Cherubim Tattoo Meaning
The divine guard, the throne, mystery, and the four-faced watchers full of eyes.
The cherubim are the great guardian angels of the divine presence — the winged beings who guard the way to Eden, whose outstretched wings form the throne of God, and who appear in awesome vision as four-faced watchers covered with eyes, beings of perfect knowledge and overwhelming mystery. To carry the cherubim is to carry the divine guard, the throne, and mystery — the winged guardians of the sacred who bear up the throne of God, the four-faced watchers full of eyes, the awesome and mysterious keepers of the divine presence.
In the Hebrew Bible the cherubim are the guardians of the divine presence and the holy — powerful winged beings whose role is to protect and to bear up what is most sacred. After the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, God placed cherubim at the entrance, with a flaming sword, to guard the way to the Tree of Life — the cherubim as the guardians barring the return to paradise. And in the heart of Israel's worship, golden cherubim were set facing each other upon the Ark of the Covenant, their wings outstretched over the mercy seat.
These outstretched wings of the cherubim over the Ark formed the very throne upon which the glory and presence of God was understood to rest — God is described as 'enthroned upon the cherubim.' The cherubim thus both guard the sacred (keeping the way to Eden, flanking the holy of holies) and bear up the divine presence (their wings the throne of God's glory). They are the mighty winged guardians at the threshold of the holy and the bearers of the throne of the divine. The Hebrew cherubim are the winged guardians of the sacred whose wings form the throne of God. The Hebrew cherubim are the guardians of the divine presence — powerful winged beings who guard the holy: placed with a flaming sword at Eden's entrance to bar the way to the Tree of Life after the expulsion, and set as golden figures with outstretched wings facing each other upon the Ark of the Covenant, their wings forming the very throne on which God's glory rested ('enthroned upon the cherubim'), both guarding the sacred and bearing up the divine presence.
The cherub of Renaissance art — the plump baby with tiny wings, the putto — has almost no relationship to the cherubim of the Hebrew Bible. Ezekiel's vision (Ezekiel 1 and 10) describes the cherubim as terrifying composite beings: four faces (human, lion, ox, eagle), four wings, legs straight as pillars with calf's feet gleaming like burnished bronze, hands under their wings, and their entire bodies covered with eyes. They move with the wheels (ophanim) — wheel within wheel, full of eyes — and wherever the spirit goes, they go. The Ark of the Covenant had two gold cherubim facing each other with outstretched wings — this mercy seat was the meeting point between human and divine. The connection to Mesopotamian karibu (lamassu, shedu) — the winged human-headed bulls and lions that guarded Assyrian palace entrances — is widely accepted by scholars.
Cherubim across cultures
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