The Angel Iaoel Carried Abraham Up to the Throne of Fire
The angel who took Abraham's hand introduced himself as the one who had burned down his father's house with his father still inside it.
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The Voice Stopped and He Could Not Stand
When the voice stopped, Abraham turned all the way around and there was nobody there. Not a man in sight, not a breath of one. Then his spirit went out of him and he dropped face down on the ground like a thrown stone, and he could not get up again.
He was still lying there, mouth against the dirt, when the same voice spoke over his head, not to him.
"Go, Iaoel. Raise that man by My unspeakable Name and hold him steady, because he is shaking."
Something in the shape of a man took hold of his right hand and stood him on his feet.
The Angel Who Burned His Father's House
Abraham looked at what had lifted him. The body was blue as sapphire. The face burned like chrysolite. The hair was white as snow, the headcloth was bent in an arc of colors like a rainbow, the robe was purple, and there was a rod of gold in the right hand.
"Do not let the way I look frighten you," the angel said, "or the way I speak upset you. I was sent to strengthen you and bless you, in the name of the God who loves you. Stop being afraid. Come with me."
Then he said who he was, and it was not comforting.
He was called Iaoel, he said, because the unspeakable Name lived in him. He was the one appointed to hold the four living creatures back from each other when they turned dangerous. He taught the ones who carry the throne their song for the seventh hour of the night. Leviathan was his to restrain, and every crawling thing that threatened.
"And I am the one who was sent to set fire to your father's house," he said, "with your father inside it, because he honored dead things."
Abraham had walked out of Terah's house. He had never known who lit it. The hand that had just picked him up off the ground was the same hand.
"Come with me," Iaoel said. "I will be visible to you until the sacrifice. After the sacrifice you will not see me again."
There Was No Ground to Fall On
They climbed. Somewhere in the climbing the angel taught him a song, and Abraham learned it without knowing what it was for.
Then fire came at them from every side, and inside the fire there was a voice that sounded like a great deal of water, like the sea heard from a beach in a storm. Iaoel bent his head and worshipped.
Abraham wanted to throw himself flat, the way he had on the earth. He looked down for the earth. The high place they were standing on rose straight up under him, and then it dropped away and rolled out from under his feet, and there was nothing beneath him at all.
"Worship, and nothing else," Iaoel said. "Say the song I taught you."
So he sang it, with no floor under him and the fire on all sides and the sea roaring inside the fire, and the angel sang it with him.
Eternal, mighty, Holy El, God alone, Supreme. Self-originated, incorruptible, spotless, uncreated, unstained, undying, self-perfected, self-devised.
Under the Fire, a Throne
He was still singing when the mouth of the fire lifted and went up, and the roaring of the sea came through it without dropping a note.
As the fire rose he saw what it had been sitting on. A throne, and the throne was made of fire.
Around it stood the all-seeing ones, singing the same hymn they never stop singing. Underneath it were four living creatures, all four identical, each one with four faces on its head. A lion. A man. An ox. An eagle. Sixteen faces between them, and every face singing.
Each creature had six wings. The two from the shoulders were folded down over its own face. The two from the loins were folded down over its feet. Only the middle pair was open, held out straight for flying.
The Angel Let Go of His Hand
Then the singing ended, and the four of them turned and looked at each other, and the look was a threat.
Iaoel left him.
Abraham stood alone in front of the throne of fire while the angel who had carried him ran in among the creatures, took hold of each head and turned its face away from the face across from it, so that none of them could see the one it was staring down. Then he taught them a different song, the one that comes from the Eternal, the song of peace, and he kept them singing it.
Nobody was holding Abraham up. He stood where he had been left and looked past the creatures, and behind them was a chariot with wheels of fire, and every wheel was covered over with eyes, all the way around. Above the wheels was the throne. The throne was wrapped in fire and the fire was wrapped in more fire, and inside all of it a host was burning.
Out of the middle of that came a voice, and it was holy, and it sounded like the voice of a man.
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