The book of Ezekiel has a bad reputation. Some dislike its seemingly unceasing tone of judgment (especially chapters 6–32). Some dislike the seemingly callous instructions God gives Ezekiel, such as abstaining from mourning the death of his wife (24:15–18). Some dislike its lurid and lewd imagery that seemingly approves violence against women (16:15–58).
I intentionally used the word “seemingly” in this list of items because there are key qualifications to make about each of these items and many more. We will look at many of these difficult issues in coming articles. But as we begin our tour of this prophetic book, we face head-on the imagery that has caused the most trouble for interpreters over the millennia: the vivid but weird vision in the book’s introductory chapter.
A Baffling Beginning
Already among the Dead Sea Scrolls we find evidence of struggling to understand Ezekiel 1. A scroll fragment named “Pseudo-Ezekiel” (4Q385) shows an effort to make sense of the imagery by associating it with God’s chariot (merkevah in Hebrew) from Isaiah 66:15, Jeremiah 4:13, and Psalm 104:3. Because of mention of “wheels within wheels” (1:15–21), this early Jewish writer at Qumran thought it was a visible description of God’s chariot which was elsewhere left undescribed or portrayed metaphorically as a cloud.
From that point on, early interpreters wrestled with the book. The Babylonian Talmud viewed Ezekiel 1 as so mysterious and sacred that it could not even be studied or discussed without great care. One section from the Talmud claims a small child accidentally started to read the chapter and was consumed by fire as he read the Hebrew word chashmal (usually translated as “amber” or “gleaming metal”) in 1:4. Incidentally, the ambiguity of this word, coupled with the power of this vision, is part of why modern Hebrew uses the word chashmal for electricity.
In more recent history, conspiracy theorists have suggested that Ezekiel encountered an unidentified flying object. The 1980s television show, Project UFO, popularized this claim. Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan, leaders of the Nation of Islam, looked to Ezekiel 1 to defend their belief in “mother plane.” They believed that Allah is seated in the pilot seat and flies around—invisible, of course, to all without eyes to see—preparing to rain down mother plane’s arsenal upon white people. Even the Israeli army named its fast battle tank the merkevah; clearly indebted to the power and danger that is perceived in Ezekiel 1.
While it is sad that Ezekiel is viewed with anxiety or at least Leviticus-like bewilderment, it is understandable. After all, when a book opens with such a sustained and symbolic picture in a mode that is uncommon today, it is makes sense that a reader might assume the rest will be about the same and decide to skip ahead to the exciting narrative adventures of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the next book of the Bible. “I’ll try to give it a read some other time,” they might tell themselves.
Ezekiel 1 as Impressive, not Incomprehensible
Our God is not a God of chaos or confusion (1 Cor. 14:33), and the prophets of the Old Testament knew that God was using them to tell future generations of His salvation in the Messiah (1 Pet. 1:10–12; 2 Pet. 1:19–21). So, our goal as Bible readers is to seek out the meaning of this passage in light of who God is as the inspirer and revealer of Ezekiel 1. I am confident that as we do this, we will be not only equipped but also excited to read on through Ezekiel.
Several years ago, I wrote an article for The Outlook about strategies to use when interpreting the imagery of Ezekiel 1: “The Bible in Hi Def: Learning to Interpret Prophetic Imagery.” Readers should find that article helpful for understanding some of the strange and unexpected imagery found in Ezekiel 1.1 But what I will focus on in this article is the glory of the Lord, which in Hebrew is called the kavod of the Lord. We will see how God presents Himself to Ezekiel in ways that echo His earlier manifestations of Himself to His people. By appearing to Ezekiel in a stormy wind, a great cloud flashing with lightning, and in fire (see Ezek. 1:4), God shows Ezekiel that He is the same God to Judah exiled in Babylon that He was to Israel in Egypt at the time of the exodus.
God’s Glory Manifestation
At the end of the vision of chapter 1 we get this summary: “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory [kavod] of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking” (Ezek. 1:28b).2 There are several things to which the word “such” refers, and we will note them below. But before we do so, we need to consider the biblical history of this term kavod.
Its most basic meaning is “to be heavy” or “to be weighty.” This is why Genesis 12:10 says “the famine was severe [kaved] in the land” and why Genesis 13:2 says, “Abram was very rich [kaved] in livestock, in silver, and in gold.” Note that a single Hebrew word can use different vowels for different parts of speech. Kavod and kaved are the same word and many passages in the Old Testament use this word in this way.
That is why it is significant in Exodus 14:4 that the word kavod suddenly takes on a new association. Whereas earlier chapters said that Pharaoh’s heart was “hard” (kaved; Exod. 7:14; 8:14, 32; 9:7) and that the plagues were “severe” or “heavy” (kaved; Exod. 8:20; 9:3, 18, 24; 10:14), God tells Moses immediately before leading Israel through the Red Sea: “And I will harden [chazaq] Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory [kavad] over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord” (Exod. 14:4).
In order to disconnect the word kavod from Pharaoh, God uses a different word to describe Pharaoh’s hardened heart, and now applies kavod to Himself as the glory or honor the Egyptians will pay the Lord when they cry uncle in the face of His miraculous deliverance of His people. God repeats this sentiment two more times in Exodus 14 (see vv. 17–18). It is also no accident that God says they “shall know that I am the Lord,” a phrase we find throughout Ezekiel, which scholars have dubbed “the recognition formula.”
In just two chapters, Israel is told that they will see the glory/kavod of the Lord (Exod. 16:7) and the result begins a new way that God manifests His presence among His people: “And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory [kavod] of the Lord appeared in the cloud” (v. 10).
During the wilderness wandering, Israel encounters God in His kavod form on several occasions. In Exodus 24:16–17, the glory settles on the mountain with Moses as God gives him the law (cf. Deut. 5:24). In Exodus 40:34–35, the glory settles, fills, and covers the tabernacle. This is particularly significant as the glory/kavod will chiefly manifest the Lord in His tabernacle presence (e.g., Lev. 9:23; Num. 14:10; 16:19; 17:7; 20:6). One of the most striking occurrences of the Lord’s glory/kavod appearing is in Exodus 33:12–23 where God hides Moses in the cleft of the rock, covers him with His hand, and then lets Moses see His back since he is unable to see the Lord’s face. (These features are directly relevant to Ezekiel 1.)
But what does the kavod look like? In the passages just cited, several phenomena occur with God’s glory/kavod. Most frequently we see the Lord manifesting Himself as cloud, fire, or both. In Deuteronomy 5:22–27, the kavod is seen also in darkness and so-called “thick-cloud” or “thick-darkness.” This has led to some scholars using the term “glory-cloud” to describe God’s kavod manifestation.3 While this is not wrong, it does not capture the anthropomorphic, bodily imagery that also attends the glory/kavod in Exodus 33.
Vern Poythress’s book Theophany: A Biblical Theology of God’s Appearing exhaustively details the ways in which the Lord manifests Himself in Scripture and history and reflects on the significance of particular imagery. For God to appear in fire can symbolize purification and/or destruction. (These two ideas are not incompatible.) Fire also accompanies God’s covenant-making actions, expressing not only His holiness that consumes impurity and destroys His enemies, but also “the fierceness of God’s commitment to his covenant.”4
Poythress also notes the significance of cloud which plays a paradoxical role: “Sometimes a cloud has the primary function of concealing God. But he also appears in the cloud.” That is, God manifests Himself even as He conceals Himself. But Poythress explains how this paradox matches the character of God: “Human beings never master God or know him exhaustively. So the cloud is a reminder of human limits. At the same time, God does draw near and establish communion with mankind. So the cloud represents his drawing near. Because ordinary clouds are in the sky, the use of cloud symbolism also reminds us that God’s dwelling is especially in heaven. A cloud symbolizes his coming near to us from heaven.”5
What Does All This Tell Us about Ezekiel 1?
I will never leave you nor forsake you . . .
Ezekiel was a priest. His father, Buzi, was also a priest, as were Ezekiel’s ancestors before him. And yet on his thirtieth birthday—the year he would have ordinarily begun his service in the temple in Jerusalem (see Num. 4)—Ezekiel found himself sitting next to an irrigation canal in Babylon. He was one of those Judeans who sang Psalm 137: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’” (Ps. 137:1–3).
And yet whereas the exiles feared forgetting God’s temple presence on Mount Zion (Ps. 137:5–6), God would not let Ezekiel lose sight of His covenant faithfulness. For that matter, God would not let Ezekiel view his life of preparation for the priesthood as a waste. Though Ezekiel could not come to the temple there by the Chebar canal, God brought His temple presence to Ezekiel.
We saw above that God’s glory/kavod regularly appeared at the tabernacle, but it is important that we see how that same manifestation continued after the building of the temple. Kings and Chronicles give the temple version of the events that happened at the tabernacle in Exodus 40:34–35:
As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory [kavod] of the Lord filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory [kavod] of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory [kavod] of the Lord on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (2 Chron 7:1–3; see too 1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chron. 5:14)
The God who hardened (kaved) the heart of Pharaoh and manifested His glory (kavad) in Exodus 14:4 by delivering His people from their Egyptian enemies now appears again in the same way. The Babylonians are the new Egyptians. Ezekiel is the new Moses. And because of this, Israel can expect a new and better exodus. All appearances aside, the Lord. was not far from Ezekiel, tied to a building in Jerusalem. In fact, Ezekiel 1 shows that God’s temple presence does not even require the building—something that would have offended many of the Judeans just as it did the Jews of Jesus’ day (see John 2:19–21; Matt. 26:60–62; Mark 14:58).
Visions of God’s glory/kavod occur in three places in Ezekiel. We have just looked at chapter 1, but we find that the vision of Ezekiel 8–11, though it occurs later in the book, depicts events that took place prior to Ezekiel 1. Ezekiel 10–11 shows the Lord’s glory departing Jerusalem where the corrupt priests were practicing paganism in the temple. Accompanied by the same angelic beings Ezekiel witnessed in chapter 1, the glory begins a journey east—away from Jerusalem and toward His faithful remnant in Babylon.
The third place God’s glory/kavod occurs is in Ezekiel 43:1–9, a vision that depicts an event in the future. Now Ezekiel sees a monumental temple complex, an almost supernatural temple due to its size, scope, and new creation imagery. We will consider this new temple in a future article. But for now, it suffices to see that the glory—which exited the temple to the east in chapters 10–11—now returns from the east. It enters the new temple and fills it as before as God says through His angelic messenger: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever” (Ezek. 43:7a).
Ezekiel may have felt that God’s promises were lost—indeed, that all hope was lost—when the Babylonians defeated Jerusalem and exiles endured the arduous and deadly journey away from the holy land. And yet he saw that this was not the case. God appeared once again as He did to His people Israel, accompanied by the stunning cherubim, showing that God was still with His people and that their circumstances were not evidence of His power being diminished or defeated.
One Like a Son of Man
Above we recounted Moses’ encounter with the Lord’s glory/ kavod where he was covered with the Lord’s hand and saw His back rather than His face. Ezekiel 1:26–27 uses the same anthropomorphic imagery we saw there:
And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal [chashmal], like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.
Did you catch those descriptors—human appearance, His waist, seated posture? In several Old Testament passages, God revealed Himself in human form (e.g., Gen. 18:1–33; 32:22–32; Josh. 5:13–15). But Exodus 33 and Ezekiel 1 now connect God’s glory manifestation with His appearance in human form, fluidly morphing back and forth between the two without any hint of change or difficulty or incompatibility. (C. S. Lewis tried to capture something of this in the final paragraph of The Chronicles of Narnia when he wrote of Aslan: “And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.”)
Ezekiel 1 tells us of Ezekiel’s encounter with the glory/kavod of God in human appearance, preparing us to encounter the consummate expression of God’s glory in human flesh in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
God’s appearance in glory will orient the entire ministry of the prophet Ezekiel. And while there are several implications of God’s kavod appearance for Ezekiel and for us today,6 there is something particularly sweet for us to remember as we consider God’s presence in our own lives as “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet. 2:11). John Mackay says of our glorious God: “When he condescends to draw close to his people, no geographical frontier, or even spiritual boundary, can inhibit him (Rom. 8:38–39). No matter where his people find themselves, they may dismiss the taunts of their adversaries. ‘Why should the nations say, “So where is their God?” But our God is in the heavens; whatever he pleases, he does’ (Ps. 115:2–3).”7
In Jesus Christ, the one in whom we have beheld the Father’s glory, heaven has come to earth. And in our union with Christ, the Holy Spirit forever keeps us in Christ’s heavenly presence.
Dr. R. Andrew Compton is professor of Old Testament studies at Mid-America Reformed Seminary (Dyer, IN).
1. See The Outlook 65, no. 5 (September/October 2015): 10–13; available at https://outlook.reformedfellowship.net/sermons/the-bible-in-hi-def-learning-to-interpret-prophetic-imagery/.
2. All citations are from the English Standard Version.
3. Meredith G. Kline has popularized this view in several of his writings, even suggesting that the kavod is chiefly a manifestation or endoxation of the third person of the Trinity, something intended to invoke incarnation of the second person of the Trinity.
4. Vern S. Poythress, Theophany: A Biblical Theology of God’s Appearing (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 43.
5. Ibid., 49.
6. See Christopher J. H. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel: A New Heart and a New Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 51–53; Landon Dowden, Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Ezekiel (Brentwood, TN: Holman, 2015), 11–12.
7. John L. Mackay, Ezekiel: A Mentor Commentary, vol. 1, chapters 1–24 (Nairobi, Kenya: Mentor, 2018), 104.