you that which was said by Ezekiel the prophet, peace be on him, in such a way that anyone who heard that interpretation would think that I do not say anything over and beyond what is indicated by the text, but that it is as if I translated words from one language to another or summarized the meaning of the external sense of the speech. On the other hand, if that interpreta¬ tion is examined with a perfect care by him for whom this Treatise is com¬ posed and who has understood | all its chapters - every chapter in its turn - the whole matter, which has become clear and manifest to me, will become clear to him so that nothing in it will remain hidden from him. This is the ultimate term that it is possible to attain in combining utility7 for everyone with abstention from explicit statements in teaching anything about this subject — as is obligatory.8 After this introduction has preceded, apply your mind to the chapters that will follow concerning this great, noble, and sublime subject, which is a stake upon which everything hangs and a pillar upon which everything is supported.9 6. ray. Literally: opinion. 7. Or: teaching.
8. Syntactically it is not clear in the Arabic text whether the words rendered “as is obliga¬ tory” refer to “in combining” or to “abstention.” The sense of the sentence is not affected, g. The Hebrew does not seem to be an exact quotation. The first part of the phrase (up through “everything hangs”) has a parallel in J.T., Berakhoth, IV, 19a; the second part, in the Bible, Judg. 16:26.
CHAPTER 1 It is known that there are men the form of whose faces resembles that of one of the other animals, so that one may see an individual whose face resembles that of a lion and another individual whose face resembles that of an ox and so forth. It is according to the shapes that tend to have a likeness to those of animals that people are nicknamed. Thus his saying: The face of an ox and the face of a lion and the face of an eagle;1 all of them merely indicate the face of a man that tends to have a likeness to forms be¬ longing to these species. Two proofs indicate this to you. One of them is his saying with regard to the living creatures in general: And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.2 Thereafter he describes every living creature among them as having the face of a man and the face of an eagle and the face of a lion and the face of an ox. The second proof is his explanation in the second Chariot, which he set forth in order to explain things left obscure in the first Chariot. He says in the second Chariot: | And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of the cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle} Thus he explicitly indicates that what he had called the face of an ox is the face of the cherub. Now cherub designates a human being of tender age. With regard to the two remaining faces, the analogy likewise applies. Also he has omitted in this passage the face of an ox in order to draw attention to a certain derivation of words, as we have indi¬ cated in a flash.4 It is impossible to say: Perhaps this was an apprehension of other forms. For he says at the end of this second description: This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Khebar. 5 Thus that which we have begun to make clear has already become clear.
CHAPTER 2 He 1 states that he saw four living creatures and that every living creature among them had four faces, four wings, and two hands. As a whole, the form of each creature was that of a man; as he says: They had the likeness of a man.2 He also states that their two hands were likewise the hands of a man, 418 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 2 [ 4 a it being known that a man’s hands are indubitably formed as they are in order to be engaged in the arts of craftsmanship. Then he states that their feet are straight; he means that they have no articulations. This is the mean¬ ing of his dictum, straight feet* according to its external sense. [The Sages] have likewise said: And their feet were straight feet — this teaches [us] that above, 4 there is no sitting.5 Understand this also. Then he states that the soles of their two feet, which are instruments for walking, are not like the feet of a man, whereas their hands | are like the hands of a man. For the feet were round, Like the sole of a calf’s [cegel] foot 5 Then he states that there is no interval and no space between those four living creatures, each of them adhering to the other; he says, Coupled together, a woman to her sister } Then he states that though they adhered to one another, their faces and their wings were separated above; he says: And their faces and their wings were separated above5 Consider his saying above. For only the bodies adhered to one another, whereas their faces and their wings were separated, but only from above. That is why he says: And their faces and their wings were separated above. Then he states that they were brilliant like the color of burnished brass.9 Then he states that they also gave light; he says: Their appearance was like coals of fire}9 This is all that he says concerning the form of the living creatures, I mean their shape, their substance, their forms, their wings, their hands, and their feet.
Then he began to describe the manner of the motions of these living creatures. Regarding these he states that which you will hear. He says that in the motions of the living creatures, there was no turning, no deviation, and no curve, but only one motion. For he says: They turned not when they went}1 Then he states that each of the living creatures went in the direction toward which its face was turned. For he says: Each goes in the direction of its face}2 Thus he makes it clear that each living creature went only in the direction that was contiguous to its face. Would only that I knew to which face, for they had many faces. However, to sum up, the four did not all of them go in one direction. For if it had been so, he would not have assigned to each of them a separate motion, saying: Each goes in the direction of its face. Then he states that the form of the motion of these living creatures was running and that it was likewise by running that they retraced their way.
3. Ezek. 1:7. 4. I. e., in the upper world. 5. Genesis Rabbah, LXV.
6. Ezek. 1: 7. The word cegel (calf) has the same radicals as the verb and adjective cagol (to be round, round). Maimonides implies that the word used in this verse has, or contains an allusion to, this meaning.
g. Ezek. 1: 7.
10. Ezek. i: 13, 5« ] The Guide of the Perplexed III - 2 jiy For he says: And the living creatures ran and returned [ram va-shob].li For raso is the infinitive of the verb ras [to run] and shob is the infinitive of the verb | shah [to return]. He did not use the verbs halokh [to go] and bo [to come], but said that their motion consisted in running and retracing their way. And. he made it clear in an image, saying: As the appearance of a flash of lightning [ bazaq ].1+ For bazaq is another word for baraq [lightning]. Accordingly he says that it is like lightning [baraq], whose motion appears to be the swiftest of motions and which stretches out rapidly and at a rush from a certain place and then with the same rapidity contracts and returns time after time to the place whence it moved. Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, interpreted the words raso va-shob as follows: They went round the world and returned [as] one creature and rapid as the appearance of lightning. Then he15 states that the motion takes place, not because of the direction toward which the living creature moves in this motion of running and re¬ tracing one’s way, but because of something else, I mean the divine pur¬ pose. Accordingly he says that it is in the direction toward which the living creature should move according to the divine purpose that it accomplishes this rapid movement, which is a running and returning [raso va-shobh]. For he says concerning the living creatures: Whither the air [ruah] will be [yihyeh] they will go; they turned not when they went.16 Ruah here does not mean wind, but purpose, as we have made clear when speaking of the equivocality of ruah J1 He says accordingly that the living creature runs in the direction in which it is the divine purpose that the living creature run. Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, has already interpreted this too in a similar way, saying: They went wherever the will was that they should go, and they did not turn when going. Now inasmuch as his saying reads, Whither the air will be they will go, and consequently its outer meaning signifies that sometimes God will wish in the future that the living creature should go in a certain direction and then it would take that direction and sometimes again He will wish that it should go in another direction different from the first and it would go accordingly; he18 goes back to the passage and explains this obscure point, | letting us know that this is not so and that yihyeh [will be] has here the meaning hayah [has been], as is often the case in Hebrew. Thus the direction in which God wished the living creature to go had been determined; the living creature takes the direction that God had wished it to take; and the will19 is constant regarding this direction. In order to explain this matter and to complete what he has to say about it, he says in 19. Of God.
420 The Guide of the Perplexed ill • 2 [ 56 another verse: Whithersoever the air 20 will go, they will go thither, as the air 20 to go,21 Understand this wondrous explanation. This too belongs to his description of the form of the motion of the four living creatures, which comes after the description of their shapes.
Then he started upon another description, saying that he had seen a single body beneath the living creatures and adhering to them. This body was joined to the earth and also formed four bodies and likewise had four faces. He does not ascribe to it any form at all, neither a man’s form nor another form pertaining to living beings, but states that they were great, terrible, and fearful bodies without ascribing to them any shape at all. He states that all their bodies were eyes22 They are those that he calls wheels [■ ophannim ], saying: And I saw the living creatures, and, behold, one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.21 Accordingly he has made it clear that it was a single body whose one extremity was by the living creatures while the other was on the earth, and that this wheel had four faces. He says: The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl; and they four had one likeness.2+ Thus after having spoken of one wheel, he goes on to speak of four. Accordingly he makes it quite clear that the four faces that the wheel has are the four wheels. Then he states that the shape of the four wheels is one and the same, for he says: And the four had one likeness. Then he explains with regard to these wheels that they | were encased one within the other, for he says: And their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within [ be-tokh ] a wheel.25 This is an expression that is not used with regard to the living creatures; for he does not use with regard to the living creatures the word tokh [within]. Rather do they adhere to each other; as he says: Coupled together, a woman to her sister 26 As for the wheels, he states that they were encased one within the other, as it were a wheel within a wheel. As for the whole body of the wheels of which he says that it was full of eyes [ceinayim],27 it is possible that he meant that they were really full of eyes; but it is also possible that he meant that they had many colors, as in the passage: And the color thereof [1 ve-ceino ] as the color of [ ke-cein ] bdellium. 28 It is likewise possible that he meant that they were likenesses, just as we find that the ancient masters of the language say, Ke-Cein she-ganab, keAein she-gazal,29 meaning: Like 20. ruah. According to Maimonides’ explanation: the purpose. 21. Ezek. 1:20.
28. Num. 11:7. In this passage, the word cayin, which usually means “eye,” signifies “color.”
29. Cf. B.T., Baba Qarama, 65a and 66. The word ke-cein, in which the word cay~in (eye) is included, means in this passage: like unto.
6a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 2 j 21 unto what one has stolen, like unto what one has robbed. [The word “ceinayim” may also mean] various states and attributes, as in its dictum:50 It may be that the Lord will look be-^eini51 — he means, [on] my state. This is what he describes with regard to the form of the wheels.
As for the motion of the wheels, he again says that there was in their motion no curve, no turning, and no deviation; there were only straight motions that did not vary. This is his saying: When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not when they went?2 Then he states that these four wheels do not move essentially, as do the living creatures; for they have no essential motion at all, moving only when moved by something other than themselves. He insistently repeats this notion and reaffirms it several times. And he makes out that the movers33 of the wheels are none other than the living creatures, so that, to use an image, the relation of a wheel to a living creature could be likened to what happens when one ties an inanimate body to the hands and the feet of a living being: every time the living being moves, the piece of timber or the stone tied to a limb of that living being moves likewise. Accordingly he says: 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,3+ And he also says: And the wheels were lifted up facing them,35 And he explains the cause of this, saying: For the air of the living creature was in the wheels?6 He repeats this notion in order to confirm it and to make it understood, saying: When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up facing them; for the air of the living creature was in the wheels?1 Accordingly the order of these motions is as follows: The living crea¬ tures moved in whatever direction it was the divine purpose that the living creatures should move, and by the motion of the living creatures the wheels were moved, following the former through being bound to them. For the wheels do not of their own accord move the living creatures. And he sets forth the order of that grade, saying: Whithersoever the air will go, they will go thither, as the air to go; and the wheels were lifted up facing them; for the air of the living creature was in the wheels?6 I have already made known to you the translation of Jonathan ben Uzlel, peace be on him: Wherever the will was that they should go, and so on.
'When he had finished the description of the living creatures, of their 33. In the singular in Arabic. 34. Ezek. 1: ig. 35. Ezek. 1:20.
422 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 3 [ 66 forms, and of their motions, and had mentioned the wheels that are beneath the living creatures, their being bound to the latter and moved with their motion, he starts to set forth a third apprehension that he had and goes back to another description concerning that which is above the living creatures. He says that above the four living creatures, there is & firmament; upon the firmament, the likeness of a throne f and upon the throne, a likeness as the appearance of a man.*0 This is the whole of the description he has made of what he has first apprehended by the river of Khebar. | CHAPTER 3 After Ezekiel, peace be on him, had set forth the description of the Chariot l\. as given in the beginning of the book, the selfsame apprehension re¬ turned to him a second time when, in a vision of prophecy, he was borne to Jerusalem. Thereupon he explained to us things that at first had not been explained. Thus for our benefit he replaced the word living creatures by the word cherubim, making it known to us that the living creatures that were mentioned at first are also angels — I mean, the cherubim. He says: And when the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them.1 Thus he confirms the fact that, as we have mentioned, the two motions were bound together. Then he says: This is the living creature that I saw wider the God of Israel by the river of Khebar; and I knew that they were the cherubim? Accordingly he repeats the description of the selfsame forms and the selfsame motions and makes it clear that the living creatures are the cherubim and the cherubim are the living creatures. Thereupon he explains in this second description another notion, namely, the notion that the wheels [ophannim] are the g algal lim 5 [spheres']; he says:4 As for the wheels [ophannim], they were called in my hearing-. Hag algal. ^ Then he explains a third notion regarding the wheels [ophannim], 5. The word galgallim, meaning “wheels” (like the word ophannim), has in later Hebrew the signification of “heavenly spheres.”
4. Ezek. 10:13.
5. In the English Bible, this word is translated: the wheelwork. Maimonides takes it to refer to the heavenly spheres.
saying with reference to them: But to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went.6 Thus he states explicitly that the compulsory motion of the wheels followed to the place whither the head looked. That is to say, as he has explained, it followed whither the air will be.1 Then he adds a fourth notion regarding the wheels; he says: And the wheels were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had.6 | He did not mention this notion at first. Then he says in this last apprehension with regard to the wheels: their flesh and their backs and their hands and their wings.9 At first he had not mentioned that the wheels had flesh or hands or wings, but only that they were bodies. Finally, however, he goes so far as to say that they have flesh, hands, and wings; but he does not ascribe to them any form whatever. In this second apprehension he also explains that every wheel is related to a cherub, saying: One wheel beside one cherub, and another wheel beside another cherub}9 He also explains there that the four living creatures are one living creature because of the adherence of all of them to one another; for he says: This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Khebar. 1 1 Similarly he calls the wheels, One wheel upon the earth,12 in spite of there being, as he also mentions, four wheels; and this because of their being joined to one another and of their having13 all four one likeness}* These are the explanations, regarding the forms of the living creatures and the wheels, that are added for our benefit in this second apprehension.
CHAPTER 4 It behooves us to draw your attention to a certain thought adopted by Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him. When he saw the explicit state¬ ment,1 As for the wheels [ ophannim ], they were called in my hearing: Hagalgal [the sphere],2 he categorically decided that the wheels [ophannim] are the heavens. Accordingly he translated in every case ophan [wheel] by galgala [sphere] 3 and ophannim [wheels] by galgalaya [spheres], I have no doubt that to his mind, peace be on him, this interpretation was corro¬ borated | by the dictum of Ezekiel, peace be on him, regarding the 6. Ezek. 10: n. 7. Cf. Ezek. 1:20. Cf. preceding chapter. 8. Ezek. 10:12.
13. Literally: being all of them. 14. Ezek. 1:16.
424 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 4 [ 8a wheels [ ophannim ] that they were like unto the color of a beryl* a color that is that attributed to the heavens, as is generally known. However, when he found the text, Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth? which indubitably indicates that the wheels are upon the earth, this appeared to him to constitute a difficulty with regard to this interpretation. Accordingly he went further in his interpretation, interpreting [the word] earth in this passage as referring to the surface of heaven, which is an earth with respect to what is above it. Accordingly he translated: One wheel upon the earth beneath the height of heaven. Understand this interpretation as it is in reality. It seems to me that he was led to this interpretation by his belief, peace be on him, that galgal is a term designating in the first place the heavens. It seems, however, to me that the matter is as follows. The [Hebrew] term for rolling is galgel. Thus: And roll thee down \ye-gilgaltikha\ from the rocks? And rolled \va-yagel ] the stone.1 For this reason it is said, And like a rolling thing \u-khe-galgal\ before the whirlwind? because of its rolling. For this reason too the cranium is called gulgoleth, because of its being nearly round. Because every sphere rolls rapidly, every spherical thing was called galgal. Hence the heavens were called galgallim because of their being round — I mean, because of their being spherical. Accordingly [the Sages] say [with reference to fate]: it is a revolving galgal [ sphere ].9 For the selfsame reason they likewise call a pulley galgal. Accordingly [Ezekiel’s] dictum — As for the wheels [ophanmm], they were called in my hearing: Hagalgal10 — makes their shape known to us. For he does not ascribe to them any shape or form except by saying that they are galgallim.
With regard to his saying about them, like unto beryl?1 he interprets this also in the second description, saying with regard to the wheels [ ophan - mm]: And the appearance of the wheels was as the color of a beryl stoned 2 Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, translated this: like unto a precious stone. Now you know already that Onqelos used this very expression to translate: As it were, a work of the whiteness of sapphire stone?5 he says: As the work of a precious stone. There is consequently no difference | between its saying, As the color of a beryl stone, and its saying, As it were, a work of the whiteness of sapphire stone. Understand this.
You must not find it incongruous that, having mentioned the inter¬ pretation of Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him, I propounded a different interpretation. You will find that many among the Sages, and even among 8b ] The Guide of the Perplexed III -5 423