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In Ezekiel, eyes cover the wheels surrounding the heavenly beings. In the Ladder of Jacob, Jacob describes seraphim full of eyes in his prayer, using similar imagery to interpret his dream as a vision of God's heavenly throne.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ezekiel 1:18
Hebrew Bible
15 Then I looked, and I saw one wheel on the ground beside each of the four beings. 16 The appearance of the wheels and their construction was like gleaming jasper, and all four wheels looked alike. Their structure was like a wheel within a wheel. 17 When they moved they would go in any of the four directions they faced without turning as they moved. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and the rims of all four wheels were full of eyes all around. 19 When the living beings moved, the wheels beside them moved; when the living beings rose up from the ground, the wheels rose up too.
Ladder of Jacob 2:4
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
3 And I set up the stone that was under my head for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and I called that place the house of God. 4 And I prayed to God and said: Lord God of Adam, of your [creature?], and Lord God of Abraham and Isaac my father, and of all whose ways are right before you, you who sit mighty upon the Cherubim and upon the throne of the majesty, of fire and full of eyes, as I saw in my dream; who holds the Cherubim with four faces, who bears the Seraphim full of eyes, who bears the whole world under his arm, and is borne by none. 5 You have established the heaven for the glory of your name.
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Notes and References
“... Several details are eye-catching in this description. Jacob’s prayer reveals that his dream about the Face might represent the vision of the Throne of God’s Glory. A number of features seem to point to such a possibility. First, the prayer refers to “his many-eyed ones,” alluding to האופנים, the Wheels, the special class of the Angels of the Throne who are described in Ezekiel 1:18 as the angelic beings “full of eyes.” Second, the text describes the deity as seated on the fiery Throne of Glory. Third, the vision contains references to the angelic liturgy and the Trisagion. Fourth, the text refers to the fear of the angelic hosts, who stand in the front of the terrifying fiery Face while trying to protect themselves with their wings. ...”
Orlov, Andrei A.
The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha
(p. 96) State University of New York, 2017
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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