Chapter 10

And now I looked up at the vault over the cherubim, and there was the hue of sapphire, and the likeness of a throne.

And his word came to the man clad in linen, Make thy way in where the whirring is loudest, beneath the cherubim, take a handful of the coals that lie there among them, and pour these out over the city. So I watched him make his way in;

and all the while, as he did so, the cherubs were standing close to the right of the temple, and the inner court was full of smoke.

And the brightness of the Lord’s presence, cherub-throned, rose up above the threshold, till the house was all smoke, and all the precincts filled with the divine radiance;

and ever the beating of the cherubs’ wings could be heard in the outer court, loud as the voice of the Omnipotent heard in thunder.

There by the wheels stood the man clad in linen, ready to receive the cherub-guarded flame as he was bidden;

and one cherub, parting from the rest, reached hand out, took fire from the midst, and gave it him; so he went on his errand.

Cherub hand shewed under every cherub wing.

Such was the vision I saw; four wheels beside four cherubim, one by each, and their colour shewed like aquamarine;

all alike had the same appearance, of a wheel within a wheel.

Moved they to this quarter or that, they followed ever without ado the lead of the foremost; there was no turning about when they moved.

Eyes were everywhere, on body and neck and hand and wing and wheel too, for each cherub had its own wheel.

(It was these wheels I had heard spoken of as the whirring.2)

Fourfold was the semblance of them, now cherub, now man, now lion, now eagle.

They rose aloft, these cherubim, (such living figures as I had seen by Chobar;

the wheels accompanying them as they went, never left behind, but still at their side when they spread their wings for flight,

resting when they rested, rising when they rose; these too had a living impulse in them),

and therewith the bright presence of the Lord left the temple threshold, and stood there, cherub-throned.

With my own eyes I saw them, as they spread their wings and rose aloft; saw the wheels follow as they went; saw a halt made3 at the eastern gate of the temple, and the Lord’s bright presence resting above them.

Full well I knew that cherubs they were, these living figures I had seen bearing God’s throne by Chobar,

each with four semblances, and four wings, and human hands shewing under their wings;

the same faces, the same looks, I had seen by Chobar, the same onward impulse of their journeying.