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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Also out of the midst thereof; of the fire, or that amber which appeared, as having four wheels.
The likeness of four living creatures; these were not indeed living creatures. but the appearance of them, and signify with some the four monarchies; with others, the four chief leaders in the four quarters of the camp of Israel; with others, the four evangelists; with others, more likely, the holy angels, whose attendance bespeaks the majesty of God, and the terribleness of judgments to be executed on the Jews: and they are four, either to denote the sufficient number of them, or to show God would use the four chief of his angels, or perhaps to let the Jews know he had as many ways to punish, and as many officers of his wrath, as they could find corners of the world to flee unto. Or, since the appearance of a chariot in the midst of this vision is supposed, it was fittest that four living creatures should answer to the wheels thereof.
And this was their appearance; the form in which these four each appeared to the first view, or at some distance.
They had the likeness of a man; the stature, the greater part of them appeared of human shape, for they had face, hands, and thighs, and the posture was erect in standing or motion, as man’s is.