The song's music and text has no known author, but originated among enslaved African-Americans on Plantation complexes in the Southern United States sometime in the early 19th century.
[2] Ezekiel Saw the Wheel has been published in numerous song anthologies and hymnals.
[3] Numerous choral arrangements have been created; including those by William L. Dawson,[4][5] Harry Burleigh, Gerre Hancock, Moses Hogan, and Norman Luboff.
[6] The spiritual has been recorded by such artists as Woody Guthrie, Louis Armstrong, John Lee Hooker, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Tillers, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, The Charioteers, Gold City and George Beverly Shea.
The song recounts the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel's divine vision, described at the start of the eponymous book.