Ophanim: What Was Ezekiel's Wheel in the Middle of a Wheel?

Ezekiel's 'wheel in the middle of a wheel,' rims full of eyes, that later became a class of angels.

Ophan is simply the Hebrew word for wheel. In Ezekiel 1 a wheel stands beside each living creature, "a wheel in the middle of a wheel," its rims full of eyes. Later Jewish tradition made the wheels a class of angels.

Ophan is simply the Hebrew word for a wheel. In Ezekiel's first vision, by the river Chebar in Babylonia, beside each of four winged living creatures stands a wheel on the ground. "The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl... and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel." They go in any of four directions "and they turned not when they went."

The rims are the most unsettling part. "As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four." The wheels rise from the ground when the creatures rise, "for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." Daniel's vision of God's throne adds that "his wheels as burning fire."

Later Jewish tradition turned the wheels into beings. 1 Enoch 61 and 71 list "the Cherubin, Seraphin and Ophannin" as angelic orders around the throne. The medieval scholar Maimonides placed the Ofanim high in his ranking of angels, and Jewish prayer describes the Ofanim and holy creatures rising with a great noise to praise God. In 1974 the NASA engineer Josef Blumrich published The Spaceships of Ezekiel, arguing the wheels were the landing gear of a spacecraft. Ezekiel himself calls what he saw "visions of God."