Visions of the Future

Coming of the King: Week 1

Ezekiel 1:1-28: The Glory of the Lord

The rabbis considered Ezekiel 1 dangerous literature.

One may not expound upon the sexual rules (Lev 18, 20) in front of three [students], about creation (Gen 1) in front of two, or the chariot (Ezek 1) in front of (even) one, unless he is wise and already understands it on his own.

Erich von Däniken interprets the living creatures as machinery, and the Glory of the Lord as an alien visitation in a spaceship. NASA scientist Josef Blumrich was so convinced, that he created several working designs from von Däniken's ideas. McGee says emphatically that this is NOT a "prophecy of the present mechanical age ... If that is what you want to see in this vision, ... that is silly and senile!" There are clues later in Ezekiel, and in other parts of Scripture.

1:1 "30th year" - this is probably Ezekiel's age. He would have begun his priestly ministry at 30 - but was exiled. His prophetic ministry begins when he would have begun his priestly service. Some believe that instead it is the 30th year of the 50 year Jubilee cycle.
1:2 "5th year of the exile of Jehoichin" - 6 years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
1:10 face of a man, lion, ox, eagle - McGee is reminded of the four Gospels, but these are Cherubim, and I think the JW commentator got it right, noting qualities of these elsewhere in Scripture:
1. lion - courage Proverbs 28:1
2. eagle - far seeing wisdom Job 39:29 "sees her food from afar"
3. ox - power Proverbs 14:4 "the strength of the ox"
4. man - love, the one thing commanded of humans made in the image of God Deuteronomy 6:5
1:21 "the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels" - Maimonides interprets the wheels within wheels as concentric spheres describing the Aristotelian Cosmos. The seraphim are rulers of the spheres. (Reminiscent of the Oyarsas in the C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy.)
I see the wheels as projections from higher dimensions or another world. The connection between the creatures and the wheels is not part of our universe - as when the 3D man visits Flatland in the novel by Edwin A. Abbott, or when the Oyarsa visit Venus in Perelandra by C.S. Lewis.
1:28 "appearance" - Hebrew "Mareh", perception, as in "Saving the Appearances" by Owen Barfield. Ezekiels senses were presented with something for which he had no mental representation. This is brought home in chapter 10 when he sees the same living creatures again in the temple, an realizes they are Cherubim, which the images in the temple attempt to represent.