Gods Who Travel in Fire: Mari, Ezekiel and Elijah’s Chariot

Mari and the fire in the Basque sky

The Basque stories give Mari several shapes. On her page I list a woman riding a chariot pulled by fire horses, and a fireball flying through the sky. Her presence is marked by lightning, storms or whirlwinds. People in the valleys watched where she went, because her travels decided whether rain or drought would come.

What strikes me is the routine. Mari does not fly once in a great myth. She moves on a schedule, between fixed places like Anboto and Aketegi, and the people below know what it looks like. That is how you describe something you see, not only something you imagine. For more of her world, see Basque myths.

Ezekiel’s vision from the north

The clearest biblical case is the first chapter of Ezekiel. The prophet is by the river Chebar when something comes out of the north.

And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

Ezekiel 1:4 (KJV)

A storm wind, a cloud, a fire that folds in on itself, and a bright centre. Put that next to Mari’s storm of fire and the two are close. I go through Ezekiel’s words for this object, the ruach and the kavod, on Kavod, Ruach and Merkaba. The wheels and the cherubim are on Ezekiel and Cherubim, a mechanical security device.

Paul Wallis makes the link between Ezekiel and Elijah himself. In his book The Eden Conspiracy he writes:

Ezekiel’s kavod, with its fire and clouds of smoke, arrives via a ‘whirlwind wind’ and so does Elijah’s when it takes him up into the sky, with Elisha as the eyewitness. Just picture that whirlwind with a craft travelling through it. Don’t we call that a wormhole?

Paul Wallis, The Eden Conspiracy

The pillar of fire in the Exodus

In the Exodus the God of Israel leads the people in a cloud by day and in fire by night.

And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:

Exodus 13:21 (KJV)

This is not only an Israelite idea. On Cloud by day, luminous sign by night I show that Akkadian inscriptions give the gods a radiant cloud by day and a star-like fire by night, and that the Ugaritic texts give Baal a day-cloud and a night-fire when he goes to battle. The pattern is older than the Bible.

Mount Sinai and the kavod

At Sinai the descent itself is in fire.

And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Exodus 19:18 (KJV)

Later the kavod, usually translated “glory”, sits on the mountain and looks like fire.

And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Exodus 24:17 (KJV)

Smoke like a furnace, a mountain that shakes, and a fire that sits on top for days. I read that as a landing. More on the place itself is on Mount Sinai.

Elijah’s chariot of fire

Elijah does not die. He is taken.

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

2 Kings 2:11 (KJV)

A chariot with horses of fire is almost exactly one of Mari’s forms. Elijah’s student Elisha later sees a whole mountain of them.

And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

2 Kings 6:17 (KJV)

I follow Elijah further on Elijah and on Pleiadeans in the Old Testament, where the beings around Elisha are read as malʾāḵîm, messengers. On Atlantis, Edda und Bibel I summarise Hermann Wieland, who goes further and ties Elijah’s fiery ride to Thor’s chariot.

The chariot of fire in other sources on this site

The same image turns up in channelled and visionary texts. In the Oahspe, in God’s Book of Eskra, a soul is carried off in one:

And Jehovih sent a chariot of fire, and bore his soul to Paradise.

God's Book of Eskra, Oahspe

On Stone Henge, Anna describes a craft of light by the same name:

That is to say, it is of the Light, beings of light, in complete unified Oneness, have co-created what is called a ‘Chariot of Fire or a Chariot of the Sun’, some call this living Light-craft a group Mer Ka Ba energy field.

Anna, the voice of the Magdalenes

What I make of it

The descriptions share four things. The being comes from the sky. It comes with fire and a storm or whirlwind. It makes noise or shakes the ground. And it can lift people and take them elsewhere. Mari has all four in a Basque valley, and Ezekiel, Moses and Elijah have them in the Near East.

One reading says these are poetic ways to speak of divine power. Another says that people in different places saw real objects in the sky and described them with the words they had: fire, chariot, storm. I keep both open, but the second one explains why the details are so practical, like the schedule of Mari’s flights or the noise Ezekiel hears behind him.

Related pages

• Mari, Supreme Deity
• Basque myths
• Kavod, Ruach and Merkaba
• Ezekiel
• Elijah
• Cloud by day, luminous sign by night
• Mount Sinai

Sources

• Ezekiel 1:4, Exodus 13:21, Exodus 19:18, Exodus 24:17, 2 Kings 2:11, 2 Kings 6:17, Bible Gateway (KJV)
• Paul Wallis, The Eden Conspiracy