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The living creatures or men had each of them a wheel or a revolving, whirling sphere along side of them. Eze. 1:15 What Ezekiel saw was much more than ordinary wheels with their accompanying spokes. These wheels are living, active wheels. Solomon spoke of the direction of the wind and the fact that it whirls about continuously. Eccl. 1:6 That brings us to the nature of the wheels and their constant activity. Ezekiel was to see the wheels again and when he does, he explains that the spirit of the living creature was in them. Eze. 10:17 From his statement we must draw the conclusion that these whirling, circling spheres are similar to the circle of a hurricane or a tornado. The word for wind and spirit in Hebrew is ruach. Surely, the wheels symbolize the activity of the Spirit at the fullness of His power. The wheel within a wheel, the double portion or totality of the Spirit. Eze. 1:16 The four were not moved about by the rotation of the wheels but were transported by the power of Spirit. Eze. 1:17
Ezekiel was greatly impressed by the overwhelming appearance of the rings or the rims of the wheels. Eze. 1:18 He had been shown things heavenly and eternal, now is trying to translate them into a language which those who would read his report could easily understand. From the terms he used we can only deduct that these were huge circles. The same word rings is translated in Eze. 16:24, 31, 39 as eminent, which would speak to their prominence or outstanding nature. Impressive, to say the least. The height of the rings not only related to their size but is translated loftiness in Jer. 48:29, While in Job 40:10 the same word is excellence. He called them dreadful however, the same Hebrew word is translated with a positive meaning as fear or reverence. Such as is found in Ps. 111:10 where fear or reverence toward the Lord is the beginning of lessons of wisdom.
The multiplicity of eyes were seen not only in the rings (Eze. 1:8) but also on the whole bodies were covered with eyes, thus conveying the ability of these living ones to be able to see as the Lord Himself sees. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere seeing both good and evil. To see the good would be uplifting. To have to behold all the wickedness of men would be atrocious. Prov. 15:3 Zechariah declared that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through out the whole of the earth. Zech. 4:10 This would certainly concur with the ability of the four living creatures to move with the speed of light. No individual is ever out of the sight of the Lord. That can work in a positive or a negative manner, depending entirely on our actions. 1 Pet. 3:12 .