EZEKIEL

EZEKIEL’S VISION INTERPRETED
(unknown author; part of my compilations)

The word etymon comes from the Hebrew word emet, which is translated as truth throughout scripture. It, too, has a root and that word is 'aman or 'faith'! This is where we get the English term 'amen'. Truth and faith are husband and wife in the eyes of God. There can be no true faith without receiving and embracing truth.

In ancient Egypt, the word or root amen, certainly means "what is hidden," "what is not seen," "what cannot be seen," and the like, and this fact is proved by scores of examples which may be collected from texts of all periods. In hymns to Amen we often read that he is "hidden to his children, "and "hidden to gods and men," and it has been stated that these expressions only refer to the "hiding," i.e., "setting" of the sun each evening, and that they are only to be understood in a physical sense, and to mean nothing more than the disappearance of the god Amen from the sight of men at the close of day. Now, not only is the god himself said to be "hidden," but his name also is "hidden," and his form, or similitude, is said to be "unknown;" these statements show that "hidden," when applied to Amen, the great god, has reference to something more than the "sun which has disappeared below the horizon," and that it indicates the god who cannot be seen with the mortal eyes, and who is invisible, as well as inscrutable, to gods as well as men.

The Egyptians wrote a remarkable document about Amen’s attributes that can be found here: http://www.touregypt.net/amenattr.htm . The further understand this essay, please read the entire document. It is too long to place here. This document lists attributes of Amen that parallel the Bible’s list of the attributes of Jehovah. God’s names and attributes are listed here: http://www.ldolphin.org/Names.html

Egyptian religion is, in the strictest sense, monotheistic (one God.) The Egyptians regarded the universe as a conscious act of creation by the One Great God. The fundamental doctrine was the unity of the Deity. This One God was never represented. It is the functions and attributes of his domain that were represented. Once a reference was made to his functions/attributes, he became a distinguishable agent; reflecting this particular function/attribute, and its influence on the world. His various functions and attributes as the Creator, Wise, Healer, Everlasting, and the like, were called the neteru, (singular: neter in the masculine form and netert in the feminine form.) As such, an Egyptian neter/netert was not a god/goddess but the personification of a specific function/attribute of the One God.

The Egyptian thinking that the One God can be represented through his functions/attributes has its equivalence in mankind. Each one of us has various functions and attributes. A person can be a teacher in the classroom, a father to his children, a husband to his wife, a player on his team, ... etc. This person does not have multiple personalities, but multiple functions/attributes.

At the above-referenced website, in the document describing Amen’s attributes, three of his attributes are personified by the bull, as protector, the lion, as “lord of flame, which goes out against His enemies”, the eagle (or falcon) as "the one who fought against the forces of primordial chaos", and the God Nu (the man), the prince who "advanceth at his hour to vivify (make alive) that which cometh forth upon his "potter's wheel”.” Among other things, the God Nu is the one “at whose utterance the "gods come into being, and food is created, and tchefau food is made, and {from whom} all things which are come into being”. The God Nu and Jesus are described with the same attributes, as the means of Creation (John 1:15).

According to Grik Hornung (The Gods of Egypt, the One and the Many).

" In the animal cults we find a tendency for the gods to help people broaden their minds in so many ways. One could be an Ibis or a crocodile and all sorts of different animals according to one’s whim.

The many different images of God seemed to make him more accessible to the people so their problems were more easily felt by Him. The individual animals were not the gods but could metamorphose into them, so that the image and spirit of each god could move towards them and into them."

Ezekiel 1:5-28 describes a vision of four living creatures. They looked like men, and had the following characteristics: every one had four faces and four wings; straight feet; the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot; they sparkled like the color of burnished brass; they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; all four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and all four had the face of an ox on the left side; all four also had the face of an eagle.

Verses 15 – 28 describes four wheels, and their appearance and work were “as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel”. After further description of the wheels, a voice comes from above them, from the firmament; verse 22 - And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. Verses 26 – 28 - And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake. Chapter 2 describes God telling Ezekiel to go and prophesy to Israel about their rebelliousness.

Rev. 4:1-9 describes a similar scene: there is a rainbow around the throne, in sight like unto an emerald; before the throne is a sea of glass like crystal; four beasts full of eyes - And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. Rev. 4:8 - 11 - And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

What Ezekiel saw was the throne of God in heaven, with the four living creatures surrounding the throne, whose eternal job it is to give glory, honor and thanks to God. These four creatures are the same in Hebrew and Egyptian texts as being personifications of the different aspects of God. http://www.mystae.com/reflections/messiah/riddle.html - the four faces of Ezekiel’s vision: http://publish.uwo.ca/~charring/egypt/04egypt.htm - Egyptian animal personifications

The following excerpt is taken from http://www.mystae.com/reflections/messiah/riddle.html :

The Jews of Jesus' time were primarily members of the tribe of Judah, the symbol for which is the lion (Gen. 49:9; Ezek. 19:1-9; Rev. 5:5). The imperial Gentile powers who were allowed to oppress Israel are described as eagles (Deut. 28:49-52; Ezek. 17:1-15; Hos. 8:1). Moreover, the armies of Rome, the last of such powers, marched under the standard of the eagle. The northern kingdom of Israel with its capital of Samaria was called the "house of Joseph," whose symbol is the bull (Josh. 18:5; Deut. 33:16-17). The northern tribes, predominantly those representing Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh, were known for cattle-raising. The "bulls of Bashan," famous for their size and strength, came from the northern kingdom (Ps. 22:12). God referred to the ten-tribe federation as an "untrained calf" or a "stubborn heifer" and its women as the "cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria" (Jer. 31:18; Hosea 4:1, 16; 10:11). The miracle-working prophets of Samaria, Elijah and Elisha, made offerings of bulls and oxen (1 Kgs. 18:33; 19:21). Idolatry in the north was directed toward images of bulls and calves (1 Kgs. 12:28; Hos. 8:5-6; see Amihai Mazar, "Bronze Bull found in Israelite ‘High Place' from the Time of the Judges," in BAR, Sept/Oct, 1983).

As if to confirm the Samaritan bull or ox as an identifier, when Luke quotes Jesus concerning an animal which might fall into a pit on the Sabbath, the animal is not a sheep as in Matthew, but instead an ox (Mt. 12:11; Lk. 14:5). In Luke's parable of the Prodigal Son, the father slaughters a young bull so that his repentant son may feast (Lk. 15:11-32). The Prodigal Son story's typology of Christ as the bull whose flesh is offered to sustain believers was not lost on Irenaeus, who correctly saw it as a validation of the bull as Luke's symbol (Irenaeus, loc. cit.).

The classification of the Gospels as Matthew/Jew/lion, Mark/Gentile/eagle, Luke/Samaritan/bull and John/Jesus/man is not subjective. Commentaries from across the theological spectrum will confirm the Jewishness of Matthew, the Roman Gentile affinity of Mark, the special sympathy for Samaritans evident in Luke and, finally, the peculiar "Jesus-centeredness" of John. The animal symbols corresponding to the ethnic groups are similarly straightforward. No one can claim, for example, that the symbol of the lion is just as appropriate for Rome, the leading Gentile power of the first century, as it is for Judea, or that the bull is no more fitting than the eagle as a symbol for Samaria.

We have seen that the intriguing alignment of the canonical Gospels with ethnic categories and their animal symbols may be demonstrated from various passages. One Old Testament book seems disproportionately represented as a source for these, the book of Ezekiel. The importance of four-sided design in the Ezekiel temple plan is illustrated by the square outer wall, which has a rectangular kitchen court at each of its corners (46:21-22). Ezekiel also contains the only passage in the Hebrew Scriptures to predict that the three ethnic/spiritual categories of mankind would be reconciled to God, listing them as Jerusalem, Samaria and Sodom (Ezek. 16). Messianic references occur at Ezekiel 34:24 and 37:25. A mysterious angelic "man" who reveals the temple plan stands beside Ezekiel in the inner temple court just as God announces this room to be the resting place for the "soles of my feet" (Ezek. 43:6-7). Key ingredients of a foursome consisting of Messiah as a man and three divisions of humanity are therefore present. What about the animal symbols?

Ezekiel 19:1-9 is the only Old Testament passage apart from Genesis 49:9 to identify plainly the lion as the symbol for Judah and its dynasty. Ezekiel also contains the most explicit reference to imperial Gentile powers as "eagles" (Ezek. 17:1-15). The symbol for Samaria, the bull or ox, would seem to be missing until we look closely at instructions Ezekiel is given for a mock assault upon Israel. He is told to pantomime a siege of the northern kingdom for 390 days, followed by a 40-day siege of Jerusalem and Judah. During the first siege he must eat coarse bread baked over a fire made with human excrement to illustrate the consumption of unclean food by Samaritan refugees. The implication is that the exiles will suffer so severely as to be forced to eat food contaminated by their own dung. When Ezekiel protests that the enactment is too revolting for him to bear, God allows him to cook with manure of cattle (baqar) in place of human offal (Ezek. 4:9-15). The concession subtly equates the people of Samaria with cattle or oxen. Remarkably, then, all three of the animal symbols of the Synoptic Gospels are confirmed in Ezekiel, the very book which introduces them as the three animal faces of the cherubim. (End of excerpt)

Egypt (ancient Kemet in Africa) is the birthplace of the human race, as well as a birthplace of great spiritual and intellectual learning. It is not a far stretch to believe that Egyptians understood God, and His greatness, just as the Hebrews did, and it’s a fact that the Egyptians knew more science, biology, mathematics, society, cultural, etc. than any civilization known to mankind. This could have only come from God revealing Himself to them, and their quest to understand Him more. Egypt fell victim to the same sins as Israel committed, idolatry, which is why God’s blessings left them also. The Egyptian use of animals to represent the different personifications of God has been a key help in understanding the identities of the four living creatures who surround the throne. These creatures represent all of mankind, who worship the Lord day and night, forever.

God is reconciling the House of Judah (the faithful 2 tribes), the House of Israel (the apostate 10 tribes), and the Gentiles back to Him in these Last Days.