Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 10:17

When they stood, [these] stood; and when they were lifted up, [these] lifted up themselves [also]: for the spirit of the living creature [was] in them.

17. lift up themselves ] Were lifted up with them.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Eze 10:17

When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also.

Feet and wings

Flying creatures have wings for the air and feet for the ground. This touch of nature is put on Gods cherubim. The prophet intends no special religious lesson here, but the fact he cites may be used to convey such.

I. The subject of Christian experience, what it is and how to be maintained. We have faculties of locomotion, feeding, sense, perception, etc., by which we act our parts on foot, as it were. We have attributes of faith perception, love appropriation, spiritual imagination, in which we become aerial creatures, resting suspensively in things above the world. This uplifting produces the transcendent mystery of experience in Christian conversion. We rise by trust in God–admitting the full revelation of His truth and friendship. Can the soul thus lifted stay in that serene element? It has gravitations which pull it all the while downward, and settle it on its feet, as the flying creatures fold their wings when they settle. Let us trace some of the instances and ways in which it ceases to live by faith. When a man of enterprise thinks of independence, how easily, how insensibly he ceases to hang on Providence as he did. His prayers lose their fervour. God is far less dear and less consciously present; and how long will he have the consciousness of His presence at all? The moment any disciple touches ground with but the tip of his foot, and begins to rest on earthly props, a mortal weakness takes him, and he goes down. Only a calm and loving return to his trust will recover him, and God is faithful enough to be trusted at all times. Let there be this rest by faith, and he will carry himself more steadily in studies, toils, or engagements. Sometimes obscurations may occur, but he has only to believe the more strongly and wait till they be cleared.

II. Many persons miss ever going above a service on foot, by not conceiving at all the more ethereal range of experience into which true faith would lift them. Sometimes they become reformers or philanthropists. They mean business in their religion, caring little for the fervours that are not fervours of work, The combining and roiling up of great masses of opinion are the means by which they expect to carry their projects. Censure and storm and fiery denunciation are close at hand. They, many times, do not conceive that they are disciples because of their repentances, or their prayers, or sensing of God by their faith, or any other grace that separates them from the world. They have much to say of love, but they visibly hate more strongly than they love. They never go above to descend upon the reform by inspirations there kindled; they keep on their feet, and war with the evils on the same level with them. Sometimes they attempt self-culture in the name of religion. They could mend defects, chasten faults, put themselves in the charities they have learned from Christ, perhaps, to admire; but the work is a far more hopeless one than they imagine, if there is no uplifting help from gracious inspirations. Oh, if they would go up to Christ, or to God in a true faith culture, faults would fall off, as blasted flowers from a tree, by the life principle therein. Sometimes they suppose they are religious because of a certain patronage they give to the Church and the Word. Not being in the gift of spiritual discernment, their tastes will be the better; and as there are always a great many reasons why a thing should not be done to any single reason why it should, they assume to be specially qualified critics. They contribute these critical powers, while others, less gifted, may contribute their prayers! Such negatives do not belong to the range of the Spirit, but to the nether world of fashion or opinion or custom. The critics have feet, but no wings. If they could give themselves over in trust to the Saviour, instead of giving their opinions and tastes, their contributions would be of worthier significance. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

These two verses are explained, Eze 1:20, which see. A perfect harmony between second causes in their dependence on and subjection to the one infinite, wise, good, holy, and just God.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

17. (Eze 1:12;Eze 1:20; Eze 1:21).

stoodGod never standsstill (Joh 5:17), thereforeneither do the angels; but to human perceptions He seems to do so.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

When they stood, [these] stood,…. When the one were inactive, lifeless, and without motion, making no progress in knowledge, experience, and practice, the other were so likewise;

[See comments on Eze 1:21];

and when they were lifted up, [these] lifted up themselves [also]; like people, like priest, whether in things commendable or not, Ho 4:9;

for the spirit of the living creature [was] in them; the same spirit that was in the cherubim was in the wheels; and the same Spirit of God, who is a “spirit of life” c, as the words may be rendered, is in the churches, as in the ministers; generally speaking, if the one are lively, the other are also, and both move as they are acted by the Spirit; and also their motion from place to place, which is spoken of in Eze 10:18, is directed by the Spirit; see Ac 16:6.

c , Sept. “spiritus vitae”, V. L. Starckius.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

As he just said that the wheels were obedient to the movement of the living creatures, so he now says that they ceased with them. But in this place it seems as if some incongruity might arise: for it is not correct to say that angels ever rest. We know that their quickness and promptness in executing God’s commands is celebrated. (Psa 103:20.) Then since angels are the powers of God, it follows that they never cease from their office of working. For God never can rest; he sustains the world by his energy, he governs everything however minute, so that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his decree. (Mat 10:29.) And there is that known and celebrated sentence of Christ, My Father and I work hitherto. (Joh 5:17.) Since, therefore, God never rests from his works, how then can that resting be explained of which the Prophet says, when the angels stood, the wheels also stood? I reply: it must be taken in a human sense; for although God works continually by means of angels, yet he seems sometimes to rest between. For he does not govern his works in any equable manner, as for instance, the heavens are sometimes calm, and at others agitated, so that a great variety appears in God’s works, from which we may imagine that he is sometimes in vehement motion, and at others at perfect repose. This, therefore, is the cessation of which the Prophet now speaks when he says, the living creatures stood, and at the same time the wheels with them Experience also confirms this; for God sometimes seems to mingle heaven and earth, and rouses us by unaccustomed work, while at others the course of his works seems to flow like a placid river. So that it is not absurd to say that the wheels stood with the living creatures, and proceeded and were elevated with them He adds, the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels, I explained this point, in the first chapter, but here it may be shortly explained, that the spirit is here taken for secret vigor or instinct. The wheels are not properly animated, because we said that the events of things are represented to us by this word, and whatever seems to happen in the world; but their incomprehensible vigor and agitation proceeds from God’s command, so that all creatures are animated by angelic motion: not that there is a conversion of the angel into an ox or a man, but because God exerts and diffuses his energy in a secret manner, so that no creature is content with his own peculiar vigor, but is animated by angels themselves. Now it follows —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

17. Lifted up themselves, etc. Literally, were lifted up with them; for the spirit of life was in them.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments