The land was draped in shadows as the prophet Ezekiel stood by the Kebar River, far from home.
He walked beside exiled Israelites. They were refugees. Displaced. Forgotten. At least, that's how it felt.
Suddenly, Ezekiel's breath caught in his chest.
An eerie light surged from the northern horizon, pulsing with radiant colors. The earth beneath him began to hum softly, vibrating with an otherworldly rhythm that seemed to resonate in his bones.
Fear and awe tangled within his heart, making him shiver uncontrollably.
And then, emerging from that surreal, impossible glow...
Ezekiel saw them.
Wheels!
Nope, that wasn’t a typo. Ezekiel saw heavenly, radiant wheels. Not ones from a chariot or wagon, but something unnatural and strange.
They shimmered like burning topaz, illuminated by some internal fire that seemed alive. And they were layered. Wheels within wheels, intersecting at perfect right angles. They spun without turning. Moved without pivoting. Glided forward and backward, left and right, with fluid grace that made his mind bend trying to follow them.
And covering every rim were eyes. Countless eyes. Alive. Blinking. Unceasingly watchful.
Ezekiel felt the weight of their gaze pierce his soul, and a shudder rippled down his spine as the truth crashed over him:
Above these wheels hovered four living creatures: cherubim with four faces each: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.
Wherever the cherubim moved, the strange, spinning wheels went with them. Inseparable. Moving as one. Bound together in perfect, terrifying unity.
Then Ezekiel's heart nearly stopped.
Above the wheels and cherubim was a throne… And on that throne, veiled in blinding glory, sat the very presence of God.
The beings Ezekiel witnessed were called the ophanim. They remain among Scripture's most mysterious and bewildering visions.
"Ophanim" simply means "wheels."
But these weren't just wheels, were they?
Interlocking circles adorned with unblinking eyes, spinning with supernatural intelligence… what could it possibly mean?
Ezekiel writes with trembling honesty: "Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around." (Ezekiel 1:18)
To our modern minds, this vision is strikingly odd. Disturbing, even.
And I think that's exactly the point.
Scripture isn't here to soothe our imagination with safe, comfortable images. It's here to awaken us to spiritual realities that shatter our small categories.
The ophanim represent something we desperately need to grasp: God's boundless sovereignty and omniscience.
The wheels, capable of moving swiftly in any direction without turning, remind us that God's authority is absolute and extends everywhere.
The eyes symbolize His unceasing watchfulness. Nothing escapes His gaze.
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Over the centuries, fascination with these mysterious wheels led some Jewish and Christian traditions to imagine ophanim as angelic beings with personalities and roles.
Some later texts, like the pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch, even classify them as a separate category of angels.
Yet Scripture itself never describes ophanim as personal beings.
So what are we meant to take from this strange, unsettling image?
The ophanim teach us something vital about the nature of our God:
He sees everything. He moves everywhere. His authority extends in every direction. There is nowhere we can flee from His gaze, nowhere beyond the reach of His power.
This should ultimately comfort us. Because if God is aware of everything—your pain, your struggles, your hidden wounds, your deepest longings—then you are never truly alone.
He is intimately involved. Perfectly aware. Ever-present.
Those exiled Israelites by the Kebar River felt forgotten. Abandoned. Lost in a foreign land with no temple, no home, no hope.
And God showed up in wheels covered with eyes to say: "I see you. I'm here. I haven't forgotten."
The same is true for you today.
Wherever you are… God sees you.
