Ezekiel 1:4

I looked I very diligently surveyed the things which were represented to me in the vision, and behold a whirlwind Denoting the indignation and judgments of God; a quick, impetuous, and irresistible vengeance: see the margin. It is described here as coming out of the north, because, as has been before observed, the Chaldean army, by which the judgment was to be executed, would, for convenience of forage and water, march first northward, and then turn about toward Judea, so that they did, strictly speaking, come into it from the north. A great cloud It is usual to express any great trouble by a great, dark cloud hanging over people's heads. And here, in particular, it seems to signify the calamity coming on Judea by the Chaldean invasion. And a fire infolding itself A fire appearing in folds, like one wreath within another. This was indicative of God's avenging justice, for God is described in Scripture as a consuming fire, when he comes to execute his judgments upon sinners: see Deuteronomy 4:24. And a brightness was about it Clear discoveries of God's holiness and justice, which, it is thus signified, would be made manifest in what was about to be done. Out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber Rather, as the appearance of amber. “There was a bright pellucid appearance.” Newcome. But Bochart shows that ηλεκτρον, the word used in the LXX., signifies not only amber and crystal, but a metal compounded of gold and silver, or of gold and brass; and thinks that the last, called χαλκολιβανον, Revelation 1:15, best suits this place. This seems to have been a symbolical representation of the Jewish people; for as this compound metal was not consumed in the fire, so the Jews were not to be wholly destroyed by the grievous calamities they were to be involved in, but to come out purer from the furnace of affliction, as gold and brass out of the fire.