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WHEEL
Device originating in the region of Mesopotamia, probably dating from about 3500 BC. The earliest known form is the two-wheeled cart of Sumer. The first wheels were probably just discs cut from trees, but later wheels were made by clamping three shaped planks together by copper clamps extending the length of the wheel. After 2000 BC wheels with spokes appeared in northern Mesopotamia.
In the Bible, four Hebrew words are used to identify a number of types and usages of the wheel. These include the potter’s wheel (Jer 18:3), chariot wheels (Ex 14:25), and wheels for grinding grain (Is 28:28). The most frequent and most important usage of the word “wheel” in the Bible, however, is in connection with Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot of God (Ez 1, 10). Associated with the cloud appearing in a stormy wind (1:4) are fire, creatures, and wheels. Ezekiel draws the reader’s attention to each of these phenomena. The wheels move in the direction the creatures take them. The significance of the wheel in Ezekiel is the shape. The wheel is compound, a wheel within a wheel. This is not to say that two wheels are on the same axis. It rather signifies a wheel set in a wheel in such a way that its rim makes a 90-degree angle with the rim of the wheel in which it is set. The wheel has mobility; it can roll from east to west and from north to south. Wherever the living creatures go, it will follow. This speaks of God’s universal judgment, which no one can escape.
See also Ezekiel, Book of.