Ezekiel 1:4-28

THE VISION, Ezekiel 1:4-28.

Here begins what Franz Delitzsch calls “the grandest of all biblical visions.” It came not on a festal day, but on the anniversary of the never-to-be-forgotten humiliation of the royal head of the nation. It came not to one of the priests in Jerusalem, but to a captive in the land of the Chaldeans. It was to the neediest and saddest that Jehovah revealed himself as glorious on the Chebar as on the Jordan. No painter has ever succeeded in representing these visions of God; even Raphael failed in this. The details were so numerous and the changes so rapid that no human brush nor human pen not even Ezekiel’s could fully picture and define the glorious ever-changing image. As Cornill says, a little, shortsighted man might criticise the details of a great cathedral this window might seem to him too narrow and the support of yonder beam too massive but when looked at from a distance all the irregularities melt into a wonderful harmony of unity whose grandeur overcomes us, while within the sanctuary may be felt the stillness and power of the breath of God. It is the same with the visions of Ezekiel. The immense and minute details, worked out with such care and patience, may bewilder the beholder, but they are parts of a majestic and perfect whole ( Der Prophet Ezechiel, pp. 281-283). Ezekiel struggled to tell that which was “unspeakable and full of glory.” His ears were filled continually with a noise of wings and wheels and spiritual thunders. His eyes were partially blinded by glories which even Moses was not able to bear. He was overpowered with shadows from a throne “formless with infinity.” He could not describe twice alike those ever-changing glories.

The tremor of an inexpressive thought,

Too self-amazed to shape itself aloud,

O’erruns the awful curving of his lips.

One thing, however, stands out clear among these mysteries: the majesty of God and his supremacy over all things. There is a curious correspondence between the latest philosophic poetry and Ezekiel’s thought. The real nearness, the vital immanency, of God to all life was never more vividly expressed even by Emerson, than by this ancient poet and prophet-philosopher. Ezekiel does not, like Emerson, sink the world-soul into the world-all he never falls into the bottomless pit of pantheism but the sense of the Infinite fills every verse with its majestic presence.

Being above all beings! Mighty One!

Whom none can comprehend and none explore;

Who fill’st existence with thyself alone;

Embracing all; supporting, ruling o’er,

Being whom we call God, and know no more.