Listen to Ezekiel 10

Chapter 10 continues Ezekiel’s vision. His description of God’s throne (9-14; repeated from 1:15-18) is quite bizarre. We read it and feel the “otherness” of God - though He comes close, He is also wholly “other” than us. Holy, holy, holy is He.

After chapter 9’s slaughter, now the city will receive Sodom and Gomorrah’s treatment: burning coals, to purify it, just as God did with Isaiah’s lips (2; Isaiah 6:6). A cherub “stretches” out his hand to take the coal from the throne. Evidently even the angels must keep a safe distance from the holy, holy, holy throne of God.

Then the glory of the Lord begins to leave His own house (18). God will complete this “exodus” in the next chapter, but for now, the throne stops at the east gate, with the cherubim under the throne. The echoes from the Garden of Eden are no coincidence. Just as Adam and Eve were cast out “east of Eden”, and the way back was guarded by cherubim with flaming swords, so too God Himself exits with His cherubim to the east from the house that was meant to become a new Eden.

But this “Eden” had become an outpost of hell. So the fall of Adam is inverted: instead of the Garden being guarded by cherubim and the ones exiting being cursed, now “Eden” is cursed, and the cherubim’s “flaming swords” are used on its inhabitants. And now the One exiting “Eden” is holy, holy, holy.

But the story will not end here. God will one day build a new house, a new Eden. But first He will be cast out of the city, just like Adam and Eve. But by that rejection, many will be welcomed into God’s new house. Reflect on 1 Peter 2:4-5.