Wheel in the Sky Keep on Turning

#46: “Wheel in the Sky Keep on Turning” by Brendon Wahlberg
When I was growing up in the 1970’s, “Chariots of the Gods” was a popular book. The basic idea of this book was that ancient alien astronauts had visited Earth and influenced mankind in the distant past. Monuments like the pyramids and statues like those on Easter Island were said to be evidence of these visits. Another thing said to contain evidence of ancient aliens was the Bible. Specifically, the visions of the prophet Ezekiel were said to contain a record of a visit from flying saucers and strange alien beings. It amazes me how the Bible can be so wildly misinterpreted sometimes.
Here is the passage which supposedly describes aliens and their spacecraft. “Then I looked, and above the dome that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in form resembling a throne. […] and a cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house; the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the Lord. The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almightywhen he speaks. […] I looked, and there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like gleaming beryl. And as for their appearance, the four looked alike, something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved; but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without veering as they moved. Their entire body, their rims, their spokes, their wings, and the wheels—the wheels of the four of them - were full of eyes all round. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing ‘the wheel-work’. Each one had four faces: the first face was that of the cherub, the second face was that of a human being, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle.
The cherubim rose up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar. When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise up from the earth, the wheels at their side did not veer. When they stopped, the others stopped, and when they rose up, the others rose up with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stopped above the cherubim. The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim.” (Ezekiel 10:1-20)
U.F.O. enthusiasts took this passage to be a description of the wheel shapes of flying saucers, the physics-defying flight capabilities of those ships, and the alien faces of their pilots. Poor Ezekiel had a close encounter, and could only describe it in his primitive terms.
Of course, what is really going on in the passage is something completely different. To put it in a nutshell, God is leaving the defiled Temple in Jerusalem to go into exile with his people in Babylon, traveling on a mobile throne carried by angels, to return only in the future, when Jerusalem and the Temple are restored.
Ezekiel was probably both a Priest of the Temple and a prophet. A few dates will serve to sketch out his prophetic career (as worked out by scholars using clues within the book). In 597 BCE, Jerusalem was captured by Babylon and the first deportations of its people into exile began. Ezekiel’s prophecies began about four years later in 593, in Jerusalem. Six years after that, in 587, the Temple was destroyed, and another wave of deportations began. Ezekiel’s Priestly duties were over, and he went into exile himself. He continued his career as a prophet, comforting the people in exile with visions of future restoration, for another seventeen years.
So, Ezekiel was a prophet of the exile. His message had to help the people cope with the loss of their religious center. Prior to the destruction of the Temple, it was thought that God’s presence dwelled within the Temple, above the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. If the people were taken to Babylon, then they were separated from their God, right?
The passage above, far from being about aliens, is really meant to address this problem. And it does so be proposing that God has a mobile throne which can go anywhere he wants, including to Babylon. In fact, God has already left the Temple even before it gets destroyed, because of the abominations carried out there by people who think God has already deserted them. In Ezekiel 8, God explains why he must leave the Temple. The once Holy place is full of idols being worshipped. Women are weeping to the god Tammuz, and men are bowing down to a sun god.
“He said to me, ‘Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? […] So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all round, were all kinds of creeping things, and loathsome animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel. […] Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, “The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.” […] Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.” (Ezekiel 8:6-18)
Ezekiel describes how God exits via the east gate and leaves Jerusalem behind, his Holy presence unwilling to stay in a defiled place. “Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. And the glory of the Lord ascended from the middle of the city, and stopped on the mountain east of the city. The spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen left me. And I told the exiles all the things that the Lord had shown me.” (Ezekiel 11:22-25)
Ultimately, Ezekiel offers a vision of hope and restoration. After describing a Temple rebuilt to exacting specifications, he reveals that God will return to the sanctuary, flying in through the same gate from which he left. “Then he brought me to the gate, the gate facing east. And there, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east; the sound was like the sound of mighty waters; and the earth shone with his glory. The vision I saw was like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and like the vision that I had seen by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face. As the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the inner court; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” (Ezekiel 43:1-5)
Far from being an account of a past alien encounter, the vision of Ezekiel is about an encounter with God which is ongoing and forever. “Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them.
Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them for evermore. My dwelling-place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them for evermore.” (Ezekiel 37:21-28)