Ezekiel 1:26

26. The likeness of a throne It should be again noticed how careful Ezekiel is not to say that this vision represented a literal reality. He only describes what he saw “the likeness of four living creatures” which had “the likeness of a man” (Ezekiel 1:5), and yet were “like the appearance of torches” (Ezekiel 1:13), and lightning flashes (Ezekiel 1:14); he saw four wheels, which “had one likeness “(Ezekiel 1:16), and upon the heads of the living creatures “the likeness of a firmament” (Ezekiel 1:22), and now he sees “the likeness of a throne,” and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it, and “the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezekiel 1:28).

The likeness as the appearance of a man That the human life should be seen to predominate and control all the varied life expressed by the living creatures, the highest ministers of Jehovah, does not seem too strange to believe and repeat; but here the amazement of the prophet passes all bounds, for he sees what looks to be a man on the throne of the unapproachable God! He dare not deny what he has seen, and yet he dare not affirm that he actually saw, even in a vision, a man on Jehovah’s throne.

So through the thunder comes a human voice,

Saying, “O heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself!”

Browning, Karshish.

What it meant, what it foreshadowed, Ezekiel never tried to tell, but his perplexity and wonder may be discovered in this strange sentence, “And upon the likeness of a throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man.” This is the most sublime prevision of the incarnation to be found in the holy oracles. Ezekiel, as truly as Isaiah, “saw his glory” though in a mirror, darkly (John 12:41; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Ezekiel did not know the real meaning of the man upon the throne, but in this vision the race was receiving its answer to its age-long cry.

‘Tis the weakness in strength that I cry

for, my flesh that I seek

In the Godhead! I seek and I find it.

Browning, Saul.