Ezekiel 43:2 - Exposition

Scarcely had the prophet taken up his station at or near the gate when the glory of the God of Israel (see on Ezekiel 1:28 ; Ezekiel 3:23 ) came from the way of the east , as if intending to enter the temple by the very door through which it had previously departed from the temple (comp. Ezekiel, Ezekiel 10:19 ; Ezekiel 11:22 , Ezekiel 11:23 ). The voles which proceeded from the theophany and resembled the noise of many waters , is after the LXX . ( καὶ φωνὴ τῆς παρεμβολῆς ) by Keil and Smend understood to have been the sound produced by the motion of the wheels and the rustling of the wings of the cherubim (see on Ezekiel 1:2 , Ezekiel 1:4 ; Ezekiel 10:5 ), but is better taken, with Kliefoth and Hengstenberg, to signify the voice of the Almighty himself, i.e. of the personal Jehovah (comp. Revelation 1:15 ). The statement that the earth shined with his glory (comp. Revelation 18:1 ) has by Havernick, Kliefoth, and others been supposed to indicate the absence of that "cloud" in which the glory of Jehovah appeared in both the Mosaic tabernacle ( Exodus 40:34 , Exodus 40:35 ) and the Solomonic temple ( 1 Kings 8:10 , 1 Kings 8:11 ), and thereby to point to the clearer and more resplendent manifestations of the Godhead, which were to be given in connection with the new dispensation for which Ezekiel's "house" was being prepared. This, however, as Keil has shown, cannot be main-rained in face of the facts that in both Exodus and 1 Kings "the glory of the Lord " is used synonymously with "the cloud," and that in Ezekiel's vision "the glory" and "the cloud" were alike present (see Ezekiel 10:3 , Ezekiel 10:4 ). Kliefoth and Schroder hold "the earth" which was illumined to have been "the whole globe," "the entire region of humanity," as in Isaiah 6:3 ; Isaiah 60:1 , etc.; but there does not appear ground for departing from the ordinary sense of the words, that "the path" of the advancing God was irradiated by the brilliance of his material glory.