While Abraham was still reciting the song, the fire on the surface rose up on high. He heard a voice like the roaring of the sea. The fire would not stop. And as it climbed, ascending into the height, Abraham saw what lay beneath it.
A throne of fire.
Around the throne, all-seeing ones reciting the celestial song. Beneath the throne, four fiery living creatures singing, each one identical in form, each one with four faces: a lion, a man, an ox, and an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10). Four heads upon their bodies, sixteen faces in total. Each creature had six wings. With the wings from their shoulders they covered their faces. With the wings from their loins they covered their feet. The middle pair they spread wide for flying straight forward (Isaiah 6:2).
When the living creatures finished singing, they looked at one another and began to threaten one another. A strange and terrifying detail. Even the highest angels were consumed by rivalry in service, each claiming precedence, each turning upon its neighbor with menace.
Iaoel saw the threat. He left Abraham's side and ran to the creatures. He turned each living creature's face away from the one directly confronting it, so that they could not see each other's threatening expressions. Then he taught them the song of peace that has its origin in the Eternal One.
Abraham stood alone and looked beyond the living creatures. Behind them he saw a chariot with fiery wheels, each wheel full of eyes all around (Ezekiel 1:18). Over the wheels was a throne covered with fire, encircled by fire, surrounded by an indescribable fire that enveloped a fiery host.
And from within it all, Abraham heard a holy voice. It sounded like the voice of a man.
The vision of <strong>God's</strong> throne of glory, the Merkabah, the central mystery of the heavenly world. The same vision that would later consume the mystics who dared to ascend, that drove some mad and others to silence. Abraham was the first to see it. He stood in the fire and did not burn.