Wheels within Wheels with Eyes
Pleasant Meditations upon Scripture
A post on Realm Makers Consortium by A.K. Preston brought up some interesting ideas that I shall share here:
Briefly, the idea was that in C. S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image, he refers to a poem by the Roman poet Lucan about the soul of Pompey ascending to the heavens “‘where the murky air joins the star-bearing wheels,’ the spheres.”
A. K. Preston puts forth the question: “could the four “living creatures” in Ezekiel with the “wheel within a wheel,” that’s “full of eyes,” have been a description of the four quarters of the heavens/universe? Imagine an angelic entity existing on such a vast cosmic scale that it uses the stars and galaxies as its “eyes.”
Here is the quote from Ezekiel
And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel. (Ezekiel 10:12-13)
Preston then goes on to say:
“Elsewhere in Scripture, we see what are presumably these same four living creatures (not described as wheels this time but still “full of eyes”) continually saying ‘holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,’ which ties directly into the Psalm which says ‘the heavens declare the glory of God.’”
What I find most interesting about this is that apparently, according to some biblical scholars the four Living Creatures are tied to the symbols of the four Tribes of Israel that were closest to the Tabernacle when they camped, but also, apparently, to the sky and the seasons:
The Lion of Judah refers to the constellation of Leo, a summer constellation.
The Eagle is from the ancient Hebrew idea that what we call Scorpio was an eagle (or perhaps an eagle rending a scorpion), a fall constellation.
The Man is said to be Aquarius, which is a winter constellation.
And the Bull is thought to be Taurus, which is a spring constellation.
This suggests that the idea that the four living creatures somehow represented the spheres of the heavens in the starry skies may not be as far-fetched as one first thinks.
Having many times tried to picture the wheels with eyes, I find the idea that they might possibly be displayed as stars very charming.
I shall conclude with the beginning of Psalm 19, one of my favorite of all Psalms:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalm 19 1-3)
God bless!
I know one study I read said the animals we were representative of like leadership (Lion king of the jungle, Eagle king of the air, Ox king of the fields, Man king of them all) and even those were bowing to God. Though I think now that I'm older and understand literature and symbolism more, there's nothing saying a symbol can't contain multiple meanings. I like this idea of cosmic symbolism with them.
In fact it goes back to something I heard once: when were angels made? Sure there's a lot who say it was the first day of creation but.... notice how the 6 days of creation have a divided pattern to them. A pattern that matches the first command God gave to man. ("Put the world in order and fill it with life.") Days 1-3 are putting things in order. Days 4-6 are filling it with life.
Wait... that doesn't seem to fit does it? Day 4 is the creation of the sun, moon and stars. Ah but if you know your symbolism, that can also mean... angels! And yes there are apparently some fathers of the church who argued thus that day 4 is when angels were made.
I don't know for certain, but it is an interesting tidbit to add to this post.
In Asian myth and folklore four cardinal creatures come up...
It's interesting how many things biblical have some distortion or echo in the tales of the nations.
There are those who see these things as a sign of falsity, but really they're confirmation of our faith.
There's proof for those willing to see.