Chasmalim: The Radiant Angels of the Amber Fire, Bearers of Divine Illumination
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, "Lightning" (1909) — the Lithuanian symbolist painter captures something of the quality that the Hebrew word *chasmal* evokes: light that is not gentle but overwhelming, not decorative but transformative, the kind of radiance that restructures everything it touches. There is a word in the Hebrew Book of Ezekiel that has challenged translators, theologians, and mystics for more than two thousand years. When the prophet attempts to describe what he saw at the center of the divine storm cloud — the innermost radiance surrounding the four living creatures and the chariot of God — he reaches for a word that appears nowhere else in quite this sense: chasmal (חַשְׁמַל). "As I looked, I saw a windstorm coming out of the north — an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal" (Ezekiel 1:4). And again, describing the appearance of the enthroned divine figur...