Cherubim meaning

Meaning

Unknown but perhaps Blessers or Mighty Ones or Approachers, Internal Ones

or According To [The] Greatness..., or Rabbi-Like

Etymology

From the verb karabu, to bless, or its adjective karabu, to be mighty, or karabu, to approach, or the noun kirbu, midst; hence the verb קרב (qarab).

From (1) the prefix כ (ke), like, and (2) the verb רבה (raba), to be great or abundant.

Related names

• Via קרב (qarab): Corban

• Via כ (ke): Ashkenaz, Calah, Chemosh, Chesed, Kiyyun, Michael, Michaiah, Michal

• Via רבה (raba): Jareb, Jeroboam, Merab, Rabbah, Rabbith

Cherubim are supernatural creatures associated with the throne of God (but see our discussion on "supernatural angels" in our article on the Greek word αγγελος, aggelos). A single one of these beings is called כרוב (kerub). The two spellings כרובים and כרבים alternate without a discernable rule.

The words Cherub and Cherubim occur about a hundred times in the Bible (in Greek: χερουβιμ, cheroubim; Hebrews 9:5 only) but descriptive imagery of Cherubim is scarce. Cherubim appear as ornamentation in the tabernacle (Exodus 26:1) and temple (1 Kings 6:23, 6:29, 7:29) but the only full descriptions of a Cherub's appearance occur in Ezekiel 1:4-14 and 10:10-14 (actually, the word cherub doesn't occur in chapter 1). But Ezekiel's elaborations on an entity that featured profusely as decoration suggests that these Cherubim weren't standard.

When God instructs Moses to build the Cherubim for the Mercy Seat, he doesn't specify the fact that they have wings but refers to their wings as if everybody already understood that Cherubim are always winged (Exodus 25:20). We don't know how many wings Moses' Cherubim were supposed to have but Ezekiel's Cherubim have four each (1:6).

Ezekiel's Cherubim have four faces each; one human, one bull, one eagle and one lion (1:10). These four animals return in the vision of John the Revelator; their cry "Come" ushers the four horsemen (Revelation 4:7, 6:1).

This, plus the fact that Ezekiel's Cherubim seem hybrids of earthly creatures, leads scholars to believe that the Biblical Cherubim were part of a sculptural genre that was popular in Assyria and Canaan; images of bull-lion, lion-faced and eagle-winged creatures.

Perhaps...

Israel didn't exist in a cultural vacuum and Solomon's temple certainly had its examples and derivatives abounding in the surrounding nations. Still, a resemblance doesn't mean equality, and the purpose and essence of the Cherubim is probably better explained by the Biblical canon than by a Canaanite artistic genre.

Cherubim are stationed to the east of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). They seem to carry a firmament with on it the throne of God (Ezekiel 1:22 and 10:1). And sometimes they serve as some kind of singular transportation device for God (2 Samuel 22:11, Psalm 18:10).

The word כרוב (kerub) is without root or equal in the Hebrew language — or at least, in the Hebrew language preserved in the Bible — so we don't exactly know what it might have meant to the Hebrews. It might be that, even for them, the word Cherub was just a name without further meaning. But that's very rare in the Bible since most names and words are part of groups of words that all tell something about the other words' meanings. It's more plausible that the word kerub belongs to a verb that was used by the Hebrews but never made it into the Bible. Chasing this allusive verb, scholars turn to cognate languages.

BDB Theological Dictionary reports the root of the word kerub missing in action, but notes that the Assyrian verb karabu means to be gracious or to bless. Curiously enough, the Hebrew verb for exactly that is the mirror image of our missing root, namely the verb ברך (barak — the root of the name Baruch). The adjective that comes from the Assyrian verb karabu is karubu, which means great or mighty. Then there is the Assyrian word kiribu or sedu, which is the name of the famous winged bull in Assyria, but, says BDB, kinship with kerub has not been verified. There are even some who connect כרוב (kerub) to the Persian word giriften (the mythological Griffin) but, says BDB, this lacks evidence and probability.

Some Hebrew letters can be exchanged without changing the meaning of the word much but all three consonants of the word kerub are very stable. There are no sound recordings from the classical times but the letters כ (kaph) and ק (qoph) probably sounded somewhat similar. And even though there are no two words with the same meaning, with one spelled with a kaph and the other with a qoph, the Hebrew verb קרב (qarab), meaning to come near or approach, has a Assyrian cognate karabu, which is highly similar to the word mentioned above as possible source of the word kerub. A proposed second Hebrew root קרב (qarab II) is unused and can't be translated, but it's cognate to the Assyrian word kirbu, meaning midst:

Also note that כ (ke) is a very common prefix that means "as if" or "like" (hence the name Michael: Who Is Like God):

That leaves the rest of our name resembling clearly to the words רוב (rub) and רב (rab), both meaning greatness, from the verbs רבב (rabab) and רבה (raba), both meaning to be great or many:

The phrase כרב (kerob), meaning "according to the greatness" occurs in Nehemiah 13:22, Psalm 51:1, 69:16, 106:45 and 150:2, Isaiah 63:7, Lamentations 3:32, Hosea 10:1. The phrase כרביבים (kirbibim), meaning "like rain showers" occurs in Deuteronomy 32:2, Psalm 72:6 and Micah 5:7. And note the similarity with the verb ירה (yara), which describes a unified effect of many small impulses: hence words like יורה (yoreh), rain, and מורה (moreh), which means both rain and teacher, and תורה (tora), meaning instructions; hence the familiar word Torah.

Formally, the meaning of the word Cherub is obscure, but to a Hebrew audience it may have meant Mighty, Approacher, Blessing, or Within. Why they spelled this word with a כ and not with a ק is a bit of a mystery, particularly as the word קרוב (kerub) would have made perfect sense. But then, the English word "computer" has nowadays been adopted as-is by many languages who would normally transliterate a c-word with a k (something like kompjuter). Maybe the Assyrian word "cherub" was something like that to the ancients.

But the Hebrew scribes had a habit of transliterating existing names and terms in such a way that they resembled Hebrew phrases much more than the original, and this for the bonus of slipping in commentary (see for instance the names Esarhaddon and Amraphel). The theology of the Hebrews was incomparable to that of the surrounding nations, but they were forced to use existing terminology and reappropriate familiar phenomena — kind of like the familiar snowclone "orange is the new black". This mechanism occurs all over the Bible, even up to the Greek and Roman period. Take the familiar phrases Son of God, Savior of the World, King of Kings, Light of Man, even the Evangel that spoke of the Light's birth, originally applied to emperor Augustus. The apostle Paul committed high treason against the Roman State when he took these very familiar imperial terms and applied them to Jesus of Nazareth, saying: not the Roman emperor but the common worker is the King of Kings and Savior of the World.

From this same verb רבב (rabab) comes the familiar term Rabbi, or Great One (it's a close equivalent of the English words mister and master, which derive from the familiar words mega and magnus, meaning great). A Rabbi is not exactly a priest, but if our word Cherub may have sounded like "Like A Rabbi", perhaps some would have been reminded of: "and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6). And if you are wondering why a "Rabbi-Like" being would have wings, compare Genesis 1:26 to Psalm 91:4, then see Matthew 23:37, and compare Acts 1:9 to Hebrews 12:1

The Hebrew concept of the deity, to give another example, was that of a singular and unified Being who is outside of existence. This is because existence is a collective state, so that everything that exists, does so in dependence of everything else that exists. God, however, does not depend on existence, but instead, existence depends on Him. All gods of all nations are entities (real or imaged) that exist within existence, and so depend on everything else that exists. God does not depend on existence, but instead, existence depends on God. Still, we're using that same word "God". In English, we differentiate the word "God" from "god" by means of a capital letter "G". In Hebrew there are no capital letters, so the Hebrews took the familiar word for gods, namely אלהים (elohim), and forced it into a singular form. They made Elohim a "him" rather than a "they", who did not exist within existence but whose perfect unity could be very obviously observed in created reality (Romans 1:20). Some people find this confusing, but think of a painting in which all lines of perspective converge upon a focal point on the horizon. In some paintings, the focal point sits outside the painting. Creation is like that.

Our word Cherub may likewise denote something very real within existence, but like the often deified and personified natural forces (wind, rain, even war and peace), are commonly misunderstood in nature and character. The nations may think that there are "spiritual" creatures that resemble massive winged bulls and that govern and guide the human world from invisible positions. The Hebrews, contrarily, realized that humanity is rather governed by an informal collective of individuals of great learning (אלף, aleph, means both bull and to learn) who govern and lead and protect their people (for a look at wings in the Bible, see πτερυξ, pterux, wings), even though most of these people are not able to tell a shepherd from a fellow sheep, or a Cherub from some passerby (Hebrews 13:2).

God is among us (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). His sons are among us (Matthew 5:9, John 1:12). And his kingdom is within us (Luke 17:21).

What the ancient Hebrews were thinking of when they spoke of the Cherub, or what the cover of the ark looked like, remains unclear, but their word for Cherub very closely resembled the term According To Greatness or According To Abundance — and this not far away but Within Us.

Also see our article on Seraphim.