Terumah (Part 2) - Exodus 25:1-27:19

Cherubs

What are Cherubs?

In Hebrew, the word is "keruvim" (כרובים) in the plural form, or "keruv" (כרוב) in the singular form.

This is not to be confused with the post-Biblical word "keruvit", which means "cauliflower", even though there are those who try to force some sort of connection.

The word appears 94 times in the Tanach. 

In the Torah, it appears 19 times, but in only 6 places:

• Genesis 3:24, when God wants to keep man away from the tree of life, he stations the plural form with a single spinning flaming sword.
• Exodus 25 (verses 18-22) explains how God wants a solid gold pair of these are sculpted for the top of the Ark, some basics on the design, and YHVH explains that he will be speaking from above the cover, but between these two keruvim that are facing one another.
• Exodus 26 (verses 1 and 31), tells us that God wants the images of these keruvim woven into the pattern for the dividing curtains.
• Exodus 36 (verses 8 and 35) has the execution of the demands of of Exodus 26.
• Exodus 37 (verses 7-9) has the execution of the demands of Exodus 25.
• Numbers 7:80, has God speaking from above the cover, and between the keruvim.

The Exodus verse, if you draw them out, are pretty balanced: 25-to-37 (6 occurrences vs 7 occurrences), and 26-to-36 (2 occurrences each). And it is something to look at when comparing styles within Scripture - this bracketing on verses occurs quite often and may indicate a common author.

So what do we know about the keruvim as described in the Torah?

Except for Genesis, it is always an object, and they are never referred to as angels. In fact, there's a Midrash (Midrash Rabbah Leviticus 26:8) that, when describing the keruvim of Ezekiel, has an angel speak to a keruv: 

"... the Holy One, blessed be He, spoke to the angel and the angel told it to the keruv. The angel said to the keruv: ‘The Holy One, blessed be He, has decreed that I should do it, but I have no right to enter your division; do it then for me as an act of charity and give me two live coals of yours, so that I be not scorched [by the coal]."

Since the Torah has God telling the people to weave and hammer images of the keruvim for the 10 dividing curtains and for the ark cover, one would expect that they would know what a keruv looked like. And yet, the Torah is silent, except to say that they have wings and faces. It appears that they have 4 wings each - 2 to stretch forward, and 2 to stretch upward.

These keruvim are not to be confused with the ones mentioned 21 times in the Book of Kings, which were the ones that Solomon made out of olive wood and covered with gold. In fact, of the 94 times, the only places were they are other than statues representing keruvim, are in the Garden of Eden story, the vision of Ezekiel (mostly chapter 10), and Psalm 18:11.

Some important issues

First of all, it is forbidden to make a graven image.

And yet, here we are, with the command to make those images as a logo for YHVH - it goes on His curtains and His golden cover. When you see these things, you are supposed to be thinking, "YHVH is here". Sort of like seeing a logo of a bitten piece of fruit, and you think of Apple Computers.

Next, we have 10 occurrences of the expression of YHVH "who dwells between the keruvim", meaning, He resides between those two images upon the lid. Add to that the Ezekiel image, or that of Psalm 18:11, where YHVH is imagined as descending to earth while riding His keruvim. His travelling upon the lid of the ark is an expression of His travelling from on high with his real keruvim.

It's an odd image.

And what about "faces"?

This expression is in the plural form, and while one can interpret it as one face ("panim", while plural, can refer to one face or several), Ezekiel says that they have hands beneath their wings and may have up to four faces each, and either two or four legs.

They sound pretty monstrous, and their job is to protect that which is YHVH's and to assist in transporting Him. They are also invulnerable to fire.

Summary

These creatures that are supposed to appear on things to cover or transport YHVH have no universal description. And despite the commandment not to make images of the supernatural, they are exempted. Their use should cause one to wonder, and their existence in the Torah is strange for those who confess to the belief that no image should be used to represent God.

Unless they represent something else.

And whatever that is, it's not cauliflower.