CHAPTER 2

He¹ states that he saw four living creatures and that every living creature among them had four faces, four wings, and two hands. As a whole, the form of each creature was that of a man; as he says: They had the likeness of a man.² He also states that their two hands were likewise the hands of a man, it being known that a man’s hands are indubitably formed as they are in order to be engaged in the arts of craftsmanship. Then he states that their feet are straight; he means that they have no articulations. This is the meaning of his dictum, straight feet,3 according to its external sense. [The Sages] have likewise said: And their feet were straight feet — this teaches [us] that above,⁴ there is no sitting.⁵ Understand this also. Then he states that the soles of their two feet, which are instruments for walking, are not like the feet of a man, whereas their hands [4a] are like the hands of a man. For the feet were round, Like the sole of a calf’s [ʿeget] foot.⁶ Then he states that there is no interval and no space between those four living creatures, each of them adhering to the other; he says, Coupled together, a woman to her sister.⁷ Then he states that though they adhered to one another, their faces and their wings were separated above; he says: And their faces and their wings were separated above.⁸ Consider his saying above. For only the bodies adhered to one another, whereas their faces and their wings were separated, but only from above. That is why he says: And their faces and their wings were separated above. Then he states that they were brilliant like the color of burnished brass.⁹ Then he states that they also gave light; he says: Their appearance was like coals of fire.¹⁰ This is all that he says concerning the form of the living creatures, I mean their shape, their substance, their forms, their wings, their hands, and their feet.

Then he began to describe the manner of the motions of these living creatures. Regarding these he states that which you will hear. He says that in the motions of the living creatures, there was no turning, no deviation, and no curve, but only one motion. For he says: They turned not when they went.¹¹ Then he states that each of the living creatures went in the direction toward which its face was turned. For he says: Each goes in the direction of its face.¹² Thus he makes it clear that each living creature went only in the direction that was contiguous to its face. Would only that I knew to which face, for they had many faces. However, to sum up, the four did not all of them go in one direction. For if it had been so, he would not have assigned to each of them a separate motion, saying: Each goes in the direction of its face. Then he states that the form of the motion of these living creatures was running and that it was likewise by running that they retraced their way. For he says: And the living creatures ran and returned [raṣo va-shob].13 For raṣo is the infinitive of the verb raṣ [to run] and shob is the infinitive of the verb [4b] shab [to return]. He did not use the verbs halokh [to go] and bo [to come], but said that their motion consisted in running and retracing their way. And he made it clear in an image, saying: As the appearance of a flash of lightning [bazaq].¹⁴ For bazaq is another word for baraq [lightning]. Accordingly he says that it is like lightning [baraq], whose motion appears to be the swiftest of motions and which stretches out rapidly and at a rush from a certain place and then with the same rapidity contracts and returns time after time to the place whence it moved. Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, interpreted the words raṣo va-shob as follows: They went round the world and returned [as] one creature and rapid as the appearance of lightning. Then he¹⁵ states that the motion takes place, not because of the direction toward which the living creature moves in this motion of running and retracing one’s way, but because of something else, I mean the divine purpose. Accordingly he says that it is in the direction toward which the living creature should move according to the divine purpose that it accomplishes this rapid movement, which is a running and returning [raṣo va-shobh]. For he says concerning the living creatures: Whither the air [ruaḥ] will be [yihyeh] they will go; they turned not when they went,¹⁶ Ruaḥ here does not mean wind, but purpose, as we have made clear when speaking of the equivocality of ruaḥ.¹⁷ He says accordingly that the living creature runs in the direction in which it is the divine purpose that the living creature run. Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, has already interpreted this too in a similar way, saying: They went wherever the will was that they should go, and they did not turn when going. Now inasmuch as his saying reads, Whither the air will be they will go, and consequently its outer meaning signifies that sometimes God will wish in the future that the living creature should go in a certain direction and then it would take that direction and sometimes again He will wish that it should go in another direction different from the first and it would go accordingly; he¹⁸ goes back to the passage and explains this obscure point, [5a] letting us know that this is not so and that yihyeh [will be] has here the meaning hayah [has been], as is often the case in Hebrew. Thus the direction in which God wished the living creature to go had been determined; the living creature takes the direction that God had wished it to take; and the will¹⁹ is constant regarding this direction. In order to explain this matter and to complete what he has to say about it, he says in another verse: Whithersoever the air²⁰ will go, they will go thither, as the air²⁰ to go.²¹ Understand this wondrous explanation. This too belongs to his description of the form of the motion of the four living creatures, which comes after the description of their shapes.

Then he started upon another description, saying that he had seen a single body beneath the living creatures and adhering to them. This body was joined to the earth and also formed four bodies and likewise had four faces. He does not ascribe to it any form at all, neither a man’s form nor another form pertaining to living beings, but states that they were great, terrible, and fearful bodies without ascribing to them any shape at all. He states that all their bodies were eyes.22 They are those that he calls wheels [ophannim], saying: And I saw the living creatures, and, behold, one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.²³ Accordingly he has made it clear that it was a single body whose one extremity was by the living creatures while the other was on the earth, and that this wheel had four faces. He says: The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl; and they four had one likeness.²⁴ Thus after having spoken of one wheel, he goes on to speak of four. Accordingly he makes it quite clear that the four faces that the wheel has are the four wheels. Then he states that the shape of the four wheels is one and the same, for he says: And the four had one likeness. Then he explains with regard to these wheels that they [5b] were encased one within the other, for he says: And their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within [be-tokh] a wheel.²⁵ This is an expression that is not used with regard to the living creatures; for he does not use with regard to the living creatures the word tokh [within]. Rather do they adhere to each other; as he says: Coupled together, a woman to her sister.²⁶ As for the wheels, he states that they were encased one within the other, as it were a wheel within a wheel. As for the whole body of the wheels of which he says that it was full of eyes [ʿeinayim],²⁷ it is possible that he meant that they were really full of eyes; but it is also possible that he meant that they had many colors, as in the passage: And the color thereof [ve-ʿeino] as the color of [ke-ʿein] bdellium.²⁸ It is likewise possible that he meant that they were likenesses, just as we find that the ancient masters of the language say, Ke-ʿein she-ganab, ke-ʿein she-gazal,²⁹ meaning: Like unto what one has stolen, like unto what one has robbed. [The word “ʿeinayim” may also mean] various states and attributes, as in its dictum:30 It may be that the Lord will look be-ʿeint³¹ — he means, [on] my state. This is what he describes with regard to the form of the wheels.

As for the motion of the wheels, he again says that there was in their motion no curve, no turning, and no deviation; there were only straight motions that did not vary. This is his saying: When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not when they went.³² Then he states that these four wheels do not move essentially, as do the living creatures; for they have no essential motion at all, moving only when moved by something other than themselves. He insistently repeats this notion and reaffirms it several times. And he makes out that the movers³³ of the wheels are none other than the living creatures, so that, to use an image, the relation of a wheel to a living creature could be likened to what happens when one ties an inanimate body to the hands and the feet of a living being: every time the living being moves, the piece of timber or the stone tied to a limb of that living being moves likewise. Accordingly he says: And when the living creatures went, [6a] the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.³⁴ And he also says: And the wheels were lifted up facing them.³⁵ And he explains the cause of this, saying: For the air of the living creature was in the wheels.³⁶ He repeats this notion in order to confirm it and to make it understood, saying: When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up facing them; for the air of the living creature was in the wheels.³⁷

Accordingly the order of these motions is as follows: The living creatures moved in whatever direction it was the divine purpose that the living creatures should move, and by the motion of the living creatures the wheels were moved, following the former through being bound to them. For the wheels do not of their own accord move the living creatures. And he sets forth the order of that grade, saying: Whithersoever the air will go, they will go thither, as the air to go; and the wheels were lifted up facing them; for the air of the living creature was in the wheels.³⁸ I have already made known to you the translation of Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him: Wherever the will was that they should go, and so on.

When he had finished the description of the living creatures, of their forms, and of their motions, and had mentioned the wheels that are beneath the living creatures, their being bound to the latter and moved with their motion, he starts to set forth a third apprehension that he had and goes back to another description concerning that which is above the living creatures. He says that above the four living creatures, there is a firmament; upon the firmament, the likeness of a throne;39 and upon the throne, a likeness as the appearance of a man.⁴⁰ This is the whole of the description he has made of what he has first apprehended by the river of Khebar. [6b]