Ezekiel 10:2

‘And he spoke to the man clothed in linen and said, “Go in between the whirling wheels, to underneath the cherub, and fill both your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” '

Where He spoke from here we are not told. In Ezekiel 9:3 the glory of Yahweh had moved to the threshold of the temple. It is possible that we are intended to see the arrival of the heavenly chariot (Ezekiel 10:1) as indicating that He there took His seat on His portable throne. Alternately it may have been empty, awaiting His will.

The command to the man clothed in linen, who had previously marked the chosen ones of God, is now that he carry out God's judgments. He was to go under the cherubim between the whirling wheels to fill his hands with coals of fire. In Ezekiel 1:13 these coals of fire described the appearance of the cherubim, and yet flickered among the cherubim. But this is a vision, a dream, so we should not be surprised at anything. However as in Revelation 6 it is apparent here that the cherubim are closely connected with bringing about of the judgments of God.

‘The whirling wheels.' Literally ‘the whirlers'. There may be behind the idea of the whirling wheels the idea of whirlwinds (see Psalms 77:18).

‘Fill both your hands.' The judgments are to be sufficient to accomplish God's purpose of total destruction.

Coals of fire are also described as directly kindled by God in His majestic and wrathful advance in 2 Samuel 22:9; 2 Samuel 22:13; Psalms 18:8; Psalms 18:12 where the cherubim are also present, and judgments follow. So there the coals of fire were seen as connected with His coming in judgment (compare Psalms 140:10; Habakkuk 3:5). Thus we may see the coals of fire as, as it were, kindled by the fiery breath of God and dispensed in judgment. Perhaps there is a link with the way that God hurled fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24; Deuteronomy 29:23; Lamentations 4:6; Amos 4:11). Jerusalem is being likened to those totally corrupted cities (see Revelation 11:8).

It is unwise to seek to identify the man clothed in linen, except as a heavenly being. The Scripture is deliberately silent. He even works like a shadow. The fulfilling of his first task is simply evidenced when he reports back (Ezekiel 9:11). The fulfilment of the second is never described, only that he received the coals of fire and ‘went out'. He is but an anonymous instrument of Yahweh.

‘Scatter them over the city.' This is the symbol of God's judgments being poured down (compare Psalms 140:10; Habakkuk 3:5).

‘To underneath the cherub.' It is possibly significant that ‘the cherub' is mentioned a number of times as well as ‘the cherubim' (the -im shows the latter to be plural). See Ezekiel 9:3; Ezekiel 10:2; Ezekiel 10:4; Ezekiel 10:7, and especially Ezekiel 10:14 where of the four described only ‘the cherub' has the definite article. This may be seen as suggesting that there was one prominent cherub involved in the situation, possibly the leader of the group. Such a prominent cherub is certainly mentioned in Ezekiel 28:14 as ‘the anointed cherub who covers (or guards)' where he is connected with ‘stones of fire'. There it refers to blasphemous claims made by ‘the king of Tyre', but presumably as based on some well recognised supernatural figure. Thus mention of ‘the cherub' in the singular may refer to such a one well known to Ezekiel's audience. But in context it may simply mean ‘the cherub that is nearest to you'.

LXX avoids this by translating each reference in the plural and by a change of text in Ezekiel 10:7 where it has an anonymous ‘he'. But we do not expect the figure on the throne to be the one to hand over the coals (compare Isaiah 6:6) so that the idea of ‘the cherub' doing so fits the context well. It may, however, be that the singular is to be seen as a collective noun signifying the cherubim, and that the cherub in Ezekiel 10:7 is merely identified by the fact that he was the cherub connected with the particular wheel. Compare how in Ezekiel 10:17; Ezekiel 10:20 the living creature is spoken of in the singular and then it is said, ‘and I knew that they were the cherubim'.

‘And he went in in my sight.'

The man clothed in linen immediately obeyed and went in between the whirling wheels below the level plain of awesome ice and the throne, in Ezekiel's full view. The sight clearly affected him for he specifically stresses that he saw it. Perhaps it was because he was awestricken that any being other than a cherub could enter within that place of glorious majesty. In examining the detail we must not omit to notice the glory of the occasion.