Ezekiel 1

The same guardian function we saw at Eden's gate, now placed protectively over the covenant itself.

Ezekiel gives us the fuller, wilder version centuries later.

In Young's literal translation, Ezekiel 1:5 and 6 say, "And from the midst of it is a likeness of four living creatures, and this is their appearance, a likeness of man is theirs, and each one of them hath four wings." Worth being precise here, this describes a single body per creature, one head bearing four distinct faces at once, not four separate heads.

In verse 10, it says, "And the likeness of their faces is the face of man, and the face of a lion at the right of the four of them, and the face of an ox on the left of the four of them, and the face of an eagle of the four of them." One being, one body, human, lion, ox, and eagle all present in that single face, along with wheels described in the following verses moving with them, described later in Ezekiel 10:14 as bearing the specific face of a keruv itself, confirming these living creatures and the keruvim are one and the same being described across two visions.

This matters for exactly the reason we ended last episode on- Cherubim aren't gentle, soft-faced infants.

They're composite, formidable, multi-faced guardians, remarkably close in form and function to the Akkadian lamassu, the winged bull or lion figures with human heads that stood watch at the Mesopotamian palace and temple gates.

Mainstream biblical scholarship reads seraphim as composite celestial beings without pinning down a literal reptilian anatomy, so this remains a minority interpretive position rather than consensus.

But given how much genuine serpent and dragon imagery clusters around the throne room language across the ancient Near East, it's a coherent thread worth weighing rather than dismissing outright.

And here in Ezekiel, chapter 1, this is his call, but also just particularly his vision of the glory of the Lord.

Ezekiel 1:1, "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Kebar canal, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

On the fifth day of the month," it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, "the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Kebar canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there." Okay, super interesting here that Ezekiel is a priest.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

So, in these chapters, Tyre and Egypt are the center.

Tyre is described as a glorious cherub, like one of those described in Ezekiel 1 and Ezekiel 10.

Those majestic creatures that are underneath God's throne are described as cherubs, which is just an angelic creature.

And the description of Tyre as a cherub is kind of tongue-in-cheek, and it's meant to emphasize how even though Tyre thinks they're hot stuff and they're very prideful, they're going to be brought down and judged.

You find the tetramorph in the Old and the New Testament.

Ezekiel 1, the face of a man, the face of a lion, the face of an ox, the face of an eagle.

And we'll see the eagle is Scorpio, and we'll get to that in just a second.

And Revelation 4, of course, you see the same sort of thing.