And their rims, and their spokes, and the wheels were full of eyes round about: Because Revised Standard Version focuses only on the wheels here, it omits two Hebrew words from this clause. Instead of their rims, and their spokes, the Hebrew text has “their whole body and their backs and their hands and their wings,” which refers to the living creatures. We recommend following the Hebrew text here (so Hebrew Old Testament Text Project), which Good News Translation does by saying “Their bodies, backs, hands, wings, and wheels were covered with eyes.” According to 1.18 (see the comments there), only the rims of the wheels were full of eyes round about, but here both the living creatures and the whole wheels “were covered with eyes” (Good News Translation). New Jerusalem Bible provides a good model for this clause, saying “and their entire bodies, their backs, their hands, their wings, as well as the wheels, had eyes all the way around.”

The wheels that the four of them had: This clause simply reminds us that each of the four creatures was beside a wheel. It may not be necessary to include this clause in the translation, but we recommend keeping it. New Century Version says “Each of the four living creatures had a wheel.”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .