Reference: Cherub, Cherubim
Morish
Representatives of God's power in creation and judicial government. They were placed at Eden to keep the tree of life after the fall of man. Ge 3:24. They were depicted in needlework and in carving both in the tabernacle and the temple, and two of them with wings were represented as overshadowing the mercy-seat. Ex 25:18-22; 26:1,31; 37:7-9; 1Ki 6:23-35; 8:6-7. In the visions of Ezekiel cherubim were seen in connection with the wheels, representing the glory and course of God's government in active judgement of Israel. They are called 'living creatures' in Ezekiel 1, with the faces of a man (intelligence), of a lion (strength), of an ox (plodding endurance), and of an eagle (swiftness): see also Ezekiel 10: where they are called 'cherubims,' and cf. Re 4:6-9, etc., where in the A.V. the four living creatures are unhappily called 'beasts.'
The winged bulls which were placed at the entrances of the Assyrian palaces were probably traditions of the cherubim. In the Accadian language they were termed kirubu, and were thought to preserve the places from the entrance of evil spirits.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Smith
Cherub, Cherubim.
The symbolical figure so called was a composite creature-form which finds a parallel in the religious insignia of Assyria, Egypt and Persia, e.g. the sphinx, the winged bulls and lions of Nineveh, etc. A cherub guarded paradise.
Figures of Cherubim were placed on the mercy-seat of the ark.
A pair of colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's temple with the canopy of their contiguously extended wings.
Those on the ark were to be placed with wings stretched forth, one at each end of the mercy-seat." Their wings were to be stretched upwards, and their faces "towards each other and towards the mercy-seat." It is remarkable that with such precise directions as to their position, attitude and material, nothing, save that they were winged, is said concerning their shape. On the whole it seems likely that the word "cherub" meant not only the composite creature-form, of which the man, lion, ox and eagle were the elements, but, further, some peculiar and mystical form. (Some suppose that the cherubim represented God's providence among men, the four faces expressing the characters of that providence: its wisdom and intelligence (man), its strength (ox), its kingly authority (lion), its swiftness, far-sighted (eagle). Others, combining all the other references with the description of the living creatures in Revelation, make the cherubim to represent God's redeemed people. The qualities of the four faces are those which belong to God's people. Their facing four ways, towards all quarters of the globe, represents their duty of extending the truth. The wings show swiftness of obedience; and only the redeemed can sing the song put in their mouths in
--ED).