Ophanim

Ophanim is the plural of the Hebrew word ophan, “wheel.” The word probably comes from a root meaning “to turn.” Ordinary texts use ophan for chariot wheels (Exodus 14:25). In Ezekiel, the word names the wheels of the prophet’s vision of the throne of God. Later Jewish tradition came to treat the ophanim as an order of heavenly beings who guard that throne and never sleep.

Ezekiel describes them in chapter 1. He saw a wheel on the earth beside each of the four living creatures (Ezekiel 1:15). The wheels looked “like unto the colour of a beryl,” and each was “as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel” (1:16). Their rims were “so high that they were dreadful,” and the rims were “full of eyes round about them four” (1:18). Their rims were “full of eyes round about them four”. The wheels moved with the creatures. They went in any of four directions without turning as they went (1:17), and they rose from the ground when the creatures rose, “for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels” (1:19-21).

Ezekiel 10 repeats the vision. The wheels stand beside the cherubim, and Ezekiel hears the wheels addressed as “O wheel,” using the Hebrew word galgal (10:13). The text says the bodies, backs, hands, wings, and wheels of the cherubim were full of eyes round about (10:12). Daniel 7:9 pictures the throne of the Ancient of Days as “like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.” Ezekiel does not call the wheels angels. He gives them eyes, a spirit, and movement that follows the living creatures.

Later writers read them as beings. The Book of Enoch lists the ophanim with the other orders of heaven. In 1 Enoch 61:10 the Lord of Spirits summons the host of heaven, including the cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim, and all the angels of power. In 1 Enoch 71:7, Enoch enters the highest heaven and sees the seraphim, cherubim, and ophanim around the house of fire, “and these are they who sleep not and guard the throne of His glory.” These chapters belong to the Similitudes of Enoch (chapters 37-71). Scholars debate the date of the Similitudes, and no copy of them has turned up among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Protestants and Catholics do not count 1 Enoch as Scripture.

Other Jewish sources follow the same line. 3 Enoch names the ophanim among the angelic orders. The morning prayer in the Jewish liturgy, in the blessing before the Shema, says the ophanim and the holy living creatures rise with a great noise toward the seraphim to give praise. Some later Christian writers link the ophanim with the Thrones of Colossians 1:16, and Pseudo-Dionysius places the Thrones in the highest rank of angels (Celestial Hierarchy 7).

The theme of wakefulness comes from the biblical text. The eyes on the rims speak of awareness in every direction. In Revelation 4:6-8, the four living creatures are “full of eyes before and behind,” and “they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy.” Psalm 121:4 says that the One who keeps Israel “shall neither slumber nor sleep,” and that verse describes God, not angels. The idea that the guardians of the throne never sleep belongs to the tradition built on these texts, and 1 Enoch 71:7 states it most directly.

## My View

I believe the ophanim are living heavenly beings and not parts of a vehicle. I believe they guard the throne of God and never sleep, as 1 Enoch 71:7 says, and that everything near God is awake.