Zoharic commentary on the verse:

"In the center of the fire the likeness of the ḥashmal" (Exek. 1:4):

This is the the one [splendour] that is seen and all the colours are hidden in it, and it is called Adonai. Three colours appear below this [i.e. three colours are seen within the Shekhina], and three colours above [corresponding to the three central emanations, Ḥesed, Din and Raḥamin].... When the lower splendour, Adonai, unites with the upper splendour, YHWH, the hidden name is produced through which the true prophets knew and contemplated the upper splendour. This is YAHDWNHY, the appearance of those that are hidden, as it is written, "like a ḥashmal in the flame" (Ezek. 1:4).^[1]

It has been established that [the word "ḥashmal" refers to] the fiery beasts that speak, and they are the splendour that shines, it goes up and down, the fire that is burning. It exists and it does not exist, for there is no one who can understand it in one place. no eyes of vision can master it. It is and it is not, in one place and then in another place. It goes up and down. In this appearance is hidden that which is hidden and concealed that which is concealed. This is the mystery called ḥashmal. Prophets must see, know and contemplate within this with the vision of the hear and yey more than anything else.... All that they contemplate to see and to know is the speculum that does not shine. No prophet was worthy of contemplating the speculum that shines but Moses, the faithful prophet, for all the keys of the house were placed in his hand. When all the other prophets reached this ḥashmal to contemplate with their eyes, their thoughts were confused and the heart was not settled, and because of it they abandoned all corporeal images. Consequently they saw within what they saw in silence.^[2]

From Moses de León in his Sha'ar Yesod ha-Merkavah, a commentary on Ezekiel's chariot vision: "Ḥashmal—the beasts of fire that are joined as one in the mystery of proper unity and oneness when everything is bound together in one knot."^[3] The vision of the ḥashmal is, in effect, a vision of the three upper beasts, that is, the central sefirot, as they are united in one bond in Yesod, the divine phallus. "This is the mystery of the ḥashmal that we mentioned above, the mystery of the beasts united as one, and they are called ḥashmal . . . and the mystery of these beasts [is that they] are called in their unity ḥashmal. This is a know mystery in the depths of wisdom, and [the ḥashmal] is called YAHDWNHY, the mystery of the supernal beasts united in one name.... Thus commenting on the biblical text "I saw the likeness of the ḥashmal" (Ezek. 1:4), the zoharic authorship reflects, " 'In the likeness' (ke-'ein), that is, like the eye (ke-'eina) that cannot contemplate in contemplation, but it is closed and opened, opened and closed. Thus is the ḥashmal concealed and not seen at all except through the hidden vision that no one can understand or comprehend at all.^[4]

Footnotes