Ezekiel 1:15,16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now as I beheld, &c. The prophet here proceeds to relate what he saw besides the living creatures, which he had described in the foregoing verses. Behold one wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures By each of the living creatures stood one wheel, so that they were four in number, according to the number of the living creatures. While he was contemplating the glory of the former vision, this other was presented to him: wherein the dispensations of providence are compared to the wheels of a machine, which all contribute to the regular motion of it. The shape of wheels, and their fitness for continual motion, aptly represent the constant revolution of human affairs under the conduct of providence, which orders, governs, and changes. Sometimes one spoke of the wheel is uppermost, sometimes another. “Those persons or communities which to- day are at the top of the wheel, may to-morrow be at the bottom, beyond all human expectation or prevention; yet in the midst of apparent confusion, and while every thing seems hurried on by blind chance, or fatal necessity, the most perfect regularity is observed, and the changes are directed by as fixed laws as those which regulate the motions of the wheels.” Scott. The prophet's seeing the wheels upon the earth was intruded to denote, that the vision related to the affairs of this world; and the wheels being said to be beside the living creatures, which attended to direct their motions, manifests, that all inferior creatures are, and move, and act, as the Creator, by the ministration of angels, directs and influences them: visible effects are managed and governed by invisible causes. The appearance of the wheels That is, their colour, for it is plain that is here intended; and their work Their workmanship, form, or figure, as the word מעשׂה is repeatedly used, 1 Kings 7:17, &c., all that was wrought, whether engraved or otherwise, was of one colour; was like unto the colour of a beryl A gem of a bluish green; and called in the text here Tarshish, probably from the place whence it came. The colour intended is azure, or that of the blue sky mixed with a bright green: see Daniel 10:6. Probably the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God's providential government may be here signified by this beautiful colour of the wheels. They four had one likeness They were the same for dimensions, colour, frame, and motion, to indicate that there is a consistency and uniformity in all the dispensations of Divine Providence. Their appearance, &c., was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel This may be explained two ways; either, 1st, That there were smaller wheels connected with, and put in motion by the larger, an emblematical representation of the connection of causes and effects; or, 2d, That they crossed one another in the middle, to signify the unsearchableness of the divine dispensations, and the intricacy of the affairs of this world, which seem to cross and thwart each other; but yet all move under the superintendence of infinite wisdom, justice, and goodness.