Ezekiel 1:4
New International Version
I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal,

New Living Translation
As I looked, I saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber.

English Standard Version
As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal.

Berean Standard Bible
I looked and saw a whirlwind coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire was a gleam like amber,

King James Bible
And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

New King James Version
Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

New American Standard Bible
As I looked, behold, a high wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing intermittently and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like gleaming metal in the midst of the fire.

NASB 1995
As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire.

NASB 1977
And as I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire.

Legacy Standard Bible
Then I looked, and behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light all around it, and in its midst something like the gleam of glowing metal in the midst of the fire.

Amplified Bible
As I looked, I saw a stormy wind coming out of the north, a great cloud with fire flashing continually from it; and a brightness was around it, and in its core [there was] something like glowing [amber-colored] metal in the midst of the fire.

Christian Standard Bible
I looked, and there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
I looked and there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber.

American Standard Version
And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst thereof as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And I saw and, behold, the wind of a hurricane was coming from the north, a great cloud and a fire that was kindled, and it shone brightly around it, and within it was as a figure from within the fire

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And I looked, and, behold, a sweeping wind came from the north, and a great cloud on it, and there was brightness round about it, and gleaming fire, and in the midst of it as it were the appearance of amber in the midst of the fire, and brightness in it.

Contemporary English Version
I saw a windstorm blowing in from the north. Lightning flashed from a huge cloud and lit up the whole sky with a dazzling brightness. The fiery center of the cloud was as shiny as polished metal,

Douay-Rheims Bible
And I saw, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north: and a great cloud, and a fire infolding it, and brightness was about it: and out of the midst thereof, that is, out of the midst of the fire, as it were the resemblance of amber:

English Revised Version
And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
As I looked, I saw a storm coming from the north. There was an immense cloud with flashing lightning surrounded by a bright light. The middle of the lightning looked like glowing metal.

Good News Translation
I looked up and saw a windstorm coming from the north. Lightning was flashing from a huge cloud, and the sky around it was glowing. Where the lightning was flashing, something shone like bronze.

International Standard Version
I was amazed to see a wind storm blow in from the north, consisting of a massive cloud and fire that was flashing back and forth, surrounded by bright light. From deep within the cloud, something was shining that appeared to have a color like bronze that had been placed in fire until it glowed.

JPS Tanakh 1917
And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire flashing up, so that a brightness was round about it; and out of the midst thereof as the colour of electrum, out of the midst of the fire.

Literal Standard Version
And I look, and behold, a turbulent wind is coming from the north, a great cloud, and fire catching itself, and brightness to it all around, and out of its midst as the color of electrum, out of the midst of the fire.

Majority Standard Bible
I looked and saw a whirlwind coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire was a gleam like amber,

New American Bible
As I watched, a great stormwind came from the North, a large cloud with flashing fire, a bright glow all around it, and something like polished metal gleamed at the center of the fire.

NET Bible
As I watched, I noticed a windstorm coming from the north--an enormous cloud, with lightning flashing, such that bright light rimmed it and came from it like glowing amber from the middle of a fire.

New Revised Standard Version
As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber.

New Heart English Bible
I looked, and look, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of its midst as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire.

Webster's Bible Translation
And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and from the midst of it as the color of amber, from the midst of the fire.

World English Bible
I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of the middle of it as it were glowing metal, out of the middle of the fire.

Young's Literal Translation
And I look, and lo, a tempestuous wind is coming from the north, a great cloud, and fire catching itself, and brightness to it round about, and out of its midst as the colour of copper, out of the midst of the fire.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Four Living Creatures
4I looked and saw a whirlwind coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire was a gleam like amber, 5and within it was the form of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: They had a human form,…

Cross References
1 Kings 19:11
Then the LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD. Behold, the LORD is about to pass by." And a great and mighty wind tore into the mountains and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

Isaiah 21:1
This is the burden against the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.

Jeremiah 23:19
Behold, the storm of the LORD has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.

Ezekiel 1:27
From what seemed to be His waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire within it all around. And from what seemed to be His waist down, I saw what looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded Him.

Ezekiel 8:2
Then I looked and saw a figure like that of a man. From His waist down His appearance was like fire, and from His waist up He was as bright as the gleam of amber.

Ezekiel 13:11
tell those whitewashing the wall that it will fall. Rain will come in torrents, I will send hailstones plunging down, and a windstorm will burst forth.

Ezekiel 13:13
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: In My wrath I will release a windstorm, and in My anger torrents of rain and hail will fall with destructive fury.


Treasury of Scripture

And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the middle thereof as the color of amber, out of the middle of the fire.

a whirlwind

Isaiah 21:1
The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.

Jeremiah 1:13,14
And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north…

Jeremiah 4:6
Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

a great

Ezekiel 10:2-4
And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight…

Exodus 19:16-18
And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled…

Exodus 24:16,17
And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud…

Ezekiel 1:27
And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

Ezekiel 8:2
Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.

Ezekiel 10:8,9
And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man's hand under their wings…

Jump to Previous
Amber Brightness Cloud Color Colour Continually Electrum Fire Flashing Forth Gleaming Glowing Great Itself Lightning Metal Midst North Round Something Storm Stormy Surrounded Thereof Whirlwind Wind
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Amber Brightness Cloud Color Colour Continually Electrum Fire Flashing Forth Gleaming Glowing Great Itself Lightning Metal Midst North Round Something Storm Stormy Surrounded Thereof Whirlwind Wind
Ezekiel 1
1. The time of Ezekiel's prophecy at Chebar.
4. His vision of four cherubim;
15. of the four wheels;
26. and of the glory of God.














(4) A whirlwind came out of the north.--The north is seen as the quarter from which the vision proceeded, not because the Babylonians conceived that there was the seat of Divine power (Isaiah 14:13-14), but because it was common with the prophets to represent the Divine judgments upon Judaea as coming from the north (see Jeremiah 1:14-15; Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1), and it was from that direction that the Assyrian and the Chaldaean conquerors were accustomed to descend upon the Holy Land. The vision is actually seen in Chaldaea, but it has reference to Jerusalem, and is described as if viewed from that standpoint.

A great cloud.--As in the Divine manifestation on Sinai (Exodus 19:9-16). The cloud serves at once as the groundwork for all the other details of the manifestation--a place in, and by means of which, all are located, and also as a hiding-place of the Divine majesty, so that all may be seen which human eye can bear, and that which it cannot bear may yet be known to be there, shrouded in the cloud. The transposition of a single letter from the end of one word in the Hebrew to the beginning of the next will change the reading to "a whirlwind out of the north brought on a great cloud." . . .

Verse 4. - A whirlwind came out of the north. What, we ask, was the meaning of this symbolism? In Jeremiah 1:13, 14 a like symbol is explained as meaning that the judgments which Judah was to suffer were to come from the north, that is, from Chaldea, upon the prophet's countrymen. Here the prophet is himself in Chaldea, and what he sees is the symbol, not or calamities, but of the Divine glory, and that explanation is, accordingly, inapplicable. Probably the leading thought here is that the Divine presence is no longer in the temple at Jerusalem, It may return for a time to execute judgment (Ezekiel 8:4; Ezekiel 10:1, 19, 20), and may again depart (Ezekiel 11:23), but the abiding glory is elsewhere, and the temple is as Shitoh had been of old (Psalm 78:60). Ezekiel was looking on the visible symbol of what had been declared in unfigurative language by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:12, 14; Jeremiah 26:6, 9). That the north should have been chosen rather than any other quarter of the heavens is perhaps connected

(1) with Job 37:22, where it appears as the region of "fair weather," the unclouded brightness of the "terrible majesty" of God;

(2) with Isaiah 14:13, where "the sides of the north" are the symbols of the dwelling place of God. For the Jews this was probably associated with the thought of the mountain heights of Lebanon as rising up to heaven (Currey, on Ezekiel 1:4, in 'Speaker's Commentary'), or with the fact that the "north side" of Zion (Psalm 48:2), as the site of the temple, was the "dwelling place of the great King." Parallels present themselves in the Assyrian hymns that speak of the "feasts of the silver mountains, the heavenly courts" (as the Greeks spoke of Olympus), "where the gods dwell eternally" ('Records of the Past,' 3:133), and this ideal mountain was for them, like the Meru of Indian legend, in the farthest north. So, in the legendary geography of Greece, the Hyperborei, or "people beyond the north," were a holy and blessed race, the chosen servants of Apollo (Herod., 4:32-36: Pindar, 'Pyth.,' 10:4; AEsch., 'Choeph.,' 373). Possibly the brilliant coruscations of an Aurora Borealis may have led men to think of it as they thought of the glory of the dawn or the brightness of the lightning, as a momentary revelation of the higher glory of the throne of God. (For the "whirlwind" as the accompaniment of a Divine revelation, see 1 Kings 19:11; Job 38:1; Acts 2:2.) A great cloud, etc. So far the signs of the approaching theophany were like those on Sinai (Exodus 19:16, 18) and Horeb (1 Kings 19:11). With a fire infolding itself; the Revised Version margin gives flashing continually. The Authorized Version suggests the thought of a globe of fire darting its rays through the surrounding darkness. The colour of amber; literally, the eye. The Hebrew word for "amber" (chashmal) occurs only here and in ver. 27 and ch. 8:2. It is almost absolutely certain that it does not mean what we know as "amber." The LXX. and Vulgate give electrum, and this, in later Greek and Latin authors, has "amber" for one of its meanings. Primarily, however, it was used for a metallic substance of some kind, specifically for a compound four parts of gold and one of silver (Pithy, 'Hist. Nat.,' 23:4, s. 23). Some such compound is probably what we have to think of here, and so the description finds a parallel in Daniel 10:6; Revelation 1:15. This, in its ineffable brightness, is seen in the centre of the globe of fire. One may compare Dante's vision of the Divine glory ('Paradise,' 33:55).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
I looked
וָאֵ֡רֶא (wā·’ê·re)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - first person common singular
Strong's 7200: To see

and saw
וְהִנֵּה֩ (wə·hin·nêh)
Conjunctive waw | Interjection
Strong's 2009: Lo! behold!

a whirlwind
ר֨וּחַ (rū·aḥ)
Noun - common singular construct
Strong's 7307: Wind, breath, exhalation, life, anger, unsubstantiality, a region of the sky, spirit

coming
בָּאָ֣ה (bā·’āh)
Verb - Qal - Participle - feminine singular
Strong's 935: To come in, come, go in, go

from
מִן־ (min-)
Preposition
Strong's 4480: A part of, from, out of

the north,
הַצָּפ֗וֹן (haṣ·ṣā·p̄ō·wn)
Article | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 6828: Hidden, dark, the north as a, quarter

a great
גָּדוֹל֙ (gā·ḏō·wl)
Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

cloud
עָנָ֤ן (‘ā·nān)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 6051: A cloud, the nimbus, thunder-cloud

with fire
וְאֵ֣שׁ (wə·’êš)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - common singular
Strong's 784: A fire

flashing back and forth
מִתְלַקַּ֔חַת (miṯ·laq·qa·ḥaṯ)
Verb - Hitpael - Participle - feminine singular
Strong's 3947: To take

and brilliant light
וְנֹ֥גַֽהּ (wə·nō·ḡah)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 5051: Brilliancy

all around it.
סָבִ֑יב (sā·ḇîḇ)
Adverb
Strong's 5439: A circle, neighbour, environs, around

In the center
וּמִ֨תּוֹכָ֔הּ (ū·mit·tō·w·ḵāh)
Conjunctive waw, Preposition-m | Noun - masculine singular construct | third person feminine singular
Strong's 8432: A bisection, the centre

of the fire
הָאֵֽשׁ׃ (hā·’êš)
Article | Noun - common singular
Strong's 784: A fire

was a glow
כְּעֵ֥ין (kə·‘ên)
Preposition-k | Noun - common singular construct
Strong's 5869: An eye, a fountain

like amber,
הַחַשְׁמַ֖ל (ha·ḥaš·mal)
Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2830: Bronze, polished spectrum metal


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OT Prophets: Ezekiel 1:4 I looked and behold a stormy wind (Ezek. Eze Ezk)
Ezekiel 1:3
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