Ezekiel 1:1

King James Version (KJV)

Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

In the thirtieth year - We know not what this date refers to. Some think it was the age of the prophet; others think the date is taken from the time that Josiah renewed the covenant with the people, 2 Kings 22:3, from which Usher, Prideaux, and Calmet compute the forty years of Judah's transgression, mentioned 2 Kings 4:6.

Abp. Newcome thinks there is an error in the text, and that instead of בשלשים bisheloshim, in the thirtieth, we should read בחמישית bachamishith, in the fifth, as in the second verse. "Now it came to pass in the fifth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month," etc. But this is supported by none of the ancient Versions, nor by any MS. The Chaldee paraphrases the verse, "And it came to pass thirty years after the high priest Hilkiah had found the book of the law, in the house of the sanctuary," etc. This was in the twelfth year of Josiah's reign. The thirtieth year, computed as above, comes to A.M. 3409, the fourth year from the captivity of Jeconiah, and the fifth of the reign of Zedekiah. Ezekiel was then among the captives who had been carried way with Jeconiah, and had his dwelling near the river Chebar, Chaborus, or Aboras, a river of Mesopotamia, which falls into the Euphrates a little above Thapsacus, after having run through Mesopotamia from east to west. - Calmet.

Fourth month - Thammuz, answering nearly to our July.

I saw visions of God - Emblems and symbols of the Divine Majesty. He particularly refers to those in this chapter.

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Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

The thirtieth year - being closely connected with as I, is rather in favor of considering this a personal date. It is not improbable that Ezekiel was called to his office at the age prescribed in the Law for Levites Numbers 4:23, Numbers 4:30, at which age both John the Baptist and our Lord began their ministry. His call is probably to be connected with the letter sent by Jeremiah to the captives Ezekiel 1:2 a Jewish, date; but it is not certain that this accession formed an era in Babylon and Ezekiel does not elsewhere give a double date, or even a Babylonian date. Others date from the 18th year of Josiah, when Hilkiah discovered the Book of the Law (supposed to be a jubilee year): this would give 594 b.c. as the 30th year, but there is no other instance in Ezekiel of reckoning from this year.

The captives - Not in confinement, but restricted to the place of their settlement.

The fourth month - “Month” is not expressed in the original. This is the common method. Before the captivity the months were described not by proper names but by their order, “the first, the second,” etc.; the first month corresponding nearly with our “April.” After the captivity, the Jews brought back with them the proper names of the months, “Nisan” etc. (probably those used in Chaldaea).

Chebar - The modern “Khabour” rises near Nisibis and flows into the Euphrates near “Kerkesiah,” 200 miles north of Babylon.

Visions of God - The exposition of the fundamental principles of the existence and nature of a Supreme God, and of the created angels, was called by the rabbis “the Matter of the Chariot” (compare 1 Chronicles 28:18) in reference to the form of Ezekiel‘s vision of the Almighty; and the subject was deemed so mysterious as to call for special caution in its study. The vision must be compared with other manifestations of the divine glory Exodus 24:10; Isaiah 6:1; Daniel 7:9; Revelation 4:2. Each of these visions has some of the outward signs or symbols here recorded. If we examine these symbols we shall find them to fall readily into two classes,

(1) Those which we employ in common with the writers of all ages and countries. “Gold, sapphire, burnished brass,” the “terrible crystal” are familiar images of majestic glory, “thunders, lightnings” and “the rushing storm” of awful power. But

(2) We come to images to our minds strange and almost grotesque. That the “Four Living Creatures” had their groundwork in the cherubim there can be no doubt. And yet their shapes were very different. Because they were symbols not likenesses, they could yet be the same though their appearance was varied.

Of what are they symbolic? They may, according to the Talmudists, have symbolized orders of Angels and not persons; according to others they were figures of the Four Gospels actuated by one spirit spread over the four quarters of the globe, upon which, as on pillars, the Church is borne up, and over whom the Word of God sits enthroned. The general scope of the vision gives the best interpretation of the meaning.

Ezekiel saw “the likeness of the glory of God.” Here His glory is manifested in the works of creation; and as light and fire, lightning and cloud, are the usual marks which in inanimate creation betoken the presence of God Psalm 18:6-14 - so the four living ones symbolize animate creation. The forms are typical, “the lion” and “the ox” of the beasts of the field (wild and tame), “the eagle” of the birds of the air, while “man” is the rational being supreme upon the earth. And the human type predominates over all, and gives character and unity to the four, who thus form one creation. Further, these four represent the constitutive parts of man‘s nature: “the ox” (the animal of sacrifice), his faculty of suffering; “the lion” (the king of beasts), his faculty of ruling; “the eagle” (of keen eye and soaring wing), his faculty of imagination; “the man,” his spiritual faculty, which actuates all the rest.

Christ is the Perfect Man, so these four in their perfect harmony typify Him who came to earth to do His Father‘s will; and as man is lord in the kingdom of nature, so is Christ Lord in the kingdom of grace. The “wings” represent the power by which all creation rises and falls at God‘s will; the “one spirit,” the unity and harmony of His works; the free motion in all directions, the universality of His Providence. The number “four” is the symbol of the world with its “four quarters;” the “veiled” bodies, the inability of all creatures to stand in the presence of God; the “noise of the wings,” the testimony borne by creation to God Psalm 19:1-3; the “wheels” connect the vision with the earth, the wings with heaven, while above them is the throne of God in heaven. Since the eye of the seer is turned upward, the lines of the vision become less distinct. It is as if he were struggling against the impossibility of expressing in words the object of his vision: yet on the summit of the throne is He who can only be described as, in some sort, the form of a man. That Yahweh, the eternal God, is spoken of, we cannot doubt; and such passages as Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; John 1:14; John 12:41, justify us in maintaining that the revelation of the divine glory here made to Ezekiel has its consummation or fulfillment in the person of Christ, the only-begotten of God (compare Revelation 1:17-18).

The vision in the opening chapter of Ezekiel is in the most general form - the manifestation of the glory of the living God. It is repeated more than once in the course of the book (compare Ezekiel 8:2, Ezekiel 8:4; Ezekiel 9:3; 10; Ezekiel 11:22; Ezekiel 40:3). The person manifested is always the same, but the form of the vision is modified according to special circumstances of time and place.

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Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary

It is a mercy to have the word of God brought to us, and a duty to attend to it diligently, when we are in affliction. The voice of God came in the fulness of light and power, by the Holy Spirit. These visions seem to have been sent to possess the prophet's mind with great and high thoughts of God. To strike terror upon sinners. To speak comfort to those that feared God, and humbled themselves. In ver.

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SDA Bible Commentary (limited)
Volume 1-7

1. Thirtieth year. With the characteristic accuracy of a faithful historian, Ezekiel begins his prophetic dissertation with a careful dating of the events concerned. It was the 30th year. However, he does not specify the particular event that marks the beginning of this period. Many believe that he refers to the 30th year of his life. The age of 30 was significant from the point of view that at this age the Hebrew youth were considered to have reached maturity. This was the year in which the Levites originally began their Temple functions (Num. 4:3). It was in or about their 30th year that both our Lord and John the Baptist began their public ministry (see on Matt. 3:1).

Since this 30th year is equated with the 5th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity (see on Eze. 1:2), the 1st year of the 30 would be (according to two of the possible reckonings) a significant year, the 18th of Josiah; for it was then the book of the law was discovered in the Temple (2 Kings 22:3-8). This event marked the beginning of a reformation that, if successfully followed up, would have done much to alter the future history of Judah. It is possible that Ezekiel had this important incident in mind when he designated the 30th year.

Fourth month. Numbered from the spring month Nisan, regardless of whether the calendar year was reckoned from spring or fall (Vol. II, pp. 108-110, 116). The 4th month would begin in our June or July, 593 or 592 (see on v. 2).

Among the captives. That is, Ezekiel was in the midst of the region where the captives were settled. The vision came to him privately, and was later to be delivered publicly (ch. 3:1, 4).

Chebar. By most earlier commentators this river was identified with Habor, the modern Nahr el-KhÃƒÂ¡bÃƒÂ»r in northern Mesopotamia. The difficulty with this view was that this river was not “in the land of the Chaldeans” (v. 3). However, recent excavations carried out at Nippur, in Babylonia proper, have uncovered evidences of a settlement of Jews in the area in about the 7th to the 5th century b.c. Through this vicinity ran one of the great Babylonian canals known as NÃƒÂ¢ru Kabari, which is probably the river to which Ezekiel here refers.

Visions of God. These were not only visions given by God but manifestations of the divine glory to the prophetic eye. Such revelations are termed theophanies. They frequently accompany the call of a prophet. Thus, Isaiah trembled before the awful display of the throne high and lifted up (Isa. 6:1); Moses beheld the glory in the burning bush (Ex. 3:2); John the revelator saw one like the Son of man walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks (Rev. 1:13). What was the purpose of these visions of God? They may be regarded as grand introductions by which God ushers the prophet into a new realm of knowledge and insight, a new era of experience, a new phase of responsibility. In their capacity as prophets these messengers would be expected to speak with conviction concerning divine matters. No mere mental suppositions would do. They would have to speak of things actually seen. It was an advantage for them to be able to say with Isaiah, “Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5).

So impressed was Ezekiel with his vision of divine glory that he noted down the precise time. It was the 5th day of the 4th month of the 5th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity (v. 2). Christians do well to note down and oft recall special interventions of divine Providence and unusual revelations of the divine presence in their experience.

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Ellen G. White
Prophets and Kings, 535-6

Every nation that has come upon the stage of action has been permitted to occupy its place on the earth, that the fact might be determined whether it would fulfill the purposes of the Watcher and the Holy One. Prophecy has traced the rise and progress of the world's great empires—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. With each of these, as with the nations of less power, history has repeated itself. Each has had its period of test; each has failed, its glory faded, its power departed. PK 535.1

While nations have rejected God's principles, and in this rejection have wrought their own ruin, yet a divine, overruling purpose has manifestly been at work throughout the ages. It was this that the prophet Ezekiel saw in the wonderful representation given him during his exile in the land of the Chaldeans, when before his astonished gaze were portrayed the symbols that revealed an overruling Power that has to do with the affairs of earthly rulers. PK 535.2

Upon the banks of the river Chebar, Ezekiel beheld a whirlwind seeming to come from the north, “a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber.” A number of wheels intersecting one another were moved by four living beings. High above all these “was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.” “And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man's hand under their wings.” Ezekiel 1:4, 26; 10:8. The wheels were so complicated in arrangement that at first sight they appeared to be in confusion; yet they moved in perfect harmony. Heavenly beings, sustained and guided by the hand beneath the wings of the cherubim, were impelling those wheels; above them, upon the sapphire throne, was the Eternal One; and round about the throne was a rainbow, the emblem of divine mercy. PK 535.3

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Cross References

in the thirtieth

as I