Well! The spiritual “Ezekiel Saw De Wheel” is a pretty strange song. Have you ever wondered what on earth it means, or have you just sung it, or listened to it, and enjoyed the rhythm and tune?
If you take a look at the first chapter of the book of Ezekiel in the Jewish Bible/Old Testament you’ll find the source for the images of this spiritual. Ezekiel, we are told, is writing during the Jewish exile in Babylon, which occurred after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in about 595 BC. He was a contemporary of both Daniel and Jeremiah, and his book is full of visions and prophecies which are pretty strange and hard to understand, it must be admitted. But Ezekiel himself tells us that he’s simply reporting what God showed him: