Verse 2
2. Between the wheels Literally, whirling; a different word from the one formerly used for wheel. It is used also in Ezekiel 10:13, and signifies that the wheels are all the time moving like a whirlwind. (Compare also Psalms 77:18; Ezekiel 33:23.) It is used, not of a single wheel, but of the entire “wheelwork,” or chariot.
Coals of fire That which previously the prophet had only ventured to describe as appearing like coals of fire (Ezekiel 1:13) he now sees can be handled and used as powerful weapons of judgment.
Scatter them over the city All this is symbolical of judgment to come. Josephus tells us how this prophecy was fulfilled by Nebuzaradan, who, having robbed the temple of its treasures, set fire to it “in the fifth month, the first day of the month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he also burnt the palace and overthrew the city” ( Ant., X, Ezekiel 8:5).
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