What Does Ezekiel 1:6 Mean?
Each had four faces, and each had four wings.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.THE KEY
Each creature bears four faces and four wings, so many-sided orientation and the capacity to extend are woven into its form.
THE MEANING
Each living creature carries four faces and four wings at once. The Hebrew word for face is tied to turning toward; its wings are also extensions at the creature’s edges, giving this form several orientations and the capacity for movement.
THE ROOT
פָּנִים
panim
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
to turn, turn toward
English can make a face sound like a fixed surface, while this word family carries the sense of turning toward. Four faces place several orientations of encounter within each creature.
ALSO GROWS
panah: to turn or turn toward
פָּנָה
This verb makes the movement within “face” audible: a face is the creature turned toward what it encounters.
panim: face, presence
פָּנִים
The same word names both the face and the presence turned toward another; here each creature bears four such orientations.
כְּנָפַיִם
kanafayim
GROWS FROM
כנף
k-n-p
wing, edge, extremity
The word family for wing also names an outer edge or extremity. The wings therefore suggest more than flight: they are the creature’s extensions, reaching outward from its body.
ALSO GROWS
kanaf: wing; an edge or corner, including the edge of a garment
כָּנָף
The range from wing to outer edge lets the wings read as extensions of the creature, not only as a means of flight.
kanafayim: wings
כְּנָפַיִם
This is the plural form used in the verse, giving each creature four extensions.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic visions give living beings forms in which orientation, covering, and movement are expressed through faces and wings.
As for the likeness of their faces, all four had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side. All four had the face of an ox on the left side, and all four also had the face of an eagle.Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.Each of them has six wings about him, and all around and within they are full of eyes. They do not rest day and night, saying, Set apart, set apart, set apart, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.THE THREAD
As for the likeness of their faces, all four had the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side. All four had the face of an ox on the left side, and all four also had the face of an eagle.The word translated “faces” is again פָּנִים (panim), from פנה (panah), “to turn toward.” The next verse names the four faces, making the creature’s several orientations concrete.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us