Book of Ezekiel: Biblical accounts of Aliens?

I am a big fan of Ezekiel. This article is not meant to mock him, but give a different perspective of him.

Of all the Biblical prophets, Ezekiel is arguably the most trippy. If he were alive in modern times, he would probably be hanging out with the Grateful Dead. He was so groovy that Michelangelo included him in his Sistine Chapel painting.

First of all, he was quite an unusual choice for a prophet, considering that God took away his ability to speak (Ezekiel 3). Since he couldn’t talk, he used drawing to express himself. In one instance, he drew a picture of Jerusalem on a clay tablet, and then got down on the ground next to the clay tablet and stayed there for 390 days (Ezekiel 4). And then he rolled over on the ground and did it again. In one of his many mystical visions, he saw God surrounded by four ghostly creatures, after which he ate a scroll (Ezekiel 1 and 3). In addition to the scroll, the only thing we know about Ezekiel’s diet is that he ate barley cakes baked over cow manure (Ezekiel 4).

As for his grooming, the Bible tells us that he shaved with a sword, and did weird stuff with his facial hair after it had been removed. For example, in Ezekiel 5, he used his sword to split his beard-hair into thirds. He took one-third of the hair and set it on fire; he took another third and spread it around town; then he just tossed the remaining third in the air. However, he accidentally missed a few hairs, so he took the ones he missed and sewed them into his clothes.

By the time we get to the sixth chapter of the book of  Ezekiel, he has regained the ability to speak, but instead of speaking his prophecies to people, he speaks them to mountians and a pile of bones, which come to life in front of him (Ezekiel 37).

But his most famous prophesy out-freakage was his inscrutable vision of the four wheels (Ezekiel 15-21):

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a 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. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

If that doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t feel bad. Biblical scholars have never been able to figure it out, either. Perhaps the easiest way to get the essence of the prophecy is to listen to the great African-American spiritual “Ezekiel Saw De Wheel” – such as this recording by Louis Armstrong.

Source:

Project Gutenberg. (1989). The Bible, Old and New Testaments, King James Version. Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.