AURIGA. EZEKIEL X. 13. As for the Wheels, it was cried unto them, in my hearing, O Wheel! THIS Prophet, as his name imports, was girt with the strength of God. ch. iii. 8. 9. and, like his predecessor, Jeremiah, (ch. i. 18.) had absolute need of such divine strength; especially if we consider the circumstances under which he prophesied, the time, the place, and the people:-they were an obstinate, an unbelieving, and a rebellious generation;-the place was Babylon, and the time was a time of trouble. He was of the tribe of Levi, and of the house of Aaron, of the priestly order by descent; yet he was prevented from exercising the sacred office, by having been. carried into captivity, along with Jehoiachin.
How mysterious is Providence! However, that which may at first sight appear to mortals to be foolishness, weakness, or severity, (1 Cor. i. 25.) will be found in the end to be infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. Although the righteous are often involved in the national ca'amities, which are the consequence of national crimes, (for one event happens to all;) yet as the Lord knows them that are his, it will always be well with them that fear him, and the divine promise and purpose respecting them will take place. Ezekiel, after five years captivity, was come to that age, when, by the law, he might have been consecrated, have entered into and officiated in the Holy Place, have approached near the Holy of Holies, and there B8 be held the glory of the Lord in his Sanctuary: however, he was now prevented from enjoying this privilege and honour in the ordinary way; yet the sovereign Head of the church raised him up in an extraordinary way to officiate in holy things, and called him to the prophetic office-When our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, suffered upon the cross, and thereby finished the transgression, sin-offerings, &c. the veil of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom: I suppose the veil between the Holy and the most Holy Place-the earthquake rent the partition-wall as well as the veil before it, so that the officiating priest, who was offering incense at three o'clock in the afternoon, would, with astonishment, see into the Holy of Holies. So the prophet here, although his body was by the river Chebar, in the kingdom of Babylon, yet he saw the heavenly temple opened, and beheld wonderous things in the Holy Place. The time is particularly mentioned when he had this vision, and received his solemn commission : these much resembled Isaiah's vision and call, one hundred and sixty years before.
It was, perhaps, the thirtieth year of the prophet's age; it was in the thirtieth after that in which Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law, (2Kings xxii and xxiii) and in which the solemn passover and covenant had been observed by Josiah, in consequence of the discovery; also it is said to be exactly the thirtieth of Nabopollasar's era-those periods all coinciding. It was the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity, in the fourth month, and fifth day of the month, probably on a Sabbath, when, like St. John in Patmos, six hundred and ninety years after, (Rev. . 10.) being in the spirit he was meditating upon the divine government, wondering that he himself, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and many other Nazarites, &c. should be cut off from entering the gates of Zion and joining in the social and solemn worship of the Lord; while Zedekiah, a wicked king, and many profane priests, were at liberty to enjoy the Sabbath in Jerusalem. However, the prediction of the figs was then verified ; (Jer. xxiv:) those first and best captives were carried into Babylon,9 to escape the more dreadful visitation upon Jerusalem and all Judea, which took place about six years after, in their entire destruction. While this priest and man of God was thus solemnly musing, the word of the Lord came expressly upon him.
Heb. the word Jehovah was was, expressing the superlative degree, because of the certainty and importance of his prophetic call. The vision itself first vouchsafed is truly sublime, awfully grand, and terribly majestic. " A whirlwind came out of the north, and a great cloud and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it ; and out of the midst of it, the likeness of a man, who conducted it, as of the colour of amber, (or Corinthian brass) even out of the midst of the fire."
About nine hundred years before, the Lord made a thick cloud his royal chariot, and walked upon the wings of the wind, when Pharaoh, with six hundred chosen chariots fully armed, and all the chariots of Egypt, pursued the children of Israel; the cloud, although dark towards the Egyptians, while it darted fire upon them, was bright towards the Israelites, and to them a chariot of salvation : Exod. xiv. 19, 20. set also Hab. iii. 8.-Butnow, in appearance, the case was reversed, when the sinful descendants of those ransomed sons of Jacob were involved, like the Egyptians, in awful destruction. However, the prophet was no doubt enabled to look through the sable cloud and see its silver lining : For, notwithstanding present appearances, the government is still upon his shoulders, and therein sin the hands of him, whose name is "Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" He often has his ways in the whirlwind, and his paths in the mighty waters : Who can, by searching, find him out to perfection? Ye the is holy in all his dispensations, and just and righteous in all his dealings: therefore his promises to Abraham and his seed shall be fulfilled, and his purpose of grace be accomplished; even this awful visitation shall be a golden link in the chain of providential events, for the eternal good of the church.
B210 " The ways of heaven are dark and intricate, " Puzzled in mazes and perplexed thro' error; " Our understanding traces them in vain, " Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search ; " Nor sees with how much art the windings run, " Nor where the regular confusion ends." It is only the messenger, the interpreter above a thousand, who can teach us wisdom secretly, and enable us to conceive aright of God's government. This vision was well calculated to support his own mind; in the prosecution of his arduous office ; and to animate and cheer the pious captives, Daniel, &e. if he had any communication with them at the time, and even to prepare the minds of the rebellious to receive his faithful warnings and reproofs. After the prophet's solemn call and primary vision, (the account of which occupies nearly three chapters) he had, in the course of his first year, several revelations and visions respecting Zedekiah, the Jews that then remained in Judea, and the destruction of Jerusalem; but in the second month of his second year, exactly fourteen months after his call, he had a second great vision, similar to the first, the account of which begins in chap. viii. and occupies four chapters, of which the words of the text make an essential part. Although his body was then in Babylon, he was transported inspirit to Jerusalem, by the divine personage whom he repeatedly saw and solemnly worshipped, called the glory of the God of Israel, or the glory Jehovah. Here he was made to see what before he never suspected; namely, the variety, malignity, and awful profanity of both priests and people. Idolatry is viewed as personified and seated on a throne, even by or in God's holy temple, where the most absurd and abominable idolatries of the Egyptians, Persians, Phenicians, and even the worst of the Heathen, were united and practised by the priests and elders of Israel; who were, like the sons of Eli, sons of Belial, and knew not the Lord. The abominations of Manasseh were followed and increased, and the most horrid impiety evil evidenced; what Isaiah lamented, long before, was increased an hundredfold, Isa i.5. church and state were ripe for that destruction which took place about five years after. However, in the midst of the overwhelming visitation, the righteous were to be preserved, as Jeremiah, Baruch, Ebedmelech, and other pious individuals, who sincerely lamented all the abominations in Jerusalem ; they were marked and sealed, and escaped from the storm. God's care of his people was equally manifested, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, in the preservation of the christians from that awful visitation, which, in this second vision, is perhaps ultimately glanced at. After this discrimination of the righteous from the impious and profane, the divine government and purpose of mercy are again brought into view, in the visional and hieroglyphical exhibition of the sapphire throne, and the living creatures or cherubim, and the wonderful wheels conducted by them. About nineteen years after, the prophet, in another great and comfortable vision, refers to both these, chap. xliii. 3. and calls the second one, that which he had "when he came to destroy the city." It is well known he had no immediate hand in destroying Jerusalem, the temple, &c. he was then several hundred miles distant, and wished with his whole soul to prevent it; but, according to the scripture idiom, he is said todo what he only predicted would be done, when he fully saw the procuring cause, and declared the consequences : I suppose he had finished his course upon earth more than six hundred years before the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The glorious personage who sat upon the sapphire throne, over the head of the cherubim, commanded the man clothed in linen, (who carefully marked the righteous in each period, see Rev. vii. 2. probably Michael, the guardian angel of the Jewish nation) to take burning coals from between the wheels, and scatter them through the city-The cherubim assisted, and furnished him with burning coals. It was an unB312 avoidable consequence of the guardian angel's withdrawing from the infidel Jews, that infatuation, fire, rapine, murder, &c. &c. broke out before their entire ruin. In this both God and his ministers, angelic and redeemed, were righteous ; signified by the pure linen, here and in Rev. xix. This text or verse may be considered as a golden key, to unlock the mysteries of both these visions; it is a prominent and central point; it is a nucleus or kernal; the apex or highest point; or, shall I call it, the result and final issue of the various movements in providence and grace? The words in the original of the two clauses are widely different: the former, Ophanim, rendered wheels, and used nearly throughout both visions; the latter, Ha-galgal, which, although sometimes rendered a wheel, does not necessarily and exclusively signify a wheel, but is sometimes rendered otherwise : the Septuagint retain the word, and do not translate it-so our translators, in the margin, Galgal:-Seb. Cas. renders it currum, a chariot;-also the new French translation, chariot-and Junius, orbis, a globe:--Gal, the root, signifies