Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
As it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne. The throne of Yahweh appearing in the midst of the judgments (Ezekiel 9:1-11) implies that, whatever intermediate agencies be employed, He controls them, and that the whole flows as a necessary consequence from His essential holiness (Ezekiel 1:22; Ezekiel 1:26).
The cherubim - in Ezekiel 1:5 called "living creatures." The repetition of the vision implies that the judgments are approaching nearer and nearer. These two visions of Deity were granted in the beginning of Ezekiel's career, to qualify him for witnessing to God's glory amidst his God-forgetting people, and to stamp truth on his announcements; also to signify the removal of God's manifestation from the visible temple (Ezekiel 10:18), not to return for a long period (Ezekiel 43:2). The feature (Ezekiel 10:12) mentioned as to the cherubim, that they were "full of eyes," though omitted in the former vision, is not a difference, but a more specific detail, observed by Ezekiel now on closer inspection. Also, here there is no rainbow (the symbol of mercy after the flood of wrath) as in the former; for here judgment is the prominent thought, though the marking of the remnant, in Ezekiel 9:4; Ezekiel 9:6, shows that there was mercy in the background. The cherubim, perhaps, represent redeemed humanity, combining in and with itself the highest forms of subordinate creaturely life (cf. Romans 8:20). Therefore they are associated with the 24 elders, and distinguished from the angels, (Revelation 5:1-14.) They stand on the mercy-seat of the ark, and on that ground become the habitation of God, from which His glory is to shine upon the world. The different forms symbolize the different phases of the Church. So the quadriform Gospel, in which the incarnate Saviour has lodged the revelation of Himself in a four-fold aspect, and from which His glory shines on the Christian world, answers to the emblematic throne from which He shone on the Jewish Church.