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Ezekiel 1:4-6
New Catholic Bible
Ezekiel 1:4-6
New Catholic Bible
4 [a]As I looked, I beheld a stormy wind coming from the north: an immense cloud with flashing fire and a brilliant light surrounding it. In the middle of the fire there was something that looked like gleaming amber.[b] 5 Within it, there seemed to be four living creatures with human forms.[c] 6 Each had four faces; each had four wings.
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- Ezekiel 1:4 The prophet Isaiah had had the same vision, but his took place in the temple of Jerusalem (Isa 6). Ezekiel’s comes to him in the midst of pagan Babylonia. The vision comes from the north. It was from the north that the refugees had come: they left Palestine, skirted the Desert of Syria, and followed the Fertile Crescent. The “glory” of the Lord is no longer in the Jerusalem temple—and it is a priest who says so! Surrounding this glory of God as he comes are fantastic beings, represented in images taken from Babylonian art. The text adds details without restraint in order to show that God is present everywhere; the wheels, which are decorated with motifs using eyes, symbolize the Lord who sees and knows everything. These beings form a throne, as it were, for the glory of God. So great is the distance between God and human beings that the prophet does not have words to suggest the ineffable divine reality, but he nonetheless asserts its presence.
- Ezekiel 1:4 Amber: electron, a naturally occurring alloy of four-fifths gold and one-fifth silver, and amber in color; it is from amber that the Greek name is derived.
- Ezekiel 1:5 The four living beings are imagined as Assyro-Babylonian cherubim, who are regarded as servants of the various divinities and placed as guardians before temples and palaces.
