B. Vision of God (1:4-28)

It is difficult to resist the temptation to analyze each tiny detail, every jot and tittle, of this bizarre vision. A quick perusal of commentaries on Ezekiel demonstrates this all too clearly. (See bibliography for a listing of representative commentaries.) Even after each detail has been identified or, more likely, conjectured about, what is the result? It is not unlike studying Michelangelos' portrait of Mona Lisa by peeling off each of the brush strokes made by the artist and laying them in a row. The result is a collection of brush strokes that have lost all beauty and meaning.

What did Ezekiel really see? Greenberg is exactly right when he says, “Reduced to its essentials, this is the narrative of the vision of the divine Majesty” (Ezekiel, 1-20, 51, italics mine). The problem was that Ezekiel had seen and experienced something that he could describe only in thisworldly terms, terms familiar to himself and to his readers. Trying to describe the indescribable, he was limited by his human experience and vocabulary. Thus the language he used could only be symbolic of what he saw and experienced, not the literal experience. His difficulty in describing his experience was similar to that of the seven-year-old boy who, living during the Great Depression, had never had a taste of soda pop. After he finally had a sample, he was asked what it tasted like. He responded after a period of deep thought, “It tastes like your foot’s asleep!” He may have mixed his categories, but every reader knows what he meant!

So too Ezekiel used human, everyday terms to describe his own apprehension and sense of the overwhelming glory, power, and majesty of the Great God of Heaven. The four living creatures must represent God’s presence in all four quarters of the world of humankind. The four faces represent aspects of the world of creatures God has created. The wheels beside each creature and their unhindered movement surely stand for the universality of God who is everywhere, moving unhindered in his world and among his creation. His repeated references to brightly colored stones, flashing lightning, sparkling ice, etc., all speak of the glory of the transcendent God.

The impossibility of Ezekiel’s actually describing the vision is emphasized by terms he used to refer to what he saw: “looked like,” “the appearance . . . was like,” “sparkled like,” “like the roar of,” “what appeared to be.” The climax to his description came in v.28 when he exclaimed, “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord!” So overwhelming, so awe-full, so indescribable was what he saw that Ezekiel could speak of God only by using terms at least three times removed from the Ultimate Reality (“the appearance of,” “the likeness of,” “the glory of”)!

When Isaiah had his vision of God at the temple in Jerusalem, he saw his own lostness and uncleanness before God (Isa 6:5). When Ezekiel had his vision of God in Babylon, far from the temple in Jerusalem, he fell on his face, overwhelmed by the realization that God was not limited to Jerusalem and to the temple. God was also in Babylon, an unclean land (Ezr 9:11).