Глава 10

Burning of the city before Jehovah was removed from it And here only the preparation for the punishment is described (vv. 1–8), but the punishment itself remains undescribed and instead the prophet directs the reader’s attention to the construction of the chariot on which Jehovah will depart (vv. 9–22). Ezek.10:1. And I saw, and behold, on the vault that was above the heads of the Cherubim, like a sapphire stone, like something like a throne, apparently was above them. “And I saw, and behold” is a remark indicating that a new (third) part of the vision begins. Now that the gloomy picture of the abominations in the church and the judgment over them has passed before the prophet’s gaze, he takes the opportunity to once again look at the wonderful picture of the vision, which he is now able to look at without the initial horror, and therefore more carefully. What most attracts the prophet's attention in the picture is the vision of the throne in the firmament, described solemnly with Ezek.1.26, although not literally so, but without introducing anything new. It is remarkable that nothing is said here about Him who sat on the throne. But one can hardly conclude from this that the throne was empty, because the throne chariot appeared to take the glory of God from the church. The description of the throne here is intended to show where the final act of God's judgment over the city, which is to be described from the next verse, comes from - its burning. As if, until now, the prophet had not realized that the judge is the one he saw on Chebar and that the judgment comes from that terrible throne in the firmament. The course of the description may also give rise to the idea that the first act of judgment, the most important act described in Ezek.9.4-11 and expressed in the condemnation to death of almost the entire population, was carried out not quite in the same way as the second - the condemnation of the city for burning, not even by the same judge - there directly from the Shekinah (Ezek.9.3-4), here from the throne above the firmament, but by whom, it is not said - a silence characteristic of the reverent caution of the prophet in conveying the vision. The appearance of a mention of the throne here can also be explained by the fact that the glory of God again moved from the threshold of the sanctuary to its place above the cherubim, so that in Art. 4 return once again to the threshold; this change of place by her, which must have escaped the observation of the prophet, and therefore was not mentioned by him, could have been caused by the desecration of the sanctuary by corpses. In describing the throne, the prophet is even more restrained here than in Ezekiel 1.26; there “the likeness of a throne”, here “something like a throne” (“kemare demut” - 3 restrictions instead of 1); but there is “like a sapphire stone”, here “like a sapphire stone”; Perhaps, however, one restriction was in the wrong place; LXX is simple: “like a throne” and “like a sapphire stone.” Ezek.10:2. And He spoke to the man dressed in linen, and said, “Go in between the wheels under the Cherubim, and take handfuls of burning coals from between the Cherubim, and throw them on the city; and he entered before my eyes. "And He spoke." In euros without subject; for its absence see Ezek.2:1, 8:3, 7. - “To a man dressed in linen”, who has just been a mediator of pardon, and now becomes a mediator of punishment; however, the punishment entrusted to this angel is far from being as disastrous and disastrous as the previous one; Moreover, in the hands of God, all punishment is merciful. - “Between the Wheels”. Wheels are here for the first time, as further in Art. 6 and 13, are called by the special name “Galgal” (a special kind of whirlwind), which name the prophet deliberately dwells on in Art. 13, where see its explanation. - “Under the Cherubs”. In euros units h. in the collective meaning in accordance with the collective name of wheels, contrary to the plural. part of the previous verse According to Ezek.1.15, the wheels are near the cherubim; the present “under” only defines more precisely their location: since the cherubs hovered in the air rather than walked on the ground, the wheels could not help but be lower than them and closer to the ground. - “Fistfuls of burning coals”. An angel can take hot coals with his hands, since he is of a supersensible nature; If the seraphim of Isain's vision in this case uses tongs, then perhaps here one can see a greater development of the concept of the spirituality of angels. - “And throw them at the city.” Jerusalem must perish like Sodom. The instrument of his destruction are coals (cf. Ps. 119.4; Isaiah 10.16 according to the Hebrew text), which in Isaiah cleanse the mouth of the prophet, coals taken from the altar of the spiritual burnt offering of those taken down (see explanation Eze. 1.13) before God, as in Rev. 8.5, as a sign that this burnt offering by its very existence destroys everything sinful. – “Before my eyes” see explanation. in Ezekiel 9.1 “into my ears.” Ezek.10:3. The cherubim stood on the right side of the house when the man entered, and a cloud filled the courtyard. This verse, like the next two, constitutes parenthesis (the insertion of side thoughts between the main ones). - “On the right side of the house,” that is, in the southern part of the church, near the building of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. In the south, probably because the eastern one, the main one, in front of the entrance to the sanctuary, was occupied by sun worshipers and is now covered with corpses, and the northern one was desecrated by the idol of jealousy; In addition, on the southern side of the church lay the city and from there one could observe the punishment taking place in it. - “When that man entered,” i.e. the highest angel; the remark may suggest that the cherubim did not occupy this place throughout the vision, but changed it. - “And the cloud filled the inner court,” because there were cherubim in it with the glory of the Lord above them, the main manifestation of which was the cloud; therefore when next. In this verse, the glory of the Lord passes to the threshold of the church, a cloud fills the church itself. Ezek.10:4. And the glory of the Lord rose from the Cherubim to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with a cloud, and the courtyard was filled with the radiance of the glory of the Lord. “The glory of the Lord” (in the sense of Eze. 9.3) again (as in 9:3) passes from the cherubim (as in the 9th Hebrew unit in the collective meaning) to the threshold (glorious “revelation”, see explanation in Eze. 9.3) of the church, perhaps meaning that the second act of God’s judgment over Jerusalem is now taking place - its burning, in accordance with the first the act of this court - the beating of the population - was carried out from the threshold of the church; This shows that the city is being tried mainly for the desecration of the church. Blazh. Theodoret believes that the glory of the Lord in this case descended from the cherubim to enable the archangel to come under the wheels and take coals from there: the greatness of the glory of the Lord did not allow it to remain on the throne chariot when the angel walked between the wheels. Together with the glory of the Lord, the cloud also moved, its outer manifestation (as if a veil enveloping it) and no longer filled the courtyard, but the house of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies (for the last time!); but the courtyard, although the cloud cleared and freed it, still made it known about the proximity of the glory of the Lord by the fact that it was filled with the radiance of this glory, i.e. with that radiance that, according to Ezekiel 1.4, the cloud of the Khovar Epiphany spread around itself. Ezek.10:5. And the sound of the wings of the Cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks. The cherubim, so closely associated with the manifestation of the glory of God that they are called the cherubim of glory (Heb. 9.5), could not remain indifferent to the transition of the glory of God from them to the threshold of the church and responded to this with noise, that is, by the movement (flapping) of their wings, which could have been on the part of the cherubim, who do not speak in Ezekiel, and in the Apocalypse they speak very little, with applause (Knabenbauer) to God, who carries out judgment on the wickedness that is especially hated by them (cf. Rev. 6.1–8 etc., when the Lamb opened each of the first 4 seals, which contained terrible disasters for the earth, 4 cherubim in turn say to the seer in a feeling of satisfaction: “Come and see”). This strong noise (from the wings of the cherubim) was heard throughout the vast space of the church, the vastness of the courtyards of which can be judged by the description of the mysterious church of Ezekiel in chapters XL-XLII; being at the moment of the vision in the inner courtyard of the church (Ezek. 8.16), the prophet may have concluded from the echo that the noise reached the outer wall of the outer church courtyard. The noise from the wings of the cherubim, described in such detail and separately in Ezekiel 1.24, is characterized here by the prophet with one of the 4 comparisons given there, the most powerful: a comparison with the voice of God Almighty (Heb. “El-Shaddai”, there simply: “Shaddai”; El-Shaddai is only in Gen. 43.14) when He speaks (also an addition to Ezekiel 1.24 , where see the explanation of the expression; Symmachus and Theodotion “like the voice of thunder”). According to Ezekiel 1.24, such a noise came from the wings of the cherubim when they flew; therefore, in this case they hit their wings with no less force than they did when flying: they were in such excitement. Ezek.10:6. And when He gave the command to the man dressed in linen, saying: “Take fire between the wheels, between the Cherubim,” and when he entered and stood at the wheel, He returns to the story interrupted by a long insert, which is why he repeats almost the entire 2nd article, but instead of “coals” there is a general “fire”, as in the next paragraph. Art. Ezek.10:7. Then from among the Cherubim one Cherubim stretched out his hand to the fire that was between the Cherubim, and took and gave handfuls to him who was clothed in linen. He took it and left. By supplying fire to burn the city, the cherub, although he did this must have been in view of the archangel’s fear of entering into a terrible burning place, cordoned off by cherubim and wheels (cf. Eze. 1.13), due to which the archangel may not have completely accurately fulfilled the direct command of God to enter there, the cherub is a participant in the execution of God’s punishment itself, like the apocalyptic cherub, who gave 7 angels 7 bowls filled with the wrath of God (Rev. 15.7). This was the basis for the opinion of the ancient church about the cherubim as instruments of the wrath of God, as opposed to the seraphim (the purification of Isaiah). - “And he went out,” that is, from the courtyard, beyond which the prophet could not follow the angel with his eyes. - Burning coals were thrown onto the city to burn it. What the angel did in the vision of the prophet was done to Jerusalem in the outside world by the army of Nebuchadnezzar. The prophet was shown the heavenly (noumenal) essence of an earthly phenomenon, apparently so ordinary and frequent. Ezek.10:8. And the Cherubim could see the likeness of human hands under their wings. The circumstance that the cherub took the fire and gave it to the archangel with his hand could, according to the prophet, arouse bewilderment in the reader about the presence of hands on the cherubs, so elevated not only above the human, but also above the angelic world and such non-humanoid creatures. As if not relying on the memory of the reader, who should have known about the presence of hands on the cherubim from Ezekiel 1.6, the prophet repeats the remark there about the hands on the cherubim with a slight difference in expression: instead of “hand” - “likeness”, more precisely “outline of hands”. This, and even then not so necessary, is a repetition of what was said in Chapter I. prompts the prophet to repeat a description of almost the entire vision of Chapter I. Mainly from Chapter I. the description of the wheels is repeated (vv. 9–17), to which, after the prophet’s brief return to the interrupted story (vv. 18–20), a briefer description of the animals is added. (vv. 21–22). This secondary description adds almost nothing (however, Art. 12) and does not change (however, Art. 14) in the previous description and therefore seems so strange that its authenticity is strongly disputed, or it is explained by the fact that the prophet, having two drafts on the same topic and placing them in the book, did not have time to eliminate one of them during the final edition (similar, they say, happened in Chapter VII from Art. 2–5 and 6–9. Kretschmar). But not to mention the fact that returning to what was said before for the purpose of its further development and addition or simply to draw the reader’s special attention to it constitutes the author’s peculiarity of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:17-21; Ezek.18.1 in Ezek.33:1-20 or Ezek.5:10-16 and Ezek.12:17-20), one can find grounds and justification for this repetition. “Jehovah is about to leave his sanctuary; Is it not a subtle feature that the prophet takes advantage of the short period of time before the departure of the Lord to delve as deeply as possible into His glorious appearance; it is as if he cannot get enough of the One who is being separated: and very successfully and very opportunely, the prophet fills the time occupied by the fulfillment of the terrible commission given to him by the angel with the contemplation of the Lord’s appearance” (Bert.). They also indicate (Smend) the following purpose for this repetition: it might seem to the readers of Ezekiel that Jehovah must perish with Jerusalem, and the prophet wants to make them understand that Jehovah, who himself destroys His sanctuary, is not connected with His country. In addition, as we will see when closely examining the repeated description, the prophet clearly wants to finish off some omissions of the first description, clarify its ambiguities and cancel that in the repeated phenomenon that was not similar to the first phenomenon (vv. 12 and 14). The repeated description of the vision by the prophet is intended to prepare for the description of the removal of the Lord from the temple and Jerusalem (vv. 18 and 19), which is why in the description the main place is given to wheels (7 verses, and 3 cherubim). The repeated description begins with the wheels. Ezek.10:9. And I saw: and behold, four wheels next to the Cherubim, one wheel next to each Cherubim, and the wheels looked like they were made of topaz stone. Ezek.10 Ezek.1.15–16. The ambiguity of Chapter I has been eliminated. regarding the number of wheels, about which it is said there that it is possible to believe, as some interpreters believed, that there was one wheel; the comparison of wheels with topaz (“tarshish”) is supplemented with the definition of “stone” to the latter; but it was omitted how each wheel was located in relation to its cherub (that it was located on all four of its faces at once - a remark omitted perhaps because of its difficulty in understanding and imaginary inconsistency) and that the wheels were topaz not only in appearance, but also in structure (a remark, also not immediately clear and omitted, like the previous one, LXX in Chapter I). Ezek.10:10. And in appearance all four are similar, as if the wheel were within the wheel. Ezek.10:11. When they walked, they walked on their four sides; during their procession they did not turn around, but towards the place where their heads were turned, and they went there; They did not turn around during their procession. Ezek.10 Ezek.1.16 bc. The concept of device is omitted. Ezek.10:11a Ezek.1.17. But the second half of the verse contains an addition to the data in Chapter I: the wheels rolled in the direction “where the head was turned,” whose? of course the animal, next to which each wheel stood; but the head can also mean the front (cf. Job 29.25; 1 Samuel 13.17 in Hebrew), the main (at the moment) wheel or the front of the entire phenomenon; So, it seems, is LXX with his: “in the same place as in vain the beginning is one, I go.” At the end of the verse the remark of its middle about the wheels not turning is repeated; this expression repeated with such literalness gives in this connection a different thought than in its first place: it was strange that, although the wheels on their sides could go to the right, and to the left, and backward, they all moved forward, as if carried by the front wheel. Ezek.10:12. And their whole body, and their back, and their arms, and their wings, and the wheels all around were full of eyes, all four of their wheels. Parallel to Ezek.1.18, but, if the text here is intact, makes a significant addition to it: not only the wheels were dotted with eyes, but also cherubim, which are the cherubim of the Apocalypse (Rev 4.6). As if afraid that the reader would not imagine in all the amazingness and horror of this phenomenon, the prophet indicates in detail where the eyes were on the cherubim: their entire body was dotted with them: even such parts as the back, arms and wings. Casting a shadow of doubt on the authenticity of this verse is the fact that the present section of the chapter is devoted to a description of the wheels, and the prophet’s speech could hardly have turned so suddenly and abruptly to the cherubim, moreover, denoting them with one pronoun. Therefore blessed. Jerome, like the rabbis and other interpreters, suggests that by the parts of the body counted here we mean the metaphorical name of the parts of the wheel: the body is the hub of the wheel, the back is the rims, the arms are the knitting needles, the wings are the hoops. It should be noted that the Hebrew names of all these parts of the wheel are close in style to the names of the parts of the body listed in this verse, and that these parts are exactly as many as the main components in the wheel, at least how many were considered at that time, as can be seen from 1 Kings 7.33; this last passage, speaking of the wheels of the copper lavers in Solomon's Temple, could have been presented to the mind of the prophet, especially if we assume that the very idea of ​​the wheel in his vision was inspired by the wheels of the lavers. Since the names of the parts of the wheel represent very rarely used words, it is assumed that they could easily be damaged in the text and replaced by more familiar names of body parts. For the symbolic meaning of many purities, see the explanation of Ezekiel 1.18. Ezek.10:13. To these wheels, as I heard, it was said: “Gilgal.”: “As I heard”, lit. “in my ears,” as in Ezek.9.1, where see the explanation. - “It was said.” Commanding the archangel to take coals between the wheels, God calls them according to Art. 2. in euros t. "galgal"; since the prophet heard this command, perhaps he refers to it here; but the whole expression gives the impression that the wheels were deliberately and solemnly named so, and this significant name was pronounced in a loud voice, “shouted,” Heb. "vayikra", slav. “Called” - “Galgal”. A Hebrew word left without translation, as in Greek-Slavic: “Gelgel”. One can say about this name of the wheels of vision, first of all, that it is divine, because the prophet nowhere calls them that, but in ordinary Hebrew. the word for wheels is ofan; in this regard, it is especially significant that in the same verse 6, when God speaks of wheels, they are called “Gilgal,” and when the prophet speaks, “Ophan.” As a divine name, it must be full of deep meaning and mystery, which is why ancient translators were afraid to translate it. "Gilgal" is used more than once in the Old Testament as a name for a wheel, mainly in poetic language: Eccl. 12.6; Isa 5.28; Ezek.23:24, 26:10. But this is not the only and not the proper meaning of this word; its own meaning seems to be “whirlwind”. In the psalms and in Isaiah it is used to designate one natural phenomenon: Isaiah 17.13: “they were driven like dust before the wind and like galgal (Russian translation “dust”, slav.: “dust of wheels”) from a whirlwind”; Ps 82.14: “Let them be like gilgal, like dust before the wind.” “In both places something like straw is indicated, which is easily blown by the wind; and it is known that even now in the countries adjacent to Palestine, during the harvest or a little later, some rather large balls, driven by the wind, rush along the roads and fields; this is nothing more than dried plants that are picked up by a storm and, in the shape of a ball, are transported with great speed across the fields (Hebrans, op. cit. 598). Therefore, gilgal can generally mean a spherical shape: in Ps 77.19 this word denotes the vault of heaven (“the voice of your thunder in the wheel”). Used by God himself about the wheels, previously called by the prophet simply “ofanim,” the word “galgal” obviously aims to more closely characterize these wheels: they were similar in their movement to “galgal,” a special kind of whirlwind that takes on a spherical shape. From this it is not without reason that they conclude that the wheel in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel had a spherical shape and that it represented the celestial sphere. In addition to the use of "galgal" about clods of straw in the psalms and in Isaiah, the basis for the latter is the meaning of the words "galgal" and "ofan" in the Talmud. The first word there once (Chag. III, 79) refers to the solar disk (the Sadducees laugh at the Pharisees because they wash and gilgal the sun), and another time the vault of heaven (Petach 94 b); Ophanim in the Talmud are called mental circles in the firmament: equator, meridian, zodiac, horizon. The character imparted to the wheels by the name “Gilgal” sheds light on their general meaning in the system of Ezekiel’s visions and on their relationship to the main figures of these visions - the cherubim. Having wings, cherubs could fly with their help; but on the ground they no longer had to fly, but walk or run; if they moved on the earth on their feet, it would have to turn out that the earth, with its rough materiality, presented an obstacle to the Lord walking on it; This could not be, and so the cherubim are equipped with a tool for moving on the ground, allowing them to perform this movement with a speed no less than flight; wheels were such a tool. Ordinary wheels, of course, could not satisfy such a goal: it is impossible to imagine such a wheel that would move with the speed of a flying bird or the wind (which carried the Chebar vision Eze. 1.4-6). Yes, even if such wheels were possible, one could only drive on them at the desired speed. The wheels of the vision were only located near the animals and by this alone mediated their movement and imparted the required speed to it. How they could do this explains their name “Galgal”. Since “galgal” is nothing more than a special kind of whirlwind, the wheels of vision must have had a lot in common with a whirlwind, if they are directly and deliberately called a whirlwind. It is clear how they, being only near animals, could influence their movement: a strong whirlwind lifts and carries large objects along the ground. Flying with the speed of the wind on their mighty wings, the animal visions with exactly the same speed rushed in a whirlwind across the earth. Ezek.10:14. And each of the animals has four faces: the first face is the face of a cherub, the second face is the face of a man, the third is the face of a lion, and the fourth is the face of an eagle. Ezek.10 Ezek.1.6, 10. “The first person is the face of a cherub...”. Rus. the translation of this passage is inaccurate; glory more precisely: “one face is a cherub, and another is the face of a man, and the third is the face of a lion, and the fourth is the face of an eagle.” Thus, here we are talking about the faces of not one cherub, but different ones. For some reason, nothing is said about the similarity of the face of the first cherub, but that he had the ordinary face of a cherub, the other had the face of a man, the third face, noticed by the prophet (which cherub was not said), had the face of a lion, the fourth - of an eagle. This expression, and in the form in which it has in Hebrew. t. in glory trans., does not contain the necessary thought that each cherub had one face and a face different from the others, which takes place in Rev. 4.7. The Prophet knew that the reader, when reading this remark, would have in mind what was said about the faces of the cherubim in Ezekiel 1.10, where each cherub is assigned 4 faces. If here one person is spoken of for each cherub, then this is because these persons are counted in a different order - because the prophet observes the phenomenon under different conditions. The Prophet in this case for some reason, perhaps due to some distance and blocked by the church building, did not see more than one face on each of the cherubs. The closest to the prophet and the most visible to him was the cherub who gave coal to the archangel (hence the penis here in this word); the prophet could see this cherub with all his faces, as he saw all the cherubs on Chebar; Therefore, the prophet does not say with what face this cherub was turned to him. The closest and most prominent cherub after this was turned to the prophet with the face of a man, etc.; Thus the first cherub faced the prophet with the face of an ox. All this was possible if the faces of the cherubs were positioned as shown in the presented drawing, which also shows their position in relation to the prophet and the church. The Prophet saw thus clearly only the face of the first cherub and the second; about the third and fourth, hidden behind the church building and perhaps barely rising above its roof (if the phenomenon was floating in the air), the prophet could more guess than see what kind of faces they had turned towards him; hence the difference in his expressions about persons 3 and 4 compared to persons 1 and 2 and the order of the last two persons: according to dignity or according to the description in Chapter I, and not according to their current position. – The verse is not in many Greek codes, which, given its darkness and imaginary contradiction with Ezek. 1.10, which has not yet been explained (the omission of the face of the ox was explained, for example, by the fact that the introduction of such a face in the Divine Appearance of Chapter I gave rise to a temptation, which the prophet himself was afraid of and hastened to eliminate) forced one to suspect its authenticity and make various amendments to it: for example, they suggested (Kretschmar) read instead of “kerub” “cherub” - similar in design to “steam”, “bull”, the common name for an ox. Ezek.10:15. The cherubim rose up. These were the same animals that I saw at the river Chebar. "The Cherubim Arose". The raising of the cherubim from the ground is discussed in much more detail later, in v. 19; therefore the present expression in Hebrew. i.e. in a difficult to explain verbal form, it can mean: “they began to rise”, “they began to stir”, preparing to take upon themselves the Glory of God, which now has (v. 18) to pass over them from the threshold of the church. Now, when the stunning spectacle of God’s judgment over the church and the city was over, and the prophet had the opportunity (from v. 8) to more or less calmly observe the manifestation of the Glory of God, the sight of which he was not satisfied with on Chebar, only now he begins to give himself a completely clear account of the mysterious animals he saw on Chebar (which, for their close connection and inseparability, he calls here in Hebrew, as well as in Greek and slav., in singular) are nothing more than cherubim, because the Glory of the Lord resting on them, as it only now became completely clear to the prophet, is one with the Glory of the Lord that dwelt above the ark of the covenant in the church. Ezek.10:16. And when the Cherubim walked, then the wheels walked beside them; and when the Cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the earth, and the wheels were not separated, but were with them. Ezek.10:17. When they stood, they stood; when they rose, they also rose; for they had the spirit of animals in them. The beginning of the rise of the cherubim from the ground made it possible for the prophet to notice, which struck him also on Chebar (Ezek. 1.19–20), the agreement in the movements of the wheels and cherubim, which were in no way materially connected to each other: since the wheels walked in strict agreement with the cherubim (v. 16a), as soon as the latter moved their wings, some movement occurred in the wheels (v. 16b); Such was already the connection between one and the other: while those stand quietly, these also stand; as soon as some move, others begin to move. “For the spirit of animals was in them,” see explanation. Ezek.1.20. Ezek.10:18. And the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the house and stood above the Cherubim. “The glory of the Lord” (in the sense in which this name is used in Ezek.9.3 and Ezek.10.4, i.e. in the sense of the cloud of theophany), perhaps, having waited on the threshold of the church for the final execution of Jerusalem (burning) by the archangel, who does not return here, as in 9:3, with a report on the fulfillment of the order, returns to his place above the cherubim to be removed from church and city. This removal can be considered as the third and final act of God’s judgment over Jerusalem and as the gravest punishment for it, if we take into account the grave consequences that the removal of God entails according to Deut. 31.17 and Hos. 9.2. Ezek.10:19. And the Cherubim lifted up their wings, and rose up from the earth before my eyes; when they left, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the entrance of the eastern gate of the House of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. “In my eyes”, see explanation. in Ezekiel 9.1 “into my ears.” - “And the wheels next to them.” The wheels were such an independent part of the vision and their hovering in the air was so strange that the prophet always mentions the wheels when remarking about the raising of the cherubim: Ezek.3.13, 11.22. - “And they stood at the entrance to the eastern gate of the House of the Lord.” – These were the main gates of the church, through which it was natural for the Lord to leave His church, as later through the same gates the glory of the Lord returned to the church (Ezek.43.2); Moreover, these gates lay directly opposite the doors of the church itself - the building of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies - and through them they entered the city. At the gates of the church, therefore, at the extreme periphery of the church space, the glory of the Lord stops for the same purpose with which it stops at the threshold of the church: to say goodbye to its long-term home, perhaps “as a sign of some reluctance and regret with which it leaves the church” (Knabenbauer); The reason for stopping here could have been an unholy meeting of 25 elders at this gate (Ezek. 11.1 etc.). - “God of Israel”, cf. Ezek.8.4. The definition wants to say that God will no longer be the God of the covenant and is going to leave His people. Ezek.10:20. These were the same animals that I saw at the foot of the God of Israel at the river Chebar. And I found out that these were Cherubim. In Chapter I, where the cherubim who appeared to the prophet in the form of four-faced animals are described in such detail, he did not say a single word that they were cherubim, no doubt because he did not suspect it at the time: before that, the appearance of the creatures that appeared to him there differed from the images of cherubim in the church (where they were depicted in human form). The whole real vision seemed to be aimed at revealing to the prophet the true essence of the animals that appeared to him on Khobar. And the prophet in this vision no longer calls them animals, but all cherubim (Ezek.9.3; Ezek.10.1 etc.). The conviction that these were cherubim could have arisen in the prophet from the very beginning of the present vision from the mere fact that the glory of the Lord resting on the mysterious animals ended up in the church where the Shekhinah dwelt; this conviction could be reinforced by the voice of God in Eze. 10.2 (where God himself called the mysterious bearers of His glory cherubim, although we must remember that the words in visions are “unspeakable” according to 2 Cor. 12.4); it increased in v. 15, see explaining it; but it was finally established and therefore solemnly expressed only now, with the removal of the glory of the Lord from the church, from its cherubim, which is significant. Ezek.10:21. Each has four faces, and each has four wings, and under their wings are the likeness of human hands. Ezek.10:22. And the likeness of their faces is the same as the faces I saw at the river Chebar - both their appearance and themselves. Everyone walked straight in the direction that was in front of him. The conviction that the present animals were identical to those seen on Chebar (cf. v. 15), a conviction that was especially important in view of the fact that the real animals turned out to be cherubim, was finally confirmed for the prophet when they rose into the air and he could, as on Chebar, examine all the details of their figure - all 4 faces, wings, etc. In all the details of the figures of both animals there was complete coincidence. Of these particulars, only the most important ones are listed: the number of faces and wings, arms (the appearance of the legs, of course, is omitted), the similarity of the faces, and other particulars are united in the concept “their appearance and they themselves” (the last word may mean the properties manifested in the vision of mysterious animals); however, of the remaining unlisted details, the most important at the moment, the moment of the removal of the cherubs from the church, observed by the prophet, is indicated: that each cherub walked straight in front of his face, although they were looking in different directions. You might be interested in: