Ezekielchapter 10

Speaks with:Ezekiel 1×18 Ezekiel 10×10 Revelation 4×4 Ezekiel 41×2 Ezekiel 11×2 Ezekiel 9×2

Summary

Chapter summary

The glory begins to leave. Coals of fire are taken from between the cherubim and scattered over the city by the man in linen. The wheels beside them, named 'the whirling wheels,' are full of eyes, and the cherubim rise with the sound of their wings like the voice of God Almighty when he speaketh. Then the departure in slow stages: the glory of Jehovah goes up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, the house is filled with the cloud, the court with brightness, and the cherubim lift up and stand at the door of the east gate. 'This is the living creature that I saw by the river Chebar.'

Context

Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview

A. 1–8 Coals of fire scattered over the city
B. 9–17 The wheels, the cherubim, and the spirit in them
C. 18–22 The glory moves to the threshold and out the east gate

The outline

A.Coals of fire scattered over the cityvv. 1 to 8
Read vv. 1 to 8 →
B.The wheels, the cherubim, and the spirit in themvv. 9 to 17
Read vv. 9 to 17 →
C.The glory moves to the threshold and out the east gatevv. 18 to 22
Read vv. 18 to 22 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The glory departs and returns

Pattern

Ezekiel is built on the movement of the glory of the Lord: seen in exile by the river Chebar, rising from the cherub to the threshold, leaving the city by the east, and returning by the way of the east gate. The book's last verse turns the return into an address: the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.

The departure explains why Jerusalem fell, and the return is the book's whole hope. A reader who tracks the glory's stations reads forty-eight chapters as one account rather than a pile of visions.

Ezekiel 1:28
The glory seen by the river Chebar
The prophet sees the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord and falls upon his face.
Ezekiel 10:4 you are here
The glory rises to the threshold
Ezekiel 11:23
The glory leaves the city eastward
It stands upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city, the last station before exile.
Ezekiel 43:4
The glory returns by the east gate
Ezekiel 48:35
The city named The Lord is there

The world behind this chapter

Ezekiel 10

When

The Babylonian exile, during the temple vision · The sixth year of Jehoiachin's exile — c. September 592 BC

Where

The inner court of the Jerusalem temple, filled with cloud, as the throne seen at the Chebar appears above the cherubim

Who first heard it

Exiles who assumed that as long as the building stood, God stood in it

The history

Cherubim were not soft or childlike figures. In the ancient Near East a winged composite creature — lion or bull body, wings, human face — was a throne-guardian; kings are shown seated on thrones whose sides are formed by them. The ark's cover carried two of them, and the temple's inner room held two enormous ones with wings spanning the width of the chamber. Ezekiel now realises the creatures he saw over the canal were these.

The fire scattered over the city comes from between the cherubim — the same holy fire that burned the offerings on the altar. That reversal is the theology of the chapter in one image. What consumed the sacrifice will consume the city.

There was a familiar story-shape here that every Babylonian knew. Mesopotamian city laments describe a god abandoning his city before its walls come down; the great lament over the destruction of Ur turns on exactly that, and Babylonian poetry told of Marduk leaving Babylon to its disaster. The difference is decisive: this God is not driven out and is not absent by accident. He rises from the threshold, moves to the east gate, and leaves on His own initiative, deliberately, in judgment.

The movements are described step by step, and the slowness is the point: from the inner room, to the threshold, to the door of the east gate. It reads like someone leaving a house and stopping in the doorway.

What it meant to them

For hearers who had staked everything on the building, this is the hinge of the whole book. The temple is not being taken from God; God is walking out of the temple, and after that it is only a building that can burn.

There is one quiet mercy folded in. The throne that leaves Jerusalem is the same throne that showed up at the Chebar canal in chapter one. It is not going nowhere. It is going where His people are.

Sources cited

John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The Lament over the Destruction of Ur , Sumerian city lament
C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 10. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 18 · The same word

The glory (kabod) departs the temple eastward: the tragic reversal, sanctuary emptied of presence.

Ezekiel 11:23→

And the glory of the LORD rose up from within the city and stood over the mountain east of the city.

STEPBible floor; Beale 2004

This page draws on C. F. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.

Study this chapter

Ezekiel 117 verses
- Ezekiel 1:1In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the River Kebar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.
- Ezekiel 1:5and within it was the form of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: They had a human form,
- Ezekiel 1:6but each had four faces and four wings.
- Ezekiel 1:8Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four living creatures had faces and wings,
- Ezekiel 1:10The form of their faces was that of a man, and each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and also the face of an eagle.
- Ezekiel 1:12Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they moved.
- Read Ezekiel 1: 11 more there →
Ezekiel 109 verses
- Ezekiel 10:1And I looked and saw above the expanse, above the heads of the cherubim, the likeness of a throne of sapphire.
- Ezekiel 10:2And the LORD said to the man clothed in linen, “Go inside the wheelwork beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in.
- Ezekiel 10:11When they moved, they would go in any of the four directions, without turning as they moved. For wherever the head faced, the cherubim would go in that direction, without turning as they moved.
- Ezekiel 10:14Each of the cherubim had four faces: the first face was that of a cherub, the second that of a man, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle.
- Ezekiel 10:15Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the River Kebar.
- Ezekiel 10:16When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them, and even when they spread their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels did not veer away from their side.
- Read Ezekiel 10: 3 more there →
Revelation 44 verses
- Revelation 4:2At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it.
- Revelation 4:6And before the throne was something like a sea of glass, as clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, covered with eyes in front and back.
- Revelation 4:7The first living creature was like a lion, the second like a calf, the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.
- Revelation 4:8And each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around and within. Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
- Read Revelation 4 →
Ezekiel 412 verses
- Ezekiel 41:18were alternating carved cherubim and palm trees. Each cherub had two faces:
- Ezekiel 41:23Both the outer sanctuary and the inner sanctuary had double doors,
- Read Ezekiel 41 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Ezekiel 112 verses
- Ezekiel 11:1Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the LORD that faces east. And there at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, who were leaders of the people.
- Ezekiel 11:22Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
- Read Ezekiel 11 →
Ezekiel 91 verse
- Ezekiel 9:3Then the glory of the God of Israel rose from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side.
- Read Ezekiel 9 →
Exodus 241 verse
- Exodus 24:10and they saw the God of Israel. Under His feet was a work like a pavement made of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.
- Read Exodus 24 →
Revelation 81 verse
- Revelation 8:5Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder, and rumblings, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
- Read Revelation 8 →