Exodus 25:17-22 And you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof… The etymology of the word cherub being lost, the name renders us no assistance in the interpretation of the symbol. It is noteworthy, however, that Ezekiel applies to similar composite figures the appellation "living creatures"; and St. John a similar designation, unfortunately translated "beasts." Following this clue, we inquire if there is anything in the composite form itself to carry us onward in this line of interpretation. The cherubs of the Tabernacle are not described in the specifications, but mentioned as if the form were already so well known as to need no delineation for the sake of the general reader. Doubtless the artists were furnished with minute directions. The living creatures seen by Ezekiel are described by him with considerable amplification (Ezekiel 1:5-25). They were compounded of four animals — ox, lion, eagle, man, — each excelling in some one life-power. The combination suggests a being, real or ideal, uniting in himself the qualities in which these four different manifestations of life are severally eminent. The human form is the ground-work of the composition; and the additions to it are suggestive of an improvement on man by adding to his faculties those in which other animals are his superiors; as, e.g., the power of vision and motion peculiar to the eagle, the strength of the lion, and the submission of the ox. The cherubs seen by St. John in the Apocalypse were different in appearance from those described by Ezekiel, each having for its ground-form one of the four animals already mentioned; but the recurrence of these four, notwithstanding this diversity, confirms the deductions already stated. The idealization of earthly creatural life by the combination of its highest manifestations was projected into shape as a composite animal figure, not constant in form, but varying as one element or another prevailed in the ideal conception. The presence of all these four animal forms in the visions both of Ezekiel and of John, renders it probable that the four were wholly, or in part, contained in the cherubic figures of the Tabernacle. Was, then, this idealization of life designed to represent beings actually existing in the high grade of life, or did it point backward to what man was before the fall, and forward to what he is to be in the restored paradise? There is no passage of Scripture which indisputably teaches the actual existence of beings represented by these composite animal figures. In most cases, cherubs appear in scenes which are plainly symbolic or poetic. The passage in Genesis 3:24, properly understood, affirms of the cherubs only that they were placed in the east of the garden, or near its entrance, for doubt- less Eden, like the Tabernacle in the wilderness, fronted the rising sun. The inference is that they were placed there to have the same significance as they had in the Tabernacle, in the Temple and in the Apocalyptic vision of heaven. If, under the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, these composite figures symbolized humanity redeemed, sanctified, and glorified, probably they had a parallel meaning when employed in the symbolism of earlier times. What they signified in the Tabernacle and in the Temple being the very point to be illuminated, we pass at once from the first scene in the history of redemption where they appear, to the vision of heaven in which a Christian Hebrew beheld these symbolic beings before and around the throne of God (see Revelation 5:9, 10). What clearer evidence than this do we need that the composite animal figures of Hebrew symbolism represented humanity raised from its death in Adam to fulness of life in Christ? They were "living ones" because Christ having died for them, and risen again, had made them partakers of His life. (E. E. Atwater.) Parallel Verses KJV: And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. |
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