John Gill Commentary Ezekiel 1

Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year
Either from the last jubilee, as R. Joseph Kimchi^F18, Jarchi, and Abendana; or from the time that the book of the law was found by Hilkiah the priest^F19; so the Targum, which paraphrases the words thus, ``and it was in the thirtieth year after Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law, in the house of the sanctuary, in the court under the porch, in the middle of the night, after the moon was down, in the days of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah;'' or, according to Jerom^F20, from the time of the prophet's birth, who was now thirty years of age, and was just entered into his priestly office; or rather it was the thirtieth year of Nabopolassar, or the father of Nebuchadnezzar: this was the twelfth year of the captivity, reckoning from the third of Jehoiakim, which was the first captivity, and from where the seventy years are to be reckoned, and also the twelfth of Nebuchadnezzar's reign; and if two years are taken, as Vitringa^F21 observes, from the twenty one years, which are given to Nabopolassar in Ptolemy's canon, in which Nebuchadnezzar his son reigned with him, there will be found thirty years from the beginning of Nabopolassar's reign to the fifth of Jeconiah's captivity, when Ezekiel began his prophecy, and which, as Bishop Usher^F23, Mr. Bedford^F24, Mr. Whiston^F25, and the authors of the Universal History^F26, place in the year 593, before the birth of Christ:

in the fourth [month];
the month Tammuz, as the Targum expresses it; which answers to part of June, and part of July: in the fifth [day] of the month;
which some take to be on a sabbath day; because, seven days after, the word of the Lord came to him again (Ezekiel 3:16); just as John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, (Revelation 1:10); between one of whose visions and this there is a very great likeness, as will be seen hereafter:

as I [was] among the captives by the river of Chebar;
which is another agreement in circumstance between Ezekiel and John, when they had their visions: John was an exile in Patrons, and Ezekiel among the captives by the river Chebar in Chaldea. Some think this is the same river which is called by Ptolemy^F1 Chaboras; and is said by him to pass through Mesopotamia: others say it was a river that was drawn off from the river Euphrates, by the order of one Cobaris, or Gobaris, a governor, from whence it had its name; that the river Euphrates might not, by its rapid course, hurt the city of Babylon; and by the Assyrians it was called Armalchar, or Narmalcha^F2, the king's river; though it seems to be no other than Euphrates itself; and Kimchi observes, that in some copies of the Targum on this place it is interpreted of the river Euphrates; and he says their Rabbins of blessed memory say, that Chebar is Euphrates; and so Abarbinel; see (Psalms 137:1). Monsieur Thevenot^F3 speaks of a river called Chabur, which is less than Alchabour, another mentioned by him; and has its source below Mosul, and on the left hand to those that go down the Tigris, and at Bagdad loses itself in the Tigris which he takes to be the same as here:

that the heavens were opened;
as at our Lord's baptism, and at the stoning of Stephen; and so when John had his vision which corresponds with the following, a door was opened in heaven (Revelation 4:1); and I saw the visions of God;
which God showed unto him, and which were great and excellent; as excellent things are called things of God, as mountains of God, and cedars of God, (Psalms 36:6) (80:10); and indeed he had a vision of a divine Person, in a human form; to which agrees the Targum, ``and I saw in the vision of prophecy, which abode on me, the vision of the glory of the majesty of the Lord.'' The Arabic and Syriac versions read, "the vision of God".

FOOTNOTES:

• F18: Apud R. D. Kimchi in loc.
• F19: Seder Olam Rabba, c. 26.
• F20: Preafat. in Ezek. tom. 3. fol. 9. D.
• F21: Typus Doctrin. Prophetic. sect. 7. p. 41. Vid. Witsii Miscel. Sacr. tom. 1. l. 1. c. 19.
• F23: Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3409. p. 127.
• F24: Scripture Chronology, p. 681.
• F25: Chronological Tables, cent. 10.
• F26: Vol. 21. p. 61.
• F1: Geograph. l. 5. c. 18.
• F2: Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 26.
• F3: Travels, par. 2. B. 1. ch. 10. p. 46.

In the fifth [day] of the month
The month Tammuz, as before:

(which [was] the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity)
; the same with Jeconiah and Coniah, as he is sometimes called; he was taken by the king of Babylon, when he had reigned but three months, and his captivity held seven and thirty years, (2 Kings 24:8 2 Kings 24:12) (25:27) .

The word of the Lord came expressly
Or, "in being was" {d}; which phrase denotes the reality, certainty, substantiality and evidence of the word of the Lord to him:

unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi ;
which Buzi, some say, was Jeremiah. Kimchi observes, that, in the Jerusalem Targum, the Prophet Ezekiel is called the son of Jeremiah the prophet: and Jeremiah was called Buzi because they despised him; this is rejected by Abarbinel; nor is there any reason to believe it, any more than what Nazianzen ^F5 says, that Ezekiel was a servant of Jeremiah:

in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar ;
(See Gill on Ezekiel 1:1). The Chaldee paraphrase makes the word of the Lord to come to him at two distinct times and places;

``the word of prophecy from before the Lord was with Ezekiel the son of Buzi the priest in the land of Israel: it returned a second time, and spoke with him in the province, the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Chebar:''

and the hand of the Lord was there upon him ;
by which is meant the gift and word of prophecy, which came with power and efficacy, clearness and evidence; so the Targum, and the ``spirit of prophecy from before the Lord there abode by him;'' by which he saw all later visions, and delivered out the following prophecies; see (2 Peter 1:21) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F5: Orat. 47. vol. 1. p. 724.

And I looked
Being under the influence of the Spirit and power of God: and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north;

which some understand of Nebuchadnezzar and his army coming from Babylon, which lay north of Judea: see (Jeremiah 1:14); but it seems to me to be, with what follows, only an apparatus to the following vision: and is designed to awaken the mind of the prophet, and to fix his attention to what should proceed from hence, and be seen by him; just as the Lord spoke in and answered Job out of, the whirlwind, (Job 38:1);

a great cloud;
as is usual when there is much thunder and lightning; though some understand this also of Nebuchadnezzar's army, which came in great human, swiftly and powerfully, as a cloud: and a fire infolding itself:
in the cloud; rolling within it, when it burst out in thunder and lightning. The Targum renders it, "fire inflamed", the same phrase is used of the storm of thunder, lightning, and hail, in (Exodus 9:24). Some understand this of the wrath of the Babylonian monarch; or of the wrath of God by him; or of the sins of men, the cause thereof:

and a brightness [was] about it;
that is, the cloud. This brightness was an emblem of the glory of the divine Being; who was now present, an enlightened the mind of the prophet to see the following things, and which all proceeded from him:

and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber out of the midst of the fire;
that is, out of the midst of the fire, and out of the midst of the brightness about it, there was something which was as "the colour of amber"; or, "like the chasmal" ^F6; which, the Jews ^F7 say, is the name of an angel. It is asked ^F8, what is "chasmal?" R. Judah says, (twhmm va twyx), "fiery animals speaking": who, when God speaks, are silent; and when he does not speak, they speak; but Christ is meant; for the appearance of the man upon the throne is said to be as the colour of "chasmal", (Ezekiel 1:27). The word, read the contrary way, is the Messiah, or the anointed, or to be anointed.

Jarchi thinks it is the name of a colour, nearest to the colour of fire, Junius and Tremellius render it, "a most lively colour"; and perhaps may mean the colour of a burning coal; and Buxtorf translates it, "a coal exceedingly fired"; a clear, burning, red-hot coal; which may denote the pure light of Christ, who is the brightness of his Father's glory; his flaming love for his people; his burning zeal for the glory of God, and the good of his church; and his fiery indignation against his enemies.

We render the word amber, as do others; by which must be meant, not that which is the juice of certain trees, which is hardened by the air, and is of a yellowish colour; nor that liquid substance which comes from sea shores and rocks, and, being hardened in the same way, is of the colour of wax; but a sort of mixed metal, compounded of gold and silver; the fifth part of it is silver, as Pliny ^F9 says, and four parts gold; though Bochart is of opinion that the "qurichalcum", a metal made of gold and brass, is meant; which is the most fine brass; to which the feet of Christ are compared in (Revelation 1:15); and so this "chasmal" may denote the two natures in Christ; the preciousness of his person; his brightness and glory; and his great strength and power.

R. Abendana ^F11 conjectures, that the colour of "chasmal" means the colour of some precious stone, as the colour of "tarshish", or "beryl", (Ezekiel 1:16); and so he that sat upon the throne, in (Revelation 4:3); was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone.

FOOTNOTES:

• F6: (lmvxh Nyek) "tanquam species hasmal, [vel] hasmal", Calvin, Tigerius version, Starckius; "angeli", Munster; "flammae crepitantis", Montanus; "prunarum ardentissimarum", Polanus; "purissimi aeris", Piscator; (hlektrou) , Sept. "electri", V. L. Pagninus.
• F7: Baal Aruch, Philip. Aquinas. Vid. Jarchi & Kimchi ib loc.
• F8: T. Bab. Chagiga, fol. 13. 1. 2.
• F9: Nat. Hist. l. 33. c. 4.
• F11: Not. in Miclol Yophi in loc.

Also out of the midst thereof
The fire; or out of the whole that was seen; the whirlwind, cloud, fire, and the brightness about it: [came] the likeness of four living creatures ;
not really four living creatures; they appeared like to such they were in the form of such; by which we are to understand, not the four monarchies; nor the four Gospels; nor the angels; but ministers of the Gospel; the true key for the opening of this vision is that which John saw, (Revelation 4:6–8) ; the four beasts there, or living creatures, as it should be rendered, are the same with these here, and these the same with them; and who manifestly appear to be not only worshippers of the true God, but to be men redeemed by the blood of Christ; and are distinguished from angels, and also from the four and twenty elders, the representatives of the Gospel churches; and so can design no other than the ministers of the word, with whom all the characters of them agree, as in that vision, so in this; see (Revelation 4:8Revelation 4:9) (5:8-11) . "Creatures" they are; not gods, but men; they are indeed in God's stead, and represent him, being ambassadors of his; but they are frail, mortal, sinful men, of like passions with others; and therefore great allowances must be made for their infirmities and weaknesses: yea, as ministers, they are the creatures of God; he, and not men, has made them able ministers of the New Testament: and they are "living" creatures; they have spiritual life in themselves, and are the means of quickening others; and have need to be, and should be, lively and fervent in their ministrations. Their number, "four", respects the four parts of the, world, to which their commission to preach the Gospel reaches; and whither they are sent, whensoever it is the will and pleasure of God they should got and he has work for them to do; and this [was] their appearance, they had the likeness of a man ;
their general likeness was the human form, except in some particulars after mentioned, because they represented men; men humane, tender, kind and pitiful; knowing, and understanding, and acting like men.