A cherub (Heb. כרוב, pl. כרובים, eng. trans kruv, pl. kruvim, dual kruvayim lat. cherub[us], pl cherubi[m]) is a form of angel mentioned several times in the Bible. In modern English the word is usually used for what are strictly putti, baby or toddler angels in art. This article is concerned with the original sense of the word.
Cherubs are described as winged beings. The biblical prophet Ezekiel describes the cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, the feet of a calf, and four wings. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves.
Cherubs are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the Torah (five books of Moses), the Book of Ezekiel, and the Book of Isaiah. In the Christian New Testament Cherubs are mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
The plural can be written as cherubim or cherubs. Because most English speakers are unfamiliar with Hebrew plural formation, the word cherubims is sometimes used as a plural, such as in the King James Bible[1].
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Judaism includes belief in the existence of angels, including Cherubim within the Jewish angelic hierarchy. The existences of angels is generally not contested within rabbinic Judaism; there is, however, a wide range of views on what angels actually are, and how literally one should interpret biblical passages associated with them.
In Kabbalah there has long been a strong belief in Cherubim, with the Cherubim, and other angels, regarded as having mystical roles. The Zohar, a highly significant collection of books in Jewish mysticism, states that the Cherubim were led by one of their number, named Kerubiel.[2]
On the other end of the philosophical spectrum is the view of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. He had a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of the Bible. Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as "angels" are actually allusions for the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates. "Guide of the Perplexed" II:4 and II:6.
Maimonides says (Guide for the Perplexed III:45) that the figures of the cherubayim were placed in the sanctuary only to preserve among the people the belief in angels, there being two in order that the people might not be led to believe that they were the image of God.
Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism generally either drop references to angels or interpret them metaphorically.
The word is also used to refer to the depictions of Cherubim in Solomon's Temple, including the two cherubayim that were part of the Ark of the Covenant. The Book of Numbers depicts the voice of God as speaking to Moses from between the two Cherubayim atop the Ark (Numbers 7:89).
Cherubs are discussed within the midrash literature. The two cherubayim placed by God at the entrance of paradise (Gen. iii. 24) were angels created on the third day, and therefore they had no definite shape; appearing either as men or women, or as spirits or angelic beings (Genesis Rabbah xxi., end). The cherubim were the first objects created in the universe (Tanna debe Eliyahu R., i. beginning). The following sentence of the Midrash is characteristic: "When a man sleeps, the body tells to the neshamah (soul) what it has done during the day; the neshamah then reports it to the nefesh (spirit), the nefesh to the angel, the angel to the cherub, and the cherub to the seraph, who then brings it before God (Leviticus Rabbah xxii.; Eccl. Rabbah x. 20).
A midrash states that when Pharaoh pursued Israel at the Red Sea, God took a cherub from the wheels of His throne and flew to the spot, for God inspects the heavenly worlds while sitting on a cherub. The cherub, however, is "something not material", and is carried by God, not vice versa (Midr. Teh. xviii. 15; Canticles Rabbah i. 9).
In the passages of the Talmud that describe the heavens and their inhabitants, the seraphim, ofannim, and ḥayyot are mentioned, but not the cherubim (Ḥag. 12b); and the ancient liturgy also mentions only these three classes.
In the Talmud, Yose ha-Gelili holds,[3] when the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals) is recited by at least ten thousand seated at one meal, a special blessing - "Blessed is Ha-Shem our God, the God of Israel, who dwells between the Cherubim" - is added to the regular liturgy.
A statement in the Talmud says that when Israel was worshiping the Lord, the cherubayim lovingly turned their faces toward each other (B. B.), and even embraced like a loving couple.
On these occasions the curtain was raised so that the Jews who had come on pilgrimage might convince themselves how much God loved them (Yoma 54a).
At the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the heathen found the cherubayim in this posture; and they mocked the Jews because of their obscene worship, thinking the cherubim to be the objects of it (Yoma 54b).
This conception of the cherubim, as representing the union of Israel with God, has been further developed by Kabbalah, the cherubim being taken to represent the mysterious union of the earthly with the heavenly (see Baḥya b. Asher to Ex. xxv. 20; Zohar, Terumah, ii. 176a).
Midr. Tadshe, like Philo, takes the cherubayim to symbolize the two names of God, Yhwh and Elohim, by which rabbinical theology designates the two attributes ("goodness") and ("justice"). Another Midrash (Numbers Rabbah 4) compares the cherubayim with heaven and earth, as do the Alexandrians mentioned by Philo("De Cherubim," vii.).
There were no cherubayim in the Temple of Herod; but according to some authorities, its walls were painted with figures of cherubim (Yoma 54a).
In Catholic theology, following the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the cherubim are the second highest rank in the angelic hierarchy, following the Seraphim.[4] In western art, Putti are sometimes mistaken for Cherubim, although they look nothing alike. They are also mentioned in the Bible in the book of Genesis (Gen. 3:24) as the angels who guarded the east side of the Garden of Eden with "a flaming sword which turned every way".
One suggestion (by scholars such as David Rohl) is that the word Cherubim as used to describe the guardians of Eden in Genesis, derives from the word 'karibu' - a warlike tribe.
The Protestant Christians view them as separate heavenly beings, who have certain and different duties in God's will. As stated above, the first mention of a Cherub(im) is in Genesis 3, when God places them to guard the entrance of the Garden of Eden against the return of Adam and Eve to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)
Moving on through the Scripture, we find the word Cherub(ims) used 91 times in 66 verses and typically denotes or coincides with the presence of God. In Exodus 25:22, God tells Moses that He will commune with him and instruct Israel from the mercy seat of the Ark of Testimony, which sits between two Cherubs (See Numbers 7:89).
Looking at the Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple in the Scripture, there were Cherubs noted in each as well (See 1 Kings 6). Most times, you see them mentioned in pairs, except in 2 Samuel 22:11, Psalms 18:10, Ezekiel 9:3, 10:4 and 28:14. With this information you can derive that the Cherub were God's guards or sentries.
In Ezekiel 1:4-21 and 10:1-22, he sees a vision of the four living creatures or Cherubim around a throne, each having four faces, four wings, the stature of a man, four sides, the hands of a man, the soles of a calf.
There are several thoughts of what this image was to represent; one of which is that each face represents a living element of the earth: Man, who was to have dominion over all living things of the earth (Genesis 1:26); the lion, who is the king of the jungle; the ox, king of the beasts of burden; and the eagle, the king of the fowl.
Another is the four faces represent the four camps of the Tribes of Israel: Judah, Reuben, Ephraim and Dan; their standards stood at the four sides of the Tabernacle in Numbers 2:2-32.
These are not to be confused with the Seraphim in Isaiah 6 or the "four living creatures" or beasts of Revelation 4:6-8 and 5:8. Please see the separate article on those.
There are distinct differences such as; four wings of the Cherub versus six on the Seraph and six wings filled with eyes on the Four Living Creatures (Revelation 4:8). The Cherub has four faces each where the Four Living Creatures have one different face for each (Revelation 4:6-8) and the Seraphim's faces are not revealed due to one set of wings covering their face. The Four Living Creatures seem to be responsible for praise to God (Revelation 4:9), coupled with the 24 Elders (Revelation 4:4, 4:10, 5:8, 5:14, 11:16, 19:4). The Four Living Creatures of Revelation also play roles in the Judgment (Revelation 6:1-7, 15:5-8). The Cherub seem to be guards and the Seraphim seem to focus on God's holiness (Isaiah 6:2 & 6:7) Pastordwatkins (talk) 19:35, 10 March 2010 (UTC).
Linguistic scholar Roland De Vaux wrote that the term cherubim is cognate with the Assyrian term karabu, Akkadian term kuribu, and Babylonian term karabu; the Assyrian term means 'great, mighty', but the Akkadian and Babylonian cognates mean 'propitious, blessed'.[2][5] In some regions the Assyro-Babylonian term came to refer in particular to spirits which served the gods, in particular to the shedu (human-headed winged bulls)[6]; According to the authors of the Jewish Encyclopedia, Assyrians sometimes referred to these as kirubu, a term grammatically related to karabu.[2]
According to Peak's Commentary on the Bible, a number of scholars have proposed that cherubim were originally a version of the shedu, protective deities sometimes found as pairs of colossal statues either side of objects to be protected, such as doorways.[7][8] However, although the shedu were popular in Mesopotamia, archaeological remains from the Levant suggest that they were quite rare in the immediate vicinity of the Israelites.[9] The related Lammasu (human-headed winged lions — to which the sphinx is similar in appearance), on the other hand, were the most popular winged-creature in Phoenician art, and so most scholars suspect that Cherubim were originally a form of Lammasu.[10] In particular, in a scene reminiscent of Ezekiel's dream, the Megiddo Ivories — ivory carvings found at Megiddo (which became a major Israelite city) — depict an unknown king being carried on his throne by hybrid winged-creatures.[11] According to archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, the Israelites arose as a subculture in Canaanite society, and hence regarded it is as only natural for the Israelites to continue using Canaanite protective deities.[12]
According to the editors of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, the Lammasu was originally depicted as having a king's head, a lion's body, and an eagle's wings, but due to the artistic beauty of the wings, these rapidly became the most prominent part in imagery [2]; wings later came to be bestowed on men, thus forming the stereotypical image of an angel.[13] The griffin — a similar creature but with an eagle's head rather than that of a king — has also been proposed as an origin, arising in Israelite culture as a result of Hittite usage of griffins (rather than being depicted as aggressive beasts, Hittite depictions show them seated calmly, as if guarding),[14] and a few scholars have proposed that griffin may be cognate to cherubim, but Lammasu were significantly more important in Levantine culture, and thus more likely to be the origin.[2]
According to the editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia, Early Israelite tradition conceived of the cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden, being devoid of human feelings, and holding a duty both to represent the gods and to guard sanctuaries from intruders, in a comparable way to an account found on Tablet 9 of the inscriptions found at Nimrud.[2] In this view, cherubim, like the shedu, were probably originally depictions of storm deities, especially the storm winds.[15] This view is offered as a hypothesis to explain the reason for cherubim being described as acting as the chariot of Yahweh in Ezekiel's dream, the Books of Samuel,[16] the parallel passages in the later Book of Chronicles,[17] and passages in the early Psalms[2]:
There were no cherubim in Herodian reconstruction of the Temple, but according to some authorities, its walls were painted with figures of cherubim[20]; paintings of cherubim continued into Christian art. In Christianity, they are often represented in iconography as faces of a lion, ox, eagle, and man peering out from the center of an array of four wings (Ezekiel 1:5-11, 10:12,21 Revelation 4:8); seraphim have six; the most frequently encountered descriptor applied to cherubim in Christianity is many-eyed, and in depictions the wings are often shown covered with a multitude of eyes (showing them to be all seeing beings). Since the Renaissance, in Western Christianity cherubim have sometimes become confused with putti—innocent souls, looking liked winged children, that sing praises to God daily—that can be seen in innumerable church frescoes and in the work of painters such as Raphael.
In modern literature, the character of Mrs. Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time is an angelic being with some similarity to the original cherub. She is capable of physical transformation into a merged human-horse (centaur) with eagle's wings, which are described as being formed out of music and poetry.
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The name of certain symbolical figures frequently mentioned in Scripture. They are first mentioned in connection with the expulsion of our first parents from Garden of Eden (Gen 3:24). There is no intimation given of their shape or form.
They are next mentioned when Moses was commanded to provide furniture for the tabernacle (Ex 25:17ff; Ex 26:1ff). God promised to commune with Moses "from between the cherubim" (Ex 25:22). This expression was afterwards used to denote the Divine abode and presence (Num 7:89; 1Sam 4:4; Isa 37:16; Ps 801; Ps 991). In Ezekiel's vision (Ezek 10:1ff) they appear as living creatures supporting the throne of God. From Ezekiel's description of them (Ezek 1:10; Ezek 41:18f), they appear to have been compound figures, unlike any real object in nature; artificial images possessing the features and properties of several animals. Two cherubim were placed on the mercy-seat of the ark; two of colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's temple. Ezekiel (Ezek 1:4ff) speaks of four; and this number of "living creatures" is mentioned in Rev 4:6. Those on the ark are called the "cherubim of glory" (Heb 9:5), i.e., of the Shechinah, or cloud of glory, for on them the visible glory of God rested. They were placed one at each end of the mercy-seat, with wings stretched upward, and their faces "toward each other and toward the mercy-seat." They were anointed with holy oil, like the ark itself and the other sacred furniture.
The cherubim were symbolical. They were intended to represent spiritual existences in immediate contact with Jehovah. Some have regarded them as symbolical of the chief ruling power by which God carries on his operations in providence (Ps 1810). Others interpret them as having reference to the redemption of men, and as symbolizing the great rulers or ministers of the church. Many other opinions have been held regarding them which need not be referred to here. On the whole, it seems to be most satisfactory to regard the interpretation of the symbol to be variable, as is the symbol itself.
Their office was, (1) on the expulsion of our first parents from Eden, to prevent all access to the tree of life; and (2) to form the throne and chariot of Jehovah in his manifestation of himself on earth. He dwelleth between and sitteth on the cherubim (1Sam 4:4; Ps 801; Ezek 1:26ff).
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