whirl of the wind, such a whirl as the preacher saw in nature (Ecclesiastes 1:6), and it is but part of the ordained circuit of events as seen in those succeeding generations in which each repeats what has been before it, and yet does not repeat it wholly: for there is progress, a purpose working through it which is but the purpose of God; though in strange forms to which the sin of man has compelled it.

But if there be a great cloud, there is yet a brightness round about, a brightness which necessarily must be when we know Him whose that purpose is; and lo, “out of the midst of it as the look of brass and gold, out of the midst of the fire.” Thus the nature of God Himself is seen, what is at the heart of the judgment, and which, therefore, while it has in it the fixedness which is always symbolized by the brass, is the display of the glory of God, such as the gold ever signifies.* All this is but a first and distant view of that which is seen approaching, but there are already in it the elements of that which presently is seen in detail. The first thing indeed is that in the form of judgment, God it is who is enwrapping Himself; but in such a way that He Himself can be discerned -nay, is made known and glorified. With Him, that which makes Him known is necessarily that which glorifies Him.
The first and distant view already gives the character of that which is approaching. It is storm -the divine wrath -but God revealed in it, and therefore, brightness round about, which presently we shall find, moreover, putting on the iris-hues in which the light breaks out into a band of various glory which once more reveals Him in the storm when it is passed, and now in covenant with the earth, enfranchised and renewed. It is the anticipation of what we find in Revelation, the rainbow round the throne. As now it rapidly draws near, and the details develop, this agreement with Revelation is marked in such a manner as to be recognized at once; for out of the fire there comes the likeness of four living creatures. They are, strictly, “living ones,” creatures not being expressed, though surely implied in the four forms of man, lion, ox, and eagle, in which they appear. The human form however predominates and gives character to them; while yet each one has four faces and four wings corresponding to these. Thus it is not a likeness of God that they present; and all likeness of Him is expressly forbidden. They are creatures of His -no more; in His hand, obedient to His will, and used for His purposes; in fact, as we shall see, instruments of His government; in Revelation seen in the midst of and around the Throne here underneath, it for here the view is from earth, and there in heaven. They have in general the likeness of a man, but their feet are like the feet of an ox, “upright,” and not extended, as is man’s foot. They sparkle, giving the look of glowing brass, reminding us once more of Revelation, but there of Him who appears to John, and who is the Lord Himself, “His feet like unto fine (or glowing) brass, as if they burned in a furnace.” The treading down in wrath is clearly indicated. The sole of the foot is like that of a young bullock, for patient labor is manifest in the exercise of righteous judgment. They had human hands under their wings: implying doubtless their possession of that delicacy of touch and power of manipulation which the lower extremities lacked; thus they were not quadrupedal, but human; their hands being moreover under those wings which showed them to be fitted for a higher sphere than that of earth. Their wings joined together, so that there was perfect unity of action among the whole four living ones, the face guiding in a straightforward course in which was no deviation; a higher Spirit than that of the living creature itself in fact guided and governed all. In the vision of Revelation the four forms are separate, which here we find united in each living creature They are given also in another order from that given here, and plainly suited to what is contemplated in the second part of Revelation where the Lion of Judah takes the seven-sealed book. There, the lion comes first therefore; the emblem of the resistless power which is fundamental to perfect government. A government without power to execute its will is plainly none. We might expect from this that swift decisiveness of action which we so naturally look for in view of the almightiness of God and His holiness as against evil; and indeed such action is drawing near at that time of the end which John is looking on to. Yet the cry of the martyred saints, when the fifth seal is opened, tells how long has been the delay of judgment for which they wait, and for which they are still told to wait. But there is a patience which results from the very consciousness of strength; and with everything completely under His control, there is no haste in the execution of the divine purposes of God.

Thus the patient-working ox follows the lion, to supply what is needed to the first thought; the ox too being the worker for coming harvest, as this patience of God is to have fruit in blessing to His creatures. The long-suffering of the Lord is for salvation. Then, the human-faced cherub at once reminds us of how He has come in to manifest Himself in manhood for the accomplishment of this, and how He is seeking to be known, intimately, to lead us into fellowship with Himself. And with this there will be necessarily exercise of heart and conscience, as the man’s face still reminds us: for of these different forms the man alone speaks of a moral agent. And this exercise under divine government is none the less, but the more thorough and solemn, because His ways in this, as the final figure of the eagle comes to assure us, are ways that often soar beyond our knowledge: God were no God if there were not depths in His nature and a wisdom in His ways inaccessible to man. He dwelleth in the light unapproachable One whom no man hath seen, nor can see though, blessed be His name, in what we know of Him, better known after all than we are to ourselves. Thus these four forms, while certainly not meant to attract engagingly the eye, still less in their fourfold complexity as represented in Ezekiel, nor to convey to us the idea of any actually existing spiritual beings, are manifestly suited to intimate to us the characters of a government which God exercises continually, with a plenitude of power in subjection to which all creation works. Thus in the apocalyptic vision the living creatures are seen from a heavenly standpoint, “in the midst of the throne and round about the throne.” Here they are under it for we are looking at them from the world-side, whence they naturally appear more complex in their forms, and with the world-number, four, emphasized in the four faces and four wings of each. The faces are in a different order also from that in which the forms are represented in Revelation. But here, in Ezekiel, the human form in general is dwelt upon it is the human face that comes to the front and this suits well the tenderness of God’s approach to His people when in trial, which Scripture everywhere exhibits. How good to see that, just here, when judgment is impending, yet to the prophet’s view, the lion is not first, but the man first. The human form invites, as by and by we see even upon the throne itself. The lion is seen next, upon the right hand (yamin), which is the Hebrew also for the south: opposed thus to all the soft, relaxing influences which are naturally implied under this, for the judgment of God must no more be treated easily and with indifference, as hitherto. The ox is on the left, or as it might otherwise be rendered, the north, to meet with patient resistance the dark and evil forces proceeding from the kingdom of darkness, which must not be allowed to oppose or ally themselves with the holy judgment of God. While finally, behind all is the eagle, to remove from the earth the corruption which defiles it (Luke 17:37), that as of old He may bear His people upon eagles, wings, and bring them to Himself (Exodus 19:4). The creature-forms are not separate from one another here, as seen in the heavenly vision of Revelation, but each living being unites in itself these diverse characters, as on earth we see the acts of divine government displaying, though not in equal prominence, the whole. As to the wings of the living creatures, they are four, not six as in Revelation. With only two of these they fly and these are joined one to another in perfect unity of action while two cover their bodies, as in a higher Presence. In the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision, who have six wings like those of Revelation, two cover the face and two the feet, while with two alone they fly. Can there be any true work for God, or wisdom for it, where in the presence of His glory the creature takes not its place of nothingness before Him? Thus there was no unsteadiness or fickleness in their movement, they went each one in the direction of its face: and, obedient to the spirit that dwelt in them, they lacked no ability for the attainment of their end, whither the spirit was to go they went with simple directness of purpose -they turned not when they went. The likeness of the living creatures as a whole bears witness of the coming of unwilling judgment which the people have provoked, but which still is not of the essence of what is here. Their appearance is indeed like burning coals of fire, which nevertheless is not identified with the living creatures, but as the appearance of torches (not simply destroying, but enlightening also) goes up and down among them. But the judgment is manifest: the fire is bright, and out of the fire goes forth lightning; and to this the motions of the living creatures agree: they go and return as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now we have another thing, which is altogether outside the vision of Revelation. For there, as already said, it is as seen by one in heaven. Here the prophet is on earth, and the wheels are seen upon earth also, and have a more intimate connection with it than the living creatures themselves. Yet they move in unison with these, nay, are moved by them, for the spirit of the living creatures is in the wheels, and their character is thus reflected in them. But the wheels are moreover gem-like. their appearance and their work is as the look of a topaz; for there is in them the display of the attributes of God, as in the jewels of the high priest’s breastplate, which are the Prim and Thummim, the divine “lights and perfections,” the glory of the refracted light, which God is. The four wheels are alike, and have one fundamental meaning; their appearance and their structure is as it were a wheel in the midst of a wheel; so that they go upon four sides, the one wheel being set into the other, which it crosses at right angles; thus, like the living creatures, having no need to turn, to whatever quarter they may go. The wheel speaks naturally, primarily, of the revolution of time, marked as it is for us by those luminaries which God appointed for “signs” as well as “seasons;” and most significant signs they are: heaven putting thus the stamp of vanity upon the fallen creature, whose dependence upon God it reveals for that renewal of life ever needed by it. “To everything there is a season,” and no more; nothing continues at one stay: the day comes out of the womb of night, only to go back into it again. The winter swallows up the autumn fruits. So the generations of men follow one another; and even “history,” as is often said, “repeats itself.” “The thing that has been is that which shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Yet with all this repetition there is a certain progress also: the wheel is moving; not only so, but it is moving on. Whither? There is often a certain betterment as it moves, which is apt to fill us with only too exuberant a hope. The wheel has eyes, in which there seems the light of purpose. And indeed, purpose of a sort is easily seen: the spirit of the living creature at least is in the wheels; the living creature taking on also, as Ezekiel sees, the human form preeminently, as the course of events plainly shows, the large control of things man has, though not alone: for with him, constantly carrying, often controlling, often thwarting him, there works a force, itself under the constraint of law, without which he can do nothing. And here the wheel rises so high that it is dreadful: he can see but a brief portion -follow but a short way; and if he sees no more, the light dies out again; for what of this spirit of man which counts for so much, and is yet so little? which passes so readily as a breath that cometh not again? Whither does it pass? as the preacher asks: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” Even the spirit of the living creature seems thus but part of the machinery itself. The wheel it is that controls, and the spirit of man is under this law which so utterly abases him, and carries him down at last into a darkness out of which no one sees him emerge. He then is no master of the wheel, but the wheel is master: he dies as the beast dies; and how is he then greater than the beast? Thus death baffles him. The earth abides, and things that seem passed away return again; but the generations do not return.

Progress there may be, and fruitful thoughts take root and spring up, but it is upon the graves of those who have wrought to produce the harvest. Yet here is precisely that which has in it purpose of its own, and the highest, that is moral, purpose. In the mystery of this sentence, as it surely seems, upon him -which the voice within him interprets so persistently and bodingly as sentence -the wheel begins to put on the topaz look, and the “lights and perfections” of God reveal themselves in it. The supreme control which is not in man’s hands can still less be in the wheel itself. The eyes in it after all speak of a wisdom which is alien to mere mechanism; and if the wheel be but the ordinance of God, we may learn hope of Him whose heavens proclaim to us their control over the earth, and how He can bring light out of darkness, summer out of winter, life out of death. Resurrection is indeed the full display of God’s thought. Without it there is no proper revolution of the wheel; and God Himself is not seen, who cannot be seen in judgment merely. That is His “strange work,” and His heart cannot be seen in it. But this “sore travail which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised with it,” is but God’s travail with man so exercised for a new birth, which is to make him, beyond all that the first creation made him, a child of God, the heir of a glorious purpose, of which revelation has been preaching to him from the beginning, even in the story of those primal days to which the Scripture record carries us back. For these, even then, were in a manner new-creative days -days of resurrection for that earth not created in that state of desolation into which it had now lapsed under those whelming waters, the records of whose work the earth has been little by little disclosing to us. The “days” of Genesis 1:1-31, with deeper lessons than ever geology could in the nature of things give us, reveal indeed the work of Him who has alone the power, not only to “renew the face of the earth,” but to renew also man’s moral nature. Spite of all resistance, He carries on step by step to their complete development those purposes of His grace which the dispensations are disclosing, which are all here wrapped up, in a way which went far beyond the knowledge of him who wrote, not by traditional inspiration, but by the teaching of the Spirit of God. Thus, in the record of the first day, if God calls the darkness which He is displacing “night,” yet “the evening and the morning” are the day, as He would interpret to us; a day which does not therefore begin with the night and end with the night, as we have sadly chosen, if for our common purposes conveniently, to reckon it. Nor does it begin with the day and end with the night either. No; the evening begins, and the morning follows. The light which a the call of God has just appeared, thus seems at once to be disappearing again, and the darkness to triumph over it. But it has not really done so. The day is only being conformed to the type of resurrection which will be recognized by faith on the part of His people in coming generations as the inimitable, unmistakable pattern of His workmanship.

In the victory over sin and evil which are coming in, God is to be known as the God of resurrection. Death is the brand of vanity upon the evil, the leveling of the pride which is the rebellion of the creature against the Hand that formed it. But it is in that Hand also the weapon by which the arch-enemy is defeated and spoiled; and through death, for those who accept the humiliation of it, there is found the way of life. The revolution of the wheel, though it be high and outside the ken of sense merely, is that in which it puts on its topaz look and reveals its mystery. 3. Thus Ezekiel does not see merely the wheels, or the living creatures; he sees over their heads the likeness of an expanse as the look of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. And again, above the likeness of the expanse itself there is the likeness of a throne; and upon the likeness of the throne there is, what indeed is strange and wonderful to see, the appearance of a Man above upon it. As soon as we look up thither we become conscious, in the attitude of the living creatures, that they are themselves in profound subjection to the higher power that is there. The harmony in which they act with one another is manifested as only the result of a common subjection to One who controls all. Their wings are spread out in full activity, their bodies remaining however always covered by their wings, as we have already seen them, and as is emphasized here by the repetition.

And now the sound of their wings is heard as the sound of many waters -a cataract of sound, which presently is realized as the voice of the Almighty -the noise indeed as of a multitude, but not tumultuous -the sound of a marshalled host. This is the plain interpretation of the living creatures themselves; which the heathen, as the monuments of Babylon have shown us, worshiped in such forms (there indeed grotesque), seeing what was under the firmament only, and not able to pierce to the Throne that was above it, and turning thus “the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things” (Romans 1:23). Here they are in their place, and serving; at His voice moving, wing-enwrapped, before Him; at His voice stilled to absolute rest, with their wings let down. But we are permitted not alone to behold the throne, and hear the voice of the Eternal, but to see Him who sits upon it. First, however, as to the throne: it is as the appearance of a sapphire stone. This does not seem to be what we now call the sapphire. That of the ancients was, as Pliny testifies, “refulgent with spots of gold -azure, never transparent:” that is, the lapis lazuli. And when we hear God’s own voice claiming the heavens as His throne, how suited is the likeness of a sapphire stone! The word is derived from one (saphar) which means “to number,” and hence “to tell, declare,” and this is the word used when it is said that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalms 19:1) .

This sapphire throne, then, is symbolically just the starry vault, which is seen similarly in the vision of God upon Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:10) when “they saw the God of Israel; and there was beneath His feet as transparent sapphire-work, even as the heavens themselves for clearness” This seems to have been taken by some to prove that the ancient sapphire was itself transparent; but in fact there is no occasion from this to suppose so. There is, in what is seen, the general appearance of a sapphire stone, but with this the added character of a transparency such as there is in the heavens themselves: words which show plainly that it is the starry heavens that are here symbolized. Upon this throne then, there is “the likeness as the appearance of a Man above upon it.” We are warned by the language here to be careful how far we go in the way of exact application. There can be no doubt indeed for the Christian that Christ exactly fills the picture; even as Daniel (Ezekiel’s contemporary) sees in his vision “One like unto a Son of Man come in the clouds of heaven,” and dominion given to Him (Daniel 7:13). Yet, no doubt, the time is not come even yet in which this will be fulfilled. This does not however prevent the ultimate reference to Christ which is such an imperative necessity. Christ on the throne is God’s ideal of government for a world departed from Him, and He it is who is thus to subdue all things to God. Thus it is not strange if the divine throne ever puts on the human character.

And it surely does so. Is God a man that He should repent? It is human essentially to do so; yet governmentally God “repenteth Him of the evil;” nay, announces this as a principle in His dealings with men (Joe 2:13; Jeremiah 18:8). His threatenings, therefore, no less than the blessings He holds out to them, are for the proving of what is in their hearts, as again He declares (Deuteronomy 8:2; Deuteronomy 13:3; Psalms 7:9; Jeremiah 17:10). But why should He thus try the creatures He has made, who knows them perfectly, and the whole issue of every trial? Ah, it is the need of man himself and not of God, and a need on the part of all His creatures, who throughout the universe are spectators of His dealings with men, and who are learning in the Church His manifold wisdom; and to learn “in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:10). In connection with this, the dispensational changes show us the “likeness of the appearance of a Man upon the throne.” Not only has the trial of man been constantly going on, but new methods of trial have been instituted as the old ones seemed to show themselves inefficacious. Thus after the fall, there was at first the appeal to conscience, and men were suffered to do what was right in their own eyes. What men now desire, as anarchy, has had its full trial at the very beginning of things. Even Cain, the first murderer, was not to be slain; and there were no kings or potentates of any kind; but the result was the deluge; the earth had to be washed thoroughly clean, and everything to start afresh. Then human government was ordained; and that was a step in advance from which there has been on God’s part no return; nor has there been since such utter disaster as with those early generations. Yet human government soon manifested its incapacity to meet the deeper need of those whose hearts were departing from the living God.

Men manufactured gods to suit themselves; and thus, out of a world given over to idolatry, God had to call a people among whom the truth could be maintained -the written Word taking the place of traditions which human imaginations darkened and perverted, and fresh revelations by the mouths of prophets whom He raised up giving constantly increasing light as the world’s darkness deepened. We need not enter into more detail of those interventions which culminated in the rising of that Light of the world, whose beams today illumine all who have eyes to see. But this succession of various appeals to man, how human, if indeed much more than human, they are in that appeal! How plainly is to be seen in them the “appearance of the likeness of a Man” upon a throne which is in the heavens! But here it is we find what had been seen by the prophet at the outset, giving character to the whole, “the look of brass and gold,” the manifestation of unchangeable holiness in that which comes as judgment, but with the display in it of the glory of God. From the loins upward this appears in the fire -the glory of the Person who is thus revealed; while from the loins downward it is more His acts that are in view; where it is more the pure fire, but with a brightness round about, in which are seen the hues of the bow of promise, the work of righteousness executed being peace, “and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever” (Isaiah 32:17). “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah.” The prophet falls prostrate before his God, and then there comes to him a voice which raises and energizes him, and sends him forth Jehovah’s messenger to a rebellious people.