Ezekiel 1:5 - Exposition

The likeness of four living creatures. The Authorized Version is happier here in its rendering than in Revelation 4:6 , where we find "beasts" applied to the analogues of the forms of Ezekiel's vision. There the Greek gives ζῶα , as the LXX . does here, while in Daniel 7:3-7 we have θήρια In Ezekiel 10:15 they are identified with the "cherubim" of the mercy seat; but the fact that they are not so named here is presumptive evidence that Ezekiel did not at first recognize them as identical with what he had heard of those cherubim, or with the other like forms that were seen, as they were not seen, in the temple ( 1 Kings 6:29 ; 1 Kings 7:29 ), on its walls ( 2 Chronicles 3:7 ), and on its veil or curtain ( Exodus 36:35 ). What he sees is, in fact, a highly complicated development of the cherubic symbols, which might well appear strange to him. It is possible (as Dean Stanley and others have suggested) that the Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures, the winged bulls and lions with human heads, which Ezekiel may have seen in his exile, were elements in that development. The likeness of a man. This apparently was the first impression. The "living creatures" were not, like the Assyrian forms just referred to, quadrupeds. They stood erect, and had feet and hands as men have.