Ezekiel’s Wheels Full of Eyes (Ezekiel 1 and 10)

experimentNo. 0080categoryRituals & ceremoniesrecordingpendingrunsin browserdataCC BY 4.0

The fly stands as Ezekiel on the bank of the river Chebar at dusk while a whirlwind brings the four living creatures, beryl wheels whose rims fill with compound eyes, a crystal firmament and a sapphire throne, following the text of Ezekiel 1:4–28 and chapter 10.

What the fly saw

Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment.

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Timeline

11 steps, with their times in the experiment

1. 0:00
   By the river Chebar

   Dusk on the bank. The fly stands with two captive flies; a harp hangs on a willow branch. Reeds lean over the slow water.

2. 0:08
   A whirlwind out of the north

   “A whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself.” The funnel crosses the plain, flames spiral into its amber core and the reeds bend south.

3. 0:22
   Four living creatures

   Four figures rise out of the fire. Each has four faces – fly, lion, ox and eagle – straight brass legs on calves’ feet, hands under its wings. The upper wings open until their tips touch.

4. 0:36
   Coals of fire and lightning

   Glowing coals move up and down among the creatures. Bolts leap out of the fire; the creatures dart out and back “as the appearance of a flash of lightning.”

5. 0:46
   A wheel in the middle of a wheel

   Four beryl-green wheels drop out of the cloud beside the creatures, each a ring turning inside a second ring at right angles. The chariot rolls to the water’s edge.

6. 1:00
   Rings full of eyes

   “Their rings were full of eyes round about them four.” Compound eyes open in ripples around every rim, then on the wings and bodies, and turn toward the fly.

7. 1:14
   The wheels lifted up

   The creatures rise and the wheels rise with them. The chariot sweeps low over the river and the fly; spray lifts from the water under the beating wings.

8. 1:26
   The terrible crystal

   A crystal firmament spreads over the creatures’ heads, its edge hung with shards that catch the amber light.

9. 1:36
   A throne of sapphire

   Above the firmament: a sapphire throne and a figure of amber and fire, ringed by the colours of the bow in the cloud. The fly falls on its face.

10. 1:50
    Coals from between the cherubim

    Chapter 10: a fly clothed in linen walks in between the wheels. A cherub’s hand gives it coals of fire, which it throws out over the plain. The wheels flare.

11. 2:02
    The glory mounts up

    The cherubim lift their wings and mount up from the earth with the wheels beside them. The fly rises and watches the light recede into the north.

Setup

• 11 seekable stages over 134 seconds: by the river Chebar, a whirlwind out of the north, four living creatures, coals of fire and lightning, a wheel in the middle of a wheel, rings full of eyes, the wheels lifted up, the terrible crystal, a throne of sapphire, coals from between the cherubim, and the glory mounts up.
• The fly stands about 1.3 m upright among two fellow captives, with a harp hung on a willow (Psalm 137:2). The vision is drawn 1.8 times larger than the fly scale, so the living creatures stand about 11.7 m and the beryl wheels are about 12 m across.
• Each creature has four faces (fly, lion on the right, ox on the left, eagle behind; 1:10), straight brass legs on calves’ feet, hands under its wings and two wings raised to touch its neighbours’. Each wheel is a spoked ring turning inside a second ring at right angles, and about 1,180 compound eyes open on the rims, wings and bodies.
• A fly clothed in linen with a writer’s inkhorn (9:2) takes coals from a cherub’s hand and throws them over the plain; an amber figure sits on the sapphire throne inside a full circular rainbow.
• Controls: Eyes on the rims (Track the fly, default, or Look about), Wheel speed 0.25–2× (default 1×) and Lightning (default on; off removes the bolts, flashes and darts).
• Eight cameras, including the river Chebar view of the vision, a tracking view over the fly beneath the eyes, a rim close-up of the eyes turning, the view under the firmament to the throne, a view from above the wheels and the fly eye in first person. A replay control restarts at the rings full of eyes.

Measurement

• Retinal-only input: the eye camera’s 32 luminance columns reach the fixed connectome model, measured spikes drive the neural display, and no direct stimulation is sent.
• The eye image includes the whirlwind, the creatures, the rims full of eyes, the lightning flashes and the throne’s light; when the fly falls on its face it sees the ground. The changing fire, lightning, throne and beryl lights are part of the scene and reach the eye; cue text and the viewport’s dusk dimming of the host lights do not.
• The eyes on the rims are scene props with pre-programmed aim at the fly’s head, not a neural readout. The creatures, the wheels and the fly follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly.

Limitations

• The text is followed for the parts and their order; proportions, materials, colours (beryl as sea-green, amber as glowing gold), the wheel mechanics and the forms of the crystal and the throne are not given in the text.
• “The face of a man” is shown as a fly’s face, “the likeness as the appearance of a man” as an amber fly figure, and the eyes as fly compound eyes. Real compound eyes do not swivel; their dark pseudopupil only appears to follow an observer. The eyes’ pseudopupil and trapezoid of seven rhabdomere spots follow Drosophila optics (Franceschini 1975), and the wing colour bands follow thin-film colour on transparent fly wings (Shevtsova et al. 2011, PNAS 108:668).
• The river Chebar is a generic reed-lined channel with palms and a distant stepped tower and walls; its location near Nippur is not modeled. In the text chapter 10 takes place in a temple vision; here it is shown at the same riverbank.
• No audio is played: “the noise of great waters” is shown only as beating wings and spray.

Sources

• Ezekiel 1 and 10, King James Version (Wikisource)