Their wings were joined one to another. — i.e., the outstretched right wing of one cherub was joined at its tip to the left wing of another, so that although four, they yet constituted in some sense but one creature, all moving in harmony and by a common impulse. This applies to the cherubim only when in motion; when they stood, the wings were let down (Ezekiel 1:24). The joining of the extremities of the outstretched wings of the cherubim recalls the arrangement in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:27), in which the wings of the larger cherubim touched one another above the mercy-seat.
They turned not when they went. — Whichever way they wished to go, they could still go “straight forward,” i.e., in the direction towards which they looked, since they looked in all directions, and their round feet made it equally easy to move in any way. It would at first seem that as two of the wings of each cherub were used to cover their bodies (Ezekiel 1:11), the wings would have required their turning when they changed their course; but if we conceive of the four cherubim as arranged to form a square, and with their wings moving as one creature, this difficulty disappears.