Ezekiel 1:18

18. “They were high and dreadful” (R.V.). This verse is so difficult in the Hebrew that the Septuagint, Peshito, and Vulgate all differ in their attempt to translate it so as to make sense. The Revised Version gives perhaps the best guess of any. The emphasis of the height of these blazing circles would suggest that they were not underneath the chariot and “firmament” (Ezekiel 1:22), but surrounded the living creatures with flashing cycles of light. The throne of God was guarded by these orbits of light as the gates of Eden by the circular blazing sword. The lower rim of these orbits was near the feet of the living creatures (Ezekiel 10:2), but according to the prophet, the upper rim was “high and dreadful.”

Full of eyes The eye, with every ancient people, was the symbol of life, knowledge, and intelligence. (Compare Ezekiel 10:12.) It was one of the most common and sacred symbols used in ancient Egypt and Assyria. Modern science has emphasized, in a way undreamed of by Ezekiel, the wakefulness and activity of the atoms which compose the material universe.