Ezekiel’s Throne Vision – P3: The Climax by slaveofone
See P1: Introduction and P2: A Radical New Translation.
Interpreting and translating Ezekiel 1:27 has proved a problematic task. Like many other verses of the throne vision (and not uncommon to Hebrew in general), it requires insertion of the English verb to be
to distinguish subject from predicate. But what has mystified most translators is the construction בֵּית־לָהּ, which I have rendered the house belonging to her,
or more simply her house
(see note m). Because most translators either follow the streamlined version from the Septuagint, which lacks this construction, or are predisposed to view the image of a person on the chair at the end of v. 26 as the necessary climax and ultimate subject of the vision, either the entire construction has been dropped from translation, its syntax hijacked to serve other uses, or the surrounding Hebrew ignored.
First, the structure of the throne vision indicates that whatever is discussed in v. 27 is not to be equated within the one on the throne. Virtually all English translations have made this verse speak about the enthroned one’s loins or body and the enthroned one’s appearance. Regardless of any stages of editing, the throne vision as we have it contains six instances of the verb ראה, one in the introduction (v. 1), one in the conclusion (v. 28bβ), and four in the body of the vision itself (vv. 4, 15, 27a, 27b). The body of the vision is structured according to the repetition of sentences beginning with the verb וארא, or And I saw/looked,
which is followed by the particle הנה twice (vv. 4, 15), although with some variation. The vision is brought to a climax by the dual appearance of ראה in the final section. After being reminded in the conclusion that Ezekiel saw
these things, we are told that he heard a voice speaking, which then moves the reader into the vocational account containing sentences beginning with the verb ויאמר, or And he said.
Since v. 27 begins with the verb ראה to indicate a change in perspective, this signals a change in description from a discussion of the one on the throne immediately preceding to something else. The verb is then repeated in v. 27 to emphasize and clarify what has just been described—a kind of expanded repetition that occurs frequently throughout the throne vision. So what is that something else?
If translations have followed the Hebrew by looking somewhere other than at the one on the throne, then they have routinely identified the something
which is being described either as the unidentified and unknown ḥašmal (translations which identify this word base that identification on the Greek translation) or as the fire. By looking at the verse, we should be able to dispel both of these ideas. The predicate of the verse is identified not only by what the prepositional kap̄ (translated as
or like
) is affixed to in כעין חשׁמל and כמראה־אשׁ, but through the use of one of these phrases in almost identical form in v. 4 (the only difference between them being the presence or absence of a definite article). This shows us that the sight of (the) ḥašmal,
and the appearance of fire,
both function as modifiers of the subject in order to tell us what that subject is like. The Hebrew is presenting us with something that has an appearance like ḥašmal and fire, not with ḥašmal and fire that has the appearance of something (like the one on the throne or its body/loins). The only way of turning the ḥašmal or the fire into the subject is to ignore the prefixed kap̄ or turn it from a preposition into a verb, which almost all English translations are fond of doing. If we don’t ignore or amend the Hebrew to suite our own whims, this leaves בֵּית־לָהּ as our only and appropriate subject. In v. 4, the sight of the ḥašmal is being used to describe what the bright light around the cloud and from the midst of the fire looked like. In v. 27, the sight of the ḥašmal and the appearance of fire are being used to describe what בֵּית־לָהּ (her house/its house/the house belonging to her) looked like.
So what is this house and why doesn’t it seem to have any bearing on English translations? The house disappears either because people are translating based on the Greek, which lacks this (among many other things in the throne vision), because they simply don’t like it (it interferes with their desire to make the one on the throne, the ḥašmal, or the fire the subject), or because it suggests a feminine understanding of or association with the deity (which offends or troubles some sorts of people). But if we are going to deal with the Hebrew itself, we must deal with this house/dwelling-place and its feminine suffix. Since the imagery of the vision communicates YHWH’s judgment upon Israel and abandonment of sanctuary and land, I suggest that the house
is the Jerusalem temple and that her
refers either to Shaddai (a name that has feminine connotations and associations) and/or the divine presence, composed primarily of the living being(s) and set in motion by the Spirit (both of which are grammatically feminine), which is supposed to belong to and descend over the temple. The elaborate description of the temple as having an appearance like fire and ḥašmal all around, from its structure upward and from its structure downward, and surrounded by bright light, visually represents the total destruction of Jerusalem and temple. The placement of this fiery house at the end of the vision, offset from the rest of the imagery as the last thing Ezekiel sees, serves to highlight this fatal future event as the (first) principle subject-matter of his prophetic activity. Ezekiel may then have fallen on his face at the end of his vision report not just because he was terrified, pious, or overcome by the glory before him, but because the sight of YHWH’s house being consumed in horrendous conflagration crushed his heart to dust.
Alternatively, the house of fire could be a heavenly sanctuary as opposed to an earthly one. In the Book of Watchers, Enoch sees celestial apparitions that directly parallel Ezek 1 as well as a fiery temple whose upper and lower structure is described:
And look, another open door before me: and a house greater than the former one, and it was all built of tongues of fire. Its floor was of fire, and its upper part was flashes of lightning and shooting stars, and its ceiling was a flaming fire. And I was looking and I saw a lofty throne; and it’s appearance was like ice, and its wheels were like the shining sun, and the voice (or sound) of the cherubim, and from beneath the throne issued rivers of flaming fire. And I was unable to see. The Great Glory sat upon it; (1 Enoch 14:15, 17-20a)
George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 35.
Just as the imagery of Ezek 1 is meant to evoke the judgment that the prophet will be commissioned to proclaim against Israel for her sins, so the parallel vision in the Book of Watchers takes place in reference to Enoch’s commission to proclaim YHWH’s judgment against the Watchers for their iniquity. All these similarities would seem to indicate that the interpretation of a house of fire in Ezek 1:27 was known among the ancient Hebrew people, even if it has been long forgotten or dismissed by English-speaking ones.