lanation of the Bible
Translator Andrey Tikhomirov
Editor Andrey Tikhomirov
© Andrey Tikhomirov, translation, 2022
ISBN 978-5-0059-1519-1
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel
Chapter 1
1 And it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was among the emigrants by the river Khovar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. (The show is a performance staged by the priests of Judaism to influence Ezekiel (from Hebrew «the Lord will strengthen», one of the first settlers).
2 On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year after the captivity of King Joachim), (At the age of 25, Ezekiel was taken captive to Babylon and settled in Chaldea).
3 The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans, by the river Khovar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him. (Ezekiel, like Jeremiah and Zechariah, belonged to the priestly family of the Sadokids and may have been on the staff of the Jerusalem temple, so the priests-hypnotists influenced them in order for them to influence their flock, and the flock to return to the bosom of Judaism).
4 And I saw, and behold, a stormy wind was coming from the north, a great cloud and a swirling fire, and a radiance around it, (the north wind, a cloud of smoke from the fire and the radiance produced by the fire).
5 and from the middle of it, as it were, the light of a flame from the middle of the fire; and from the middle of it, the likeness of four animals was visible, and this was their appearance: their appearance was like that of a man; (A complex construction on a chariot with the use of torches and all kinds of devices with images of animals and man, whose task is to frighten and influence on «the prophet).
6 and each has four faces, and each of them has four wings; (The design had images of faces with wings).
7 But their feet were straight legs, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of a calf’s foot, and they shone like shining brass. (The design had images or carved figures of legs with hooves of «sacred» animals).
8 And the hands of men were under their wings, on their four sides; (The human hands held the figures of the wings).
9 and their faces and their wings were all four; their wings touched one another; during their march they did not turn around, but walked each in the direction of their face. (The structure was moving and the wings were moving).
10 The likeness of their faces is the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side of all four of them; and on the left side the face of a bull on all four and the face of an eagle on all four. (The design had «sacred» images of certain human faces, lions, calves, eagles).
11 And their faces and their wings were separated from above, but each had two wings touching one another, and two covered their bodies. (The structure was moving and the wings were moving).
12 And they went, each one in the direction that was before him; wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went there; during their procession they did not turn around. (The structure was moving and the wings were moving).
13 And the appearance of these animals was like the appearance of burning coals, like the appearance of lamps; [fire] went among the animals, and the radiance from the fire and lightning came out of the fire. (This is a kind of scarecrow for gullible fearful people).
14 And the animals moved quickly to and fro, like lightning flashing. (The structure was moving and the animals were moving in different directions, apparently intending to break out of the fetters).
15 And I looked at the animals, and, behold, on the ground beside these animals, one wheel in front of their four faces. (The design also had wheels that were positioned in front of images of animal faces).
16 The appearance of the wheels and their arrangement is like the appearance of topaz, and the likeness of all four is the same; and by their appearance and arrangement it seemed as if the wheel was in the wheel. (Topaz is a mineral of the subclass of insular silicates, it can be of various colors: yellow, blue, pink or colorless. Complex wheel designs).
17 As they walked, they walked on their four sides; during the procession they did not turn around. (Between 593 and 591 BC, this event was repeated twice more in the same form, and about 20 years later – about 572 BC – for the fourth time. Three times Ezekiel took part in the flights of the «firmament». For the third and fourth time, that is, in 591 and 572 BC, as he claims, he was taken on a «divine» chariot from Khabur to Jerusalem. In 587 BC, that is, in the period between these two «flights», Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple erected by Solomon).
18 But their rims were high and terrible; their rims were full of eyes around all four of them. (Already in the Uruk period (chariots-carts were invented in the Southern Urals more than 4 thousand years ago) the Sumerians had wheeled carts, and since the third millennium BC, wheels, in order to reduce wear, began to be upholstered on the rim with nails with convex caps – such, for example, copper nails about 5 centimeters long).
19 And when the animals went, the wheels also went by [them]; and when the animals rose from the ground, then the wheels also rose. (American psychologists who studied this text found in Ezekiel symptoms of catalepsy – a painful numbness observed in a number of mental illnesses. The philosopher Karl Jaspers, a psychiatrist by training, published in 1947 a work devoted to an attempt to investigate the visions of the prophets from the point of view of psychopathology; he believes that they should be considered as hallucinations of paranoids prone to schizophrenia, that is, mentally ill with obsessive ideas. According to psychiatrists, the image of wheel rims dotted with «eyes» is a typical symptom of the disease. Many paranoids suffering from persecution mania claim that they constantly feel the gaze of many eyes on themselves just like Ezekiel).
20 Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they also went; wherever the spirit went, and the wheels rose up along with them, for the spirit of the animals was in the wheels. (The chariot of a complex design moved with great difficulty, since there were also living beings in it – people, animals, as well as their models – the «spirit of animals»).
21 When they walked, they walked; and when they stood, they stood; and when they rose from the ground, then the wheels also rose with them, for the spirit of the animals was in the wheels. (The chariot of a complex design moved with great difficulty, since there were also living beings in it – people, animals, as well as their models – the «spirit of animals»).
22 Above the heads of the animals was a kind of vault, like a kind of amazing crystal stretched out above their heads. (Ezekiel saw «the likeness of a vault» descending in a fiery cloud (Luther wrote at this point in his translation of the Bible: «Shaped like the firmament»), carried by four winged beings. The creatures had metal legs and one wheel each. On the upper side of the vault, which Ezekiel calls «the likeness of the throne,» the prophet saw «as if the likeness of a man,» and this «likeness» spoke to him).
23 And under the arch their wings stretched straight one to the other, and each had two wings that covered them, each had two wings that covered their bodies. (Apparently, Ezekiel imagined something like a battle chariot with sickles (a chariot from the wheels of which sickles or curved swords protruded), known even from Greek testimonies about the East.
