The first part of Ezekiel 1:4 says, “I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north.” John Nelson Darby’s New Translation and the American Standard Version both translate the Hebrew word rendered whirlwind as “stormy wind,” and I feel that this translation is preferable. Thus, this verse is saying that a stormy wind came from the north.
Why did the stormy wind come from the north and not from the south, the east, or the west? The answer to this question is found in Psalm 75:6-7a: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge.” Here north is replaced with God. This indicates that God is at the north. In geographical terms the north is commonly regarded as up, and thus to go north is to go up. God, who is at the north, is always up. Spiritually speaking, this means that when we are going north, we are going to God. The fact that the stormy wind came from the north means that it came from God. The dwelling place, the habitation, of God is the source of all spiritual things. The stormy wind came from the north, from the habitation of God. God, therefore, was the source of the stormy wind.
The Hebrew word for wind is ruach. Ruach may be translated “wind” or “breath” or “spirit.” In the King James Version of Ezekiel 37, this Hebrew word is translated in all three of these ways: “wind” in verse 9, “breath” in verses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10, and “Spirit” in verses 1 and 14. It is difficult for translators to decide whether in a certain verse ruach means wind, breath, or spirit. The decision must be made according to the context.
In 1:4 ruach denotes a wind, a stormy wind which signifies nothing less than the powerful Spirit. On the day of Pentecost there was a rushing, mighty wind which filled the house where the one hundred twenty were sitting. Then all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2, 4a). No doubt, that rushing, mighty wind was the powerful Spirit.
In John 3:8 the Lord Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Some versions point out in a footnote that the word wind in this verse is a translation of the Greek word for spirit, pneuma. The Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma have exactly the same meaning. Like ruach, the word pneuma can be translated “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” Thus, in this verse the Greek words translated the wind blowsmay also be rendered “the Spirit blows.” In Ezekiel 1:4 the strong, stormy wind is a figure, a picture, of the mighty Spirit of God.
In the Bible the wind has both a negative and positive significance. In its negative significance the wind is a symbol, or sign, of God’s judgment upon man. This is the significance of the wind in Daniel 7:2 and in Revelation 7:1. In its positive significance the wind is a symbol, or sign, of the blowing of the Holy Spirit upon man or the descending of the Holy Spirit upon man to take care of man. This, of course, is the significance of the rushing, mighty wind in Acts 2. In the book of Ezekiel the wind also has this twofold significance: the negative significance—God’s judgment by raising up circumstances through which He judges those who rebel against Him; the positive significance—in the Spirit’s coming to man to cause man to have God’s life. The stormy wind in Ezekiel 1 has this positive significance.