The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel

by Arthur W. Orton

This short verse is very clear, yet you wonder how a creature with four faces and four wings could possibly be taken for a man, even by you or me.

Although he does not say so, we can imply that these creatures must have advanced much closer to him after they got out of the fire and cloud, for him to be able to see so much detail.

Imagine the courage it took for him to stay put in order to observe these creatures. Notice also how objective he is, never mentioning his own feelings.

7. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

Each verse of the description covers one or two parts of the creatures. When Ezekiel mentions more than one part it becomes confusing, so that one verse seems to contradict another. These can usually be sorted out however. Nowhere will you find a direct contradiction.

Here he is describing the feet only. The word "straight" can be taken several ways. Does he mean regular feet, or feet that point straight forward, or feet that are straight up and down, like an elephant's? Probably he means regular, forward-pointing feet because he does not dwell on the point. In other places he leans heavily on simile to describe some unusual feature of the beings.

The sole of the foot sounds as if it was heavily cleated. What then has he described in this verse? For a person living in a warm climate who had never seen any footwear more complicated than a sandal, he has described a highly polished leather, plastic or metal boot very well.

8. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

Notice carefully that he is not saying that each creature had four man-like hands, one on each of four sides. He is saying that each has the normal number of hands and they are located below their wings. Remember that he was a careful observer and he had probably noticed that birds have wings instead of arms. These had both. In addition, he has given us another bit of information about the distribution of the wings. They do not appear to be arranged like a biplane, but each wing is at a ninety-degree angle from its neighboring wing like a helicopter.

Ezekiel must have been something of a numerologist. He points out that there are four creatures, and each of the four has four faces each, and each has four wings each—but not four hands.