Ezekiel 10:13

As for the wheels, it was cried unto them - O wheel - Never was there a more unfortunate and unmeaning translation. The word הגלגל haggalgal, may signify, simply, the roller, or a chariot, or roll on, or the swift roller. And he clepide ilke wheelis volible, or turninge about. Old MS. Bible. Any of these will do: "and as to the wheels," לאופנים laophannim, "they were called in my hearing" הגלגל haggalgal, "the chariot." The gentleman who took for his text "O wheel!" and made God's decree of eternal predestination out of it, must have borrowed some of Rabbi Ananias's three hundred barrels of oil! But such working of God's word cannot be too severely reprehended.

As these wheels are supposed to represent Divine Providence, bringing about the designs of the Most thigh, how like is the above הגלגל haggalgal, taken as a verb, "roll on," to those words of Virgil in his Pollio: -

Talia saela, suis dixerunt, currite, fusis,

Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.

"The Fates, when they this happy web have spun,

Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it swiftly run."

According to the marginal rendering the present verse refers back to Ezekiel 10:2, Ezekiel 10:6, and tells us that the name "galgal, a rolling thing" (compare Isaiah 17:13), was given to the wheels in the seer's hearing. But taking Ezekiel 10:14 as a description, and reading Ezekiel 10:15 immediately after Ezekiel 10:13, the meaning is clear. In the hearing Of the seer a voice calls upon the wheels, and, obedient to the call, the cherubim are lifted up and the wheels roll on. The word "galgal" would be better rendered "chariot" instead of "wheel;" "chariot" representing very well the collection of "wheels."

10:13 The wheels - As to their frame and motion.It was cried - Still there was one who guided, as by vocal direction.Unto them - To each of them.