A cherub (; : cherubim; kərūḇ, pl. kərūḇīm) is one type of supernatural being in the Abrahamic religions. The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles, such as protecting the entrance of the Garden of Eden.
Etymology Delitzch's Assyrisches Handwörterbuch (1896) connected the name keruv with Assyrian kirubu (a name of the shedu or lamassu) and karabu ("great, mighty").
Salomon Karppe (1897) glossed Babylonian karâbu as "propitious" rather than "mighty".De Vaux, Roland (tr. John McHugh), Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1961).
Stephen Herbert Langdon (1923) in his The Babylonian Epic of Creation, said: "karubu has the same meaning as karibu, 'one who prays', an image of a mythical monster placed at the gates of temples and palaces. This 'intercessor', a figure of a mythical monster, is clearly identical with the Hebrew kerub, cherub."
Dhorme (1926) similarly connected the Hebrew name to Assyrian kāribu (diminutive kurību), a term used to refer to intercessory beings (and statues of such beings) that plead with the gods on behalf of humanity with the literal meaning of "blesser".
The folk etymology connecting cherub to a Hebrew word for "youthful" is due to Abbahu (3rd century).
The Hebrew word was transliterated in Greek with a chi (χερουβ), and then in Latin with "ch". While "ch" in words coming from Greek are usually pronounced as a k in English (such as "chemistry" or "chela"), the "ch" in "cherub" is normally pronounced as in "church". According to Raanan Eichler, 'cherubim' may also relate to the Greek word 'grýps' (griphon).
Abrahamic religious traditions In Jewish angelic hierarchy, cherubim have the ninth (second-lowest) rank in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (12th century), and the third rank in Kabbalistic works such as Berit Menuchah (14th century). The Christian work De Coelesti Hierarchia places them in the highest rank alongside Seraphim and Thrones.
The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1 and 10, speaks of Ezekiel seeing four "living creatures" ("chayot" in Hebrew), and in Chapter 10 he uses the word "cherub" or its plural, although it is not clear what the relationship is between the two. Based on Ezekiel's description the idea arose, as shown in (at least some) Christian icons, that a cherub has two pairs of wings and four faces: that of a lion (representative of all wild animals), an ox (domestic animals), a human (humanity), and an eagle (birds). In Chapter 10 the face of the ox is replaced by the face of a cherub (see below). As described by Ezekiel, "Their legs were straight, the soles of their feet like the hooves of a bull, gleaming like polished brass."
In Islam, "cherubim" or "the Close" refers to the highest angels near God, in contrast to the messenger angels. They include the Bearers of the Throne, the angels around the throne, and the archangels. The angels of mercy subordinative to Michael are also identified as cherubim. In Isma'ilism, there are Seven Archangels referred to as cherubim.
Later tradition ascribes to them a variety of physical appearances. Some early midrash literature conceives of them as non-corporeal. In Western Christian tradition, cherubim have become associated with the putto derived from Cupid in classical antiquity, resulting in depictions of cherubim as small, plump, winged boys.
Cherubim are also mentioned in the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, a 3rd-century Gnostic writing.
Appearance
Aside from Ezekiel's vision, no detailed attestations of cherubim survive, and Ezekiel's description of the tetramorph being may not be the same as the cherubim of the historic Israelites. All that can be gleaned about the cherubim of the Israelites come from potential equivalents in the cultures which surrounded them.
The appearance of the cherubim continue to be a subject of debate. Mythological hybrids are common in the art of the Ancient Near East. One example is the Babylonian lamassu or shedu, a protective spirit with a sphinx-like form, possessing the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion or bull, and the head of a king. This was adopted largely in Phoenicia. The wings, because of their artistic beauty and symbolic use as a mark of creatures of the heavens, soon became the most prominent part, and animals of various kinds were adorned with wings; consequently, wings were bestowed also upon human forms, thus leading to the stereotypical image of an angel.
William F. Albright (1938) argued that "the winged lion with human head" found in Phoenicia and Canaan from the Late Bronze Age is "much more common than any other winged creature, so much so that its identification with the cherub is certain". A possibly related source is the human-bodied Hittite griffin, which, unlike other griffins, appear almost always not as a fierce bird of prey, but seated in calm dignity, like an irresistible guardian of holy things; some have proposed that the word griffin () may be cognate with cherubim (kruv > grups). which references While Ezekiel initially describes the tetramorph cherubim as having
the face of a man ... the face of a lion ... the face of an ox ... and ... the face of an eagle
in the this formula is repeated as
the face of the cherub ... the face of a man ... the face of a lion ... the face of an eagle
which (given that "ox" has apparently been substituted with "the cherub") some have taken to imply that cherubim were envisioned to have the head of a bovine.
In particular resonance with the idea of cherubim embodying the throne of God, numerous pieces of art from Phoenicia, Ancient Egypt, and even Tel Megiddo in northern Israel depict kings or deities being carried on their thrones by hybrid winged creatures.
If this animalistic form is how the ancient Israelites envisioned cherubim, it raises more questions than it answers. For one, it is difficult to visualize the cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant as quadrupedal creatures with backward-facing wings, as these cherubim were meant to face each other and have their wings meet, while still remaining on the edges of the cover from which they were beaten. At the same time, these creatures have little to no resemblance to the cherubim in Ezekiel's vision.
On the other hand, even if cherubim had a more humanoid form, this still would not entirely match Ezekiel's vision and likewise seemingly clashes with the apparently equivalent archetypes of the cultures surrounding the Israelites, which almost uniformly depicted beings which served analogous purposes to Israel's cherubim as largely animalistic in shape. All of this may indicate that the Israelite conception of the cherubs appearance may not have been wholly consistent.
Nicolas Wyatt writes that motifs present in the Garden of Eden narrative, such as the trees, rivers, divine figures, the robed king, and the sphinxes and griffins were "clichés" in wider ancient Near Eastern iconography.
Hebrew Bible
The cherubim are the most frequently occurring heavenly creature in the Hebrew Bible, as the Hebrew word appears 91 times. The first occurrence is in the Book of Genesis 3:24. Despite these many references, the role of the cherubim is never explicitly elucidated. While Israelite tradition must have conceived of the cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden in which they guard the way to the Tree of life, they are often depicted as performing other roles; for example in the Book of Ezekiel, they transport Yahweh's throne. The cherub who appears in the "Song of David", a poem which occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible, in 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18, participates in Yahweh's theophany and is imagined as a vehicle upon which the deity descends to earth from heaven to rescue the speaker (see 2 Samuel 22:11, Psalm 18:10).
In Exodus 25:18–22, God tells Moses to make multiple images of cherubim at specific points around the Ark of the Covenant. Many appearances of the words cherub and cherubim in the Bible refer to the gold cherubim images on the mercy seat of the Ark, as well as images on the curtains of the Tabernacle and in Solomon's Temple, including two measuring ten cubits high.
In Isaiah 37:16, Hezekiah prays, addressing God as , referring to the mercy seat. In regard to this same phrase, which also appears in 2 Kings 19, Eichler renders it "who dwells among the cherubim". Eichler's interpretation contrasts with common translations for many years, which have rendered it as "who sits upon the cherubim." This has implications for the understanding of whether the ark of the covenant in Solomon's Temple was Yahweh's throne or simply an indicator of Yahweh's immanence.
Cherubim feature at some length in Ezekiel. While they first appear in Ezekiel 1, in which they are transporting the throne of God by the Kebar (or Chebar, which was near Tel Abib in Nippur), they are not called "cherubim" until Ezekiel 10. In Ezekiel 1:5–11 they are described as having the likeness of a man and having four faces: that of a man, a lion (on the right side), and ox (on the left side), and an eagle. The four faces represent the four domains of God's rule: the man represents humanity, the lion represents wild animals, the ox represents domestic animals, and the eagle represents birds.
These faces peer out from the center of an array of four wings; these wings are joined to each other, two of which are stretched upward, and the other two cover their bodies. Under their wings are human hands; their legs are described as straight, and their feet like those of a calf, shining like polished brass. Between the creatures, glowing coals that moved between them could be seen; their fire "went up and down", and lightning burst forth from it. The cherubs also moved like flashes of lightning.
In Ezekiel 10, another detailed description of the cherubim appears, with slight variations in the details. Three of the four faces are the same – man, lion and eagle – but where chapter one has the face of an ox, Ezekiel 10:14 says "face of a cherub". Ezekiel equates the cherubim of chapter ten with the living creatures of chapter one in Ezekiel 10:15, "The cherubs ascended; those were the creatures () that I had seen by the Chebar Canal" and in 20:10, "They were the same creatures that I had seen below the God of Israel at the Chebar Canal; so now I knew that they were cherubs." In Ezekiel 41:18–20, they are portrayed as having two faces, although this is probably because they are depicted in profile.
In Judaism
In rabbinic literature, the two cherubim are described as being human-like figures with wings, one a boy and the other a girl, placed on the opposite ends of the Mercy seat in the inner-sanctum of God's house.Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 5b). Solomon's Temple was decorated with Cherubs according to , and Aḥa bar Ya’akov claimed this was true of the Second Temple as well.
Many forms of Judaism include a belief in the existence of angels, including cherubim within the Jewish angelic hierarchy. The existence of angels is generally accepted within traditional rabbinic Judaism. There is, however, a wide range of beliefs within Judaism about 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, 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.
On the other end of the philosophical spectrum is Maimonides, who 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 to the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates.