Ezekiel 10 - Introduction

10. Second act of the divine judgment, the scattering of fire from god upon the city

The connexion between this chapter and the last is not quite close, otherwise ch. Ezekiel 10:2 would have stood at the beginning. Unobserved by the prophet or at least unmentioned by him the glory had returned from the threshold of the house (ch. Ezekiel 9:3), and the Lord again sat upon the throne above the cherubim (ch. Ezekiel 1:26).

(1) Ezekiel 10:1. From his place above the cherubim the Lord commanded the man clothed with linen garments to approach the fire within the wheelwork and take coals from it to scatter over the city a symbol of the divine judgment on Jerusalem, on which fire from God would fall as on Sodom. The man advanced towards the cherubim.

(2) Ezekiel 10:4. Meanwhile the glory of the Lord again left the cherubim, and stood over the threshold of the house, the cloud filling the temple and the brilliancy lighting up the inner court. The chief angel had approached the chariot and the cherub took coals from between the wheelwork, putting them into the hands of the angel, who went forth. The actual strewing of the fire upon the city, though assumed, is not described.

(3) Ezekiel 10:9. Renewed description of the cherubim.

(4) Ezekiel 10:18. Return of the divine glory from the threshold of the house to the cherubim, and movement of the whole manifestation from the inner court to the outside of the eastern gate of the outer court (Ezekiel 10:18). Finally the prophet lays stress upon the identity of the cherubim seen here with those which he saw by the river Chebar (Ezekiel 10:20).