Ezekiel 1:16 - Exposition

Like unto the colour of a beryl. The Hebrew for "beryl" ( tarshish ) suggests that the stone was called, like the turquoise, from the region which produced it. Here and in Daniel 10:6 the LXX . leaves it untranslated. In Exodus 28:20 we find χρυσόλιθος ; in Ezekiel 10:9 and Ezekiel 28:13 ἄνθραξ , i.e. carbuncle. It is obvious, from this variety of renderings, that the stone was not easily identified. Probably it was of a red or golden color, suggesting the thought of fire rather than the pale green of the aquamarine or beryl (see especially Daniel 10:6 ). They four had one likeness, etc. A closer gaze led the prophet to see that there was a plurality in the unity. For the one "wheel" we have four; perhaps, as some have thought, two wheels intersecting at right angles, perhaps, one, probably seen behind, perhaps also below, each of the living creatures. They are not said actually to rest upon it, and the word "chariot" is not used as it is in 1 Chronicles 28:18 . They would seem rather to have hovered over the wheels, moving simultaneously and in full accord with them. The "wheels" obviously represent the forces and laws that sustain the manifold forms of life represented by the "living creatures" and the "Spirit." In each case the number four is, as elsewhere, the symbol of completeness. A wheel in the midst of ( within , Revised Version) a wheel; i.e. with an inner and outer circumference, the space between the two forming the "ring" or felloe of 1 Chronicles 28:18 .