Parshat Beshalach6 min read

The Throne-Bearers Who Cannot Find Where God Sits

The four living creatures strain forever under the Throne, crying blessed be the glory, and not one of them knows where that glory is.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Four Kings Harnessed Under the Same Weight
  2. The Cry That Goes Up Without a Direction
  3. The Bearers Who Cannot Locate the One They Bear
  4. Humility Is the Posture of the Ones Who Know What They Carry

By the river Chebar, where the exiles of Judah sat among reeds and foreign water, the sky split. A storm wind came out of the north, a vast cloud wrapping fire that folded back into itself, and out of the brightness came four shapes that did not belong to any earth Ezekiel had walked. They burned and did not burn up. They went straight forward and never turned. And under them, far up and impossibly high, rode a throne the color of sapphire, and the brightness around it was the color of mercy and terror at once.

Each of the four had four faces. On the front, the face of a man. On the right, a lion. On the left, an ox. And behind, an eagle. Their legs were straight, their feet like burnished bronze, and beside each ran a wheel within a wheel, the rims so high they were dreadful, and the rims were full of eyes. When the creatures moved, the wheels moved. When the creatures stood, the wheels stood. Whatever the spirit drove them toward, there they went, and they did not swerve.

The Four Kings Harnessed Under the Same Weight

These were not random beasts. Each face was a crown. The lion is the highest of the wild animals, the king that fears nothing in the field. The ox is the highest of the cattle, the strength that breaks the soil. The eagle is the highest of the birds, the eye that owns the sky. And the man is the highest of every created thing, the one set over all the rest.

Take the proudest of each kingdom. Take the four that have nothing above them in their own domain. Then lash them together beneath one chariot and make them carry it.

That was the design. The Holy One, blessed be He, gathered the four exalted ones and fixed them into the Throne of Glory, so that the king of beasts would feel a weight pressing down on his shoulders and know there was a kingdom over him. The lion that bows to nothing in the field bows here. The eagle that answers to no height answers here. The man set over all creation looks up from beneath the chariot and learns that being highest of his kind only means he carries more.

The Cry That Goes Up Without a Direction

So they strain. Forever, they strain. The throne presses on them and the spirit drives them and the wheels full of eyes turn with them, and out of the effort comes a sound. A great rushing, like many waters, like the noise of a vast army, like a voice from the firmament stretched above their heads.

And the words they cry are these: "Blessed be the glory of the LORD from His place."

They lift it again and again, the most exalted creatures in the universe, the ones closest to the sapphire, the ones whose own faces are crowns. And here is the thing that should stop the breath. They do not know the full measure of the glory they praise. They bless it, but they cannot map it. They carry it, and they cannot find its edge.

The Bearers Who Cannot Locate the One They Bear

Read the cry slowly and it bends. "Blessed be the glory of the LORD from His place." From His place. Not here. Not where I stand. From wherever that place is, blessed be it, because the creatures crying it do not know where it is.

This is the dread under the wheels. The four are pressed against the underside of the Throne. They feel its weight on every face, the man and the lion and the ox and the eagle all bowed by the same load. They are nearer to it than any prophet, any angel of the lower ranks, any soul that ever climbed. And still, when they open their mouths, they bless the glory from its place, because His place is not a coordinate they hold. They are the porters of a king whose throne room has no findable floor.

They do not say, "Blessed be the glory here, where we carry it." They cannot. The weight on their backs is real, but the location of the One enthroned slides past them. So they aim the blessing outward, into the unknown, toward a place they trust exists and cannot point to. The most powerful beings beneath heaven praise an address they were never given.

Humility Is the Posture of the Ones Who Know What They Carry

Below them, far below, by the Chebar, a man in exile watched and fell on his face. He had seen the wheels and the eyes and the four faces and the sapphire and the brightness, and he had heard the cry go up from beings that could not find the One they served.

If the king of beasts is harnessed and bowed, what is a captive scribe beside a Babylonian canal? If the eagle that rules the sky cannot locate the place of the glory, what could a man claim to have pinned down? And yet the cry was not despair. The creatures kept moving, kept straining, kept blessing. They did not stop because they could not find Him. They blessed Him precisely there, in the not-finding, in the weight, in the going forward without turning.

Every creature that climbs to the top of its order discovers the same thing the four discovered. Reach the highest place in your kingdom and look up, and there is still a chariot pressing on your shoulders, and the One who rides it is somewhere you cannot name, blessed from His place, wherever His place may be.

EzekielMerkavahThrone Of GloryLiving CreaturesHumilityChebar
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 5:1Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer

It tells us that the Chajjôth – these powerful, celestial beings that stand beside God’s throne – are constantly declaring, "Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place" (Ezekiel 3:12). But here’s the thing: they don’t even know the full extent of God’s glory! They simply proclaim it wherever it is manifest. These mighty beings, close to the Divine, are still in awe, still searching, still praising.

Then, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer draws a parallel to us, to the people of Israel. Just as the Chajjôth declare God’s glory, so too does Israel, "a nation unique on the earth," proclaim the unity of God’s name daily, reciting the Shma: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one" (Deut. 6:4). And in response, God answers, "I am the Lord your God who has delivered you from every trouble." It’s a beautiful cycle of praise and divine reassurance.

The text then shifts gears, taking us back to the very beginning, to the creation of the world. Specifically, the third day, when the waters were gathered together. Imagine the scene: initially, the earth was a flat, featureless plain, completely covered by water.

Then came the divine command: "Let the waters be gathered together" (Genesis 1:9). And what happened? Mountains and hills erupted from the earth, valleys plunged into its depths, and the waters rushed to fill them. "And the gathering together of the waters he called seas" (Genesis 1:10).

But the story doesn't end there. According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, the waters, emboldened by their power, rose up again, threatening to engulf the earth once more.

So, what stopped them? The Holy One, blessed be He, rebuked them, subdued them, and placed them beneath His feet, measuring them with the hollow of His hand to ensure they would neither diminish nor overflow. He set the sand as the boundary of the sea, like a fence around a vineyard.

It's a vivid image, isn't it?

And it emphasizes the power of divine command and the inherent order of creation. As (Jeremiah 5:22) asks, "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea?" The waters, upon seeing the sand, remember their place and retreat.

What does this tell us? Maybe it's about boundaries, about limits, about the balance between chaos and order. Maybe it’s about recognizing the power that both creates and contains. Or maybe, just maybe, it's a reminder that even the most powerful forces in the universe are subject to a higher power. And that thought, in itself, is something worth pondering.

Full source
Shemot Rabbah, chapter 23Hebraic Literature (1901)

The prophet Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, saw the heavens open and a chariot descend. Beneath it were four living creatures, and each creature had four faces. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10).

The Midrash Shemot (chapter 23) asks: why these four? Because they are the kings of their domains. The man is the excellence of all created beings. The eagle is the excellence of the birds. The ox is the excellence of all domestic cattle. And the lion is the excellence of the wild beasts.

Each is the highest of its kind. And all four are harnessed, fixed under the chariot of God.

Why? The midrash answers bluntly: so that they would not exalt themselves. So that each could feel, always, the weight of the chariot above them. Even the king of beasts must know there is a kingdom of Heaven over him. This, says the midrash, is the meaning of (Ecclesiastes 5:8): He that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

Every creature that reaches the top of its order discovers, looking up, that it is still carrying a chariot. The highest of the highest are still servants. Humility is not a weakness; it is the posture of the ones who actually know what they are under.

Full source
Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach 14:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach

"I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted" (Exodus 15:1). Rabbi Abin the Levite said: There are four exalted ones in the world. The most exalted among the wild beasts is the lion; the most exalted among the cattle is the ox; the most exalted among the birds is the eagle; and the human being is exalted above all of them. The Holy One, blessed be He, took them and fixed them in the Throne of Glory, for He exalts Himself over the exalted ones. Thus, "I will sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted" (Exodus 15:1).

Full source