over-all appearance. We can assume that
creatures that look like men but has a surface that resembles lights,
coals and fire must be wearing suits with a brightly colored metallic
surface. The modern anodized aluminium coatings glisten and sparkle
with an effect like he describes. If these are space-suits, there is a
good reason for making them gaudy. If they were worn in space while
working on and around a ship, they should be as bright and
eye-catching as possible, in the case the man became detached and
floated away. He would be quite visible against the blackness of
space.

_14. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a
flash of lightning._

This might mean that they moved swiftly, but more than likely it means
that they sparkled and shined on all sides, and this was visible as
they moved about.

This ends the description for a while. There are two later verses of
description, but we will take this when we come to it. It is
surprising that Ezekiel has organized his material so well. It reads
like a scientific report. If he had headed the section that we just
covered, "Description," we would not have been too surprised to find
the following section headed, "Action":

_15. Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the
earth by the living creatures, with his four faces._

If we read Ezekiel correctly and the creatures did have helicopter
attachments on their backs, we can assume that one of them now
started his helicopter, which would appear as a "wheel" to Ezekiel,
and probably surprised him greatly.

_16. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the
colour of Beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance
and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel._

Here we must digress in order to put ourselves into the life and time
of this man because he has mentioned the wheel. A wheel did not have
quite the same meaning for him as it does for you and I, living in a
mechanical age. The wheel in 600 B.C. in the area around the eastern
end of the Mediterranean, the most civilized part of the world at that
time, had only a few very limited uses.

One use, old even in Ezekiel's time was the potter's wheel; a simple
platform mounted on crude vertical bearings so that it could be turned
with one hand while the clay was worked with the other. From this the
grindstone and the lapidary wheel developed for working metal and
stone. T