10:9 As I watched, I noticed 2 four wheels by the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub; 3 the wheels gleamed like jasper. 4 10:10 As for their appearance, all four of them looked the same, something like a wheel within a wheel. 5 10:11 When they 6 moved, they would go in any of the four directions they faced without turning as they moved; in the direction the head would turn they would follow 7 without turning as they moved, 10:12 along with their entire bodies, 8 their backs, their hands, and their wings. The wheels of the four of them were full of eyes all around. 10:13 As for their wheels, they were called “the wheelwork” 9 as I listened.
1 tn The Hebrew term is normally used as an architectural term in describing the plan or pattern of the tabernacle or temple or a representation of it (see Exod 25:8; 1 Chr 28:11).
2 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
3 tn The MT repeats this phrase, a clear case of dittography.
4 tn Heb “Tarshish stone.” The meaning is uncertain. The term has also been translated “topaz” (NEB), “beryl” (KJV, NASB, NRSV), and “chrysolite” (RSV, NIV).
5 tn Or “like a wheel at right angles to another wheel.” Some envision concentric wheels here, while others propose “a globe-like structure in which two wheels stand at right angles” (L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:33-34). See also 1:16.
6 sn That is, the cherubim.
7 tn Many interpreters assume that the human face of each cherub was the one that looked forward.
8 tc The phrase “along with their entire bodies” is absent from the LXX and may be a gloss explaining the following words.
9 tn Or “the whirling wheels.”
10 tn Heb “lifted.”