send thee to the children of
Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and
their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day._

This typically prophetic writing goes on for many pages, telling the
woes and sins of the Israelites. Reference is made in a few places to
the material in the first chapter, but even this dies out before the
end of the book.

No mention is made again of the living creatures till chapter three
where the following verse is found:

_13. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that
touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them,
and a noise of great rushing._

This combines some of the ideas of earlier verses without adding any
new information. Notice that writer has the notion that the wings of
one creature touched those of another, or that the creatures touched
one another.

This verse is typical of several more scattered throughout the first
third of the book. All the verses mentioning the living creatures
after the first chapter are more dramatic and all fail to continue the
style of a careful reporter. No new ideas are advanced, but some
rather unusual contradictions are introduced, by using several parts
of several verses of Chapter One. Chapter Ten reads like an attempt at
rephrasing Chapter One and Chapter Eleven is the last mention of the
living creatures in the entire book.

Although it contains no further information on the living creatures,
Chapter Three has a verse that should be mentioned. Verse fifteen
sounds like a fitting conclusion to the first chapter:

[Illustration]

_15. Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-Abib, that dwelt by
the river Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there
astonished among them for seven days._

Just what do we have? We have a description of four spacesuited and
helicopter-equipped men, getting off of, or out of something that
landed in a cloud of dust or smoke. The four men start their
helicopters, take off and fly to some height. On returning to the
ground they remove their flying gear and wait. They are met by a fifth
man, riding on a flying platform. Such an event would cause some
interest in any community today, but in those times it could only be
interpreted as supernatural--a miracle. The miracle may well be that
the story has been preserved for us, twenty-six centuries later.

A word for word interpretation is only part of the odd