Cherub

This article is about the type of otherworldly entity often mentioned in the Bible . For the winged babies which are found in some artworks, see putto. For other uses, see Cherub (disambiguation).
A cherub, according to traditional Christian iconography.

A cherub (/ˈtʃɛrəb/;[1] also pl. cherubim; Hebrew כְּרוּב, pl. כְּרוּבִים, English trans kərūv, pl. kərūvîm, dual kərūvāyim; Latin cherub, pl. cherubin, cherubim; Syriac ܟܪܘܒܐ) is one of the unearthly beings who directly attend to God. Aside from YHWH, the cherubim are the most frequently occurring heavenly being in the Hebrew Bible, with the Hebrew word for the beings appearing 91 times when referring to a cherub.[2] The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles; out of these duties, the one with which cherubim must have been most originally conceived with is the protection of the Garden of Eden.[3]

Different sources give conflicting information as to the physical appearance of cherubim.[2] An early, traditional Jewish notion supposes that cherubim had youthful, human features (although some early midrashic literature conceives of the cherubim as non-corporeal).[4] In the Book of Ezekiel and (at least some) Christian icons, the cherub is depicted as having a number of wing pairs, and four faces:[2] that of a lion (symbolizing nobility), that of an ox (symbolizing strength), that of a human (symbolizing wisdom), and that of an eagle (symbolizing quickness).

Cherubim became associated with the putto and the Greco-Roman god Cupid/Eros, resulting in the misconception that cherubim are small and plump winged boys.[4]

Angelic status is not attributed to cherubim in the Old Testament (at least not explicitly); only in later sources like De Coelesti Hierarchia are they identified as a hierarchical rank of angels.[5] They are regarded in traditional Christian angelology as angels of the second highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy.[6]

Origin and Etymology

A pair of shedu, protecting a doorway (the body of the creatures extend into the distance)

The origin of the symbolic cherub antedates history, and points to the time when man began to shape his ideas of supernatural powers by mystic forms, especially the combination of parts of the strongest animals of land and air--the Iion and the eagle--, which resulted in the numerous grotesque figures in Middle Eastern lore and architecture. One of these is the Babylonian lamassu, a protective spirit with a sphinxlike form, possessing the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the head of a king. This was adopted largely in Phoenicia. The wings, because of their artistic beauty, soon became the most prominent part, and animals of various kinds were adorned with wings; consequently, wings were bestowed also upon man,[3] thus forming the stereotypical image of an angel.[7] Another probable 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;[3][7] some have proposed that the Hittite word for "griffin" may be cognate with cherubim.[8]

The traditional Hebrew conception of cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden is backed by the Semitic belief of beings of superhuman power and devoid of human feelings, whose duty it was to represent the gods, and as guardians of their sanctuaries to repel intruders; these conceptions in turn are similar to an account found on Tablet 9 of the inscriptions found at Nimrod-Epos.[3] It has been suggested that the image of cherubim as storm winds explains why they are described as being the chariot of the LORD in Ezekiel's visions, the Books of Samuel,[9] the parallel passages in the later Book of Chronicles,[10] and passages in the early Psalms:[3] "and he rode upon a cherub and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind."[11][12]

Dhorme argued that cognates of the Hebrew noun could be found in the Akkadian words kāribu and the diminutive kurību; these terms are used to refer to intercessory beings (and statues of such beings) that plead with the gods on behalf of humanity.[13] Another, Friedrich Delitzch, connected the Hebrew word cherubim with the Assyrian terms kirubu ('shedu'- a being who is very similar to the lamassu in both appearance and role, but has the body of a bull) and karabu ('great, mighty'). Karppe states that the name Cherubim is Babylonian, and that it does not mean 'powerful', but, however, 'propitious'.[3][14] However, while the shedu were popular in Mesopotamia, archaeological remains from the Levant suggest that they were quite rare in the immediate vicinity of the Israelites.[15] 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.[7]

Function

In the Hebrew Bible, the role of the cherubim is never explicitly elucidated.[4] While Hebrew tradition must have conceived of the cherubim as guardians of the Garden of Eden,[3] they are often depicted as performing other roles, like the transportation of the throne of Yahweh (Ezekiel). 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 in order to rescue the speaker (2 Samuel 22:11=Psalm 18:11).[16]

Dhorme wrote, in an important 1926 article, that the function of the cherubim was influenced by the borrowing of the Hebrew word for cherub from Akkadian (see above section); he thus concludes that the cherubim had an intercessory role. In the article, the biblical evidence takes the subordinate position, and thus he reaches conclusions that do not correspond to the biblical presentation of cherubim; yet, his article is still drawn upon in relatively recent commentaries and articles.[13]

In the Hebrew Bible

James Jacques Joseph Tissot - The Ark Passes Over the Jordan

Cherubim appear in the story of the Garden of Eden, to guard the way to the Tree of life.[17]

In Exodus 25:18-22,[2] Yahweh tells Moses to make multiple cherubim images at specific points around Ark of the Covenant.

In Isaiah 37:16, Hezekiah prays, addressing Yahweh as "enthroned above the cherubim" (referring to the mercy seat).

Cherubim feature at some length in the Book of Ezekiel. When they first appear in chapter one, when Ezekiel was "by the river Chebar," they are not called cherubim until chapter 10, but he saw "the likeness of four living creatures." (Ezekiel 1:5) These four beings transport the throne of Yahweh.[18]

In a psalm of David that appears in 2 Samuel 22:11 and Psalms 18:10, David says that the LORD "rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was 'seen' upon the wings of the wind."

The words cherub and cherubim appear many other times in the Bible, referring to the cherubim of beaten gold on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, and images on the curtains of the Tabernacle and in Solomon's Temple, including two cherubim made of olive wood overlaid with gold that were ten cubits high.[19]

In the Hebrew Bible the cherubim do not have the status of angels. It is only in later sources like De Coelesti Hierarchia (see below) that they are considered to be a division of the divine messengers.[5]

New Testament

Cherubim are mentioned in Hebrews 9:5, referencing the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.

The symbolism used by the four living creatures mentioned in the Book of Revelation is similar to that of the depiction of cherubim in the Book of Ezekiel and Christian iconography

Judaism

Many forms of Judaism teach 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 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, 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.[3]

On the other end of the philosophical spectrum is Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as 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.

For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity, despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect; that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages, then he will recoil.– Guide for the Perplexed II:4
For he [the naive person] does not understand that the true majesty and power are in the bringing into being of forces which are active in a thing although they cannot be perceived by the senses....Thus the Sages reveal to the aware that the imaginative faculty is also called an angel; and the mind is called a cherub. How beautiful this will appear to the sophisticated mind, and how disturbing to the primitive." – Guide for the Perplexed II:6.

Maimonides says that the figures of the cherubim 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.[20]

Cherubim are discussed within the midrash literature. The two cherubim 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[21] that 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.

Islam

Cherubs are not mentioned by name in either the Quran or authentic Hadith, but many traditions based on these sources have developed about them. In Islamic tradition, cherubs are angels who hold God's throne. They ask God to forgive, bless and protect the righteous. In 40:8, the Quran says:

Those [angels] who carry the Throne and those around it exalt [ Allah ] with praise of their Lord and believe in Him and ask forgiveness for those who have believed, [saying], "Our Lord, You have encompassed all things in mercy and knowledge, so forgive those who have repented and followed Your way and protect them from the punishment of Hellfire.

Also in 69:17-18:

And the heaven will split [open], for that Day [Judgement Day] it is infirm. And the angels are at its edges. And there will bear the Throne of your Lord above them, that Day, eight [of them].

Having noticed the resemblance between those angels and the Judeo-Christian depiction of cherubs, some Muslim scholars came to the conclusion that the angelic rank responsible for holding God's throne and praising him according to the previous verses is the cherubim.[22] Some Hadith mention cherubs by name. However, they are not authentic owing to their weak chains of narration.[23]

Fakhr Al-Din Al-Turaihi, Muslim scholar who lived in the 17th Century C.E, believed that the archangel Gabriel is the head of cherubs.[24] A Hadith in Shiite tradition tells us that Muhammad heard cherubs wailing and crying with sympathy for sinners in Heaven during his night journey, known as Isra and Mi'raj. Other traditions say that cherubs are so bright that the light of one of them could suffice the whole world. When Moses asked God to show him his face, he made one of his cherubs shine upon the mountain, shattering it to pieces. According to this tradition, God wanted to tell Moses that he couldn't bear to look at a cherub, let alone God.[25]

Middle Ages Christianity

In Medieval theology, following the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, the cherubim are the second highest rank in the angelic hierarchy, following the seraphim.[26]

Depictions

The figures painted on the walls of the Herodian reconstruction of the Temple are called "cherubim" in the Babylonian Talmud.[27]

In early Jewish tradition there existed the notion that cherubim had youthful, human features.[4] Despite this tradition, some early midrashic literature conceives of the cherubim as non-corporeal.[4] In the 1st century A.D., Josephus claimed:"No one can tell, or even conjecture, what was the shape of these Cherubim."(Antiquities:8:73).[4]

One traditional depiction of the cherubim and chariot vision, based on the description by Ezekiel

In (Ezekiel 1:5-11) they are described as having the likeness of a man, and having four faces: a man (wisdom), a lion (nobility) on the right side, an ox (strength) on the left side, and an eagle (quickness). These faces peer out from the center of an array of four wings; these wings are joined to each other, two of these are stretched upward, and the other two cover their bodies. Under their wings are human hands; their feet are described as straight, and their soles like those of calves, and they sparkled with the color of burmished brass. The appearance of their bodies are like burning coals and lamps, their fire "went up and down", and lightning burst forth from it. The cherubs also moved like flashes of lightning.

In Ezekiel chapter ten, another full description of the cherubim appears with slight differences in 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 creature of chapter one by saying: "This is the living creature (חיה) that I saw by the river of Chebar," in Ezekiel 10:15, and in Ezekiel 10:20 he says: "This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Che'bar; and I knew that they were the cherubims."

In Ezekiel 41:18-20, they are portrayed as having two faces, although this is probably because they are depicted in profile.[2] Elsewhere in the bible, they seem to have one face, one pair of wings, and four feet.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "cherub". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wood, Alice. Of Wing and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-11-020528-2.Wood, Alice. Of Wing and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-3-11-020528-2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Jewish Encyclopedia: cherub". Original, 1906. JewishEncyclopedia.com, 2002-2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wood, Alice. Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. p. 1.
  5. 1 2 Kosior, Wojciech. "The Angel in the Hebrew Bible from the Statistic and Hermeneutic Perspectives. Some Remarks on the Interpolation Theory". The Polish Journal of Biblical Research, Vol. 12, No. 1 (23), pp. 56-57. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
  6. ↑ "Oxford Dictionaries: cherub". Oxford University Press. 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 Wright, G. Ernest, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1957)
  8. ↑ William H. Propp, Exodus 19-40, volume 2A of The Anchor Bible, New York: Doubleday, 2006, ISBN 0-385-24693-5, Notes to Exodus 15:18, page 386, referencing:Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Edinburgh: Black, 1885, page 304. Also see: Robert S. P. Beekes,Etymological Dictionary of Greek, volume 1, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010 ISBN 978-90-04-17420-7, page 289, entry for γρυπος,"From the archaeological perspective, origin in Asia Minor (and the Near East: Elam) is very probable."
  9. ↑ 1 Samuel 4:4, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Samuel 22:11
  10. ↑ 1 Chronicles 13:6
  11. ↑ 2 Samuel 22:11
  12. ↑ Psalms 18:10
  13. 1 2 Wood, Alice. Of Wings and Wheels:A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. pp. 3–4.
  14. ↑ De Vaux, Roland (tr. John McHugh), Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (NY, McGraw-Hill, 1961)
  15. ↑ Peake's commentary on the Bible
  16. ↑ Wood, Alice. Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. pp. 84–85.
  17. ↑ Genesis 3:24 (King James Version) at Bible Gateway.com
  18. ↑ Wood, Alice. Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim. p. 94.
  19. ↑ "1 kings 6:23-6:35 KJV - And within the oracle he made two". Bible Gateway. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
  20. ↑ Guide for the Perplexed III:45
  21. ↑ Berakhot 49b
  22. ↑ Tafsir al-Qur'an al-adhim (Interpretation of the Great Qur'an) - Ibn Kathir
  23. ↑ 49b (Adapted from islamqa.info)
  24. ↑ Majma Al-Bahrain (Junction of the two seas) - Fakhr Al-Di Al-Turaihi
  25. ↑ "من هم الكَرّوبيّون ؟". مركز الإشعاع الإسلامي.
  26. ↑ Dionysius the Areopagite's Celestial Hierarchy - See Chapter VII
  27. ↑ Yoma 54a: "it had painted Cherubim, as it is written."

Further reading

External links

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