June 5th, 2021

Last Sunday it could be said that the focus was on seraphim, and we looked at the only passage that mentions this type of angel, Isaiah’s temple vision in chapter six of his book. This Sunday, the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the Old Testament reading focuses on the fall into sin [Genesis 3:8-15], but soon after that text is the first time that another type of angel appears. This time we will be looking at the cherubim.

A word somewhat similar to cherub is chubby, but please do not think of these angels as chubby and cute. Their first mention is in Genesis 3:24, and they have some serious business on their hands. And here is a somewhat-literal translation:

And he [Yahweh God] drove out the man and caused to dwell on the east to the garden of Eden the cherubim and the flame of the sword, the one turning every way, to guard the path of the tree of the life.

There are obviously many more passages about cherubim, and we will be looking at some of them in the next few weeks. But this one is special. This one is the first. And it seems as though you might also say that this one is ‘popular’. Here is a quotation from Stephen Cook, who is connected to the Society of Biblical Literature, to give you an idea as to the extent of their popularity:

In the ancient Near East, cherubim were winged, composite beings (“sphinxes”), regulating access to the center of the cosmos and divinity. They guarded temples and royal thrones, prime earthly access points to the transcendent (page 179 of “Cosmos, Kabod, and Cherub: Ontological and Epistemological Hierarchy in Ezekiel.” This chapter is by Stephen L. Cook, pages 179-197, in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality; SBL Symposium Series, number 31; Brill, 2004.)

What is interesting is that these cherubs in other cultures not only have the job of guarding, but they are sometimes seen guarding a tree. Here is a much longer quote from the same work and from the next page (page 180), but hopefully it is helpful:

Parallel imagery of monstrous, guarding beings positioning themselves symmetrically about a holy, divine axis is common both in the ancient Near East and in the mythologies of world cultures. In these images, the cosmos’s axis often appears as a highly stylized, symbolic tree, which marks paradise, or Eden, where God is present (cf. Gen 3:24; Ezek 31:9). Earthly temples aim to model this locale (cf. Ezek 41:18), presenting themselves as Eden, God’s mountaintop garden….

A cylinder seal from northern Syria (Alalakh level I-Ii, 1225-1175 B.C.E.) shows seated, winged sphinxes flanking a sacred, cosmic tree. They have raised their paws, forming a shield against all encroachers. Similarly, two ram-headed sphinxes mirror each other across a palmette tree on an ivory carving from Arslan Tash (ninth century B.C.E.). Antithetical sphinxes, from about the same time, also appear on an ivory panel from Nimrud. They flank the same voluted tree, which rises heavenward in tiers.

From farther west, winged male sphinxes guard the cosmic center on five cast plaques from Mycenean Cyprus (twelfth to early eleventh century B.C.E.). The plaques form part of a tripod’s ring-shaped top. On each one, sphinxes sit upright, at attention, arrayed about a stylized, lily-like tree. They are lean and hungry, and wear round helmets with knobs and plumes.

This quotation seems to say that there may be something to this biblical text, and having cherubs and trees appear in so many other places, it may actually be true!