# Ezekiel’s crystal becomes a breakable cosmos

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P019](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P019/#char=1207,1286): "when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal I can remember a shudder"

The wording points specifically to Ezekiel 1:22 in the King James Version: the prophet sees a firmament ‘as the colour of the terrible crystal.’ This is a close verbal echo, not merely another instance of glass imagery. The scene is a vision of divine glory: living creatures and wheels appear below the firmament, a sapphire-like throne above it, and Ezekiel falls on his face at the culmination (1:22–28). [Read the KJV passage](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+1%3A22-28&version=KJV).

The adjective belongs to the vision’s overwhelming majesty; the passage does not say that the firmament might break or that God might drop it. Chesterton transforms that awe into a remembered fear of cosmic fragility, continuing his movement from fairy-tale glass to the preciousness of existence. Translation matters: the Challoner-revised Douay-Rheims has ‘crystal terrible to behold,’ rather than the KJV’s distinctive phrase. The comparison strengthens identification of the English wording he echoes, without proving which Bible he consulted on this occasion. The witnesses inspected were Project Gutenberg #10 and #1581, not original printing copies. [Compare the Douay-Rheims witness](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581), Ezekiel 1:22.

## Sources

- [The King James Version of the Bible](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10), Ezekiel 1:22–28; PG #10 electronic text, local witness retrieved 1 November 2026, header updated 29 October 2024.
- [Ezekiel 1:22–28, King James Version](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+1%3A22-28&version=KJV), Verses 22, 26, 28; corroborating web transcription.
- [The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete, Challoner revision](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581), Ezekiel 1:22–28; PG #1581 electronic witness. Edition record identifies Challoner’s revision, 1749–1752, and the underlying Old Testament publication, 1609–1610.

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