Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 36:142 (Apr 1879)
Article: The Cherubim
Author: John Crawford

BSac 36:142 (April 1879) p. 225

The Cherubim

Rev. John Crawford

The subject of the present Article is one which has hitherto attracted but little attention from the best scholarship; yet, one might reasonably suppose that the “Cherubim of Glory” would afford no mean theme for Christian contemplation; but, on the contrary, one which would amply repay the most painstaking and devout investigation. Doubtless, the chief cause of this indifference has been the many wild and discordant interpretations which have been advanced upon the subject. Scarcely two interpreters agree on what these strange symbolical figures represent.

Bahr, and after him, Hengstenberg, who wavers, however, in his views, make the Cherubim “a representation of creation in its highest grade, an ideal creature. The vital powers, communicated to the most elevated existence in the visible creation, are collected and individualized in it.”

Barnes says of the four living creatures (Rev. 4:6), that “they are evidently like those which Ezekiel saw, symbolical beings; but the nature and purpose of the symbol is not perfectly apparent.” And yet, a little farther on, he ventures an interpretation: “The most natural explanation to be given of the four living beings is to suppose that they are symbolical beings, designed to furnish some representation

BSac 36:142 (April 1879) p. 226

of the government of God; to illustrate as it were, that on which the divine government rests, or which constitutes its support, to wit, power, intelligence, vigilance, energy.” Somewhat allied to this view is that of Lange, who makes them the four fundamental governments.

Others regard the Cherubim as a symbol of the angelic host, the heavenly ministers of Jehovah who attend his throne and execute his commands. “We shall have no hesitation,” says a writer of this class, “in determining the nature and species of these living creatures of the Apocalypse. They are the highest order of angelic beings, attending most nearly upon the throne. They are so near to the throne, so intermingling with its dazzling splendor, that human faculties must fail of attaining any precise and adequate idea of them.”

Croly says of the living creatures, “They resemble the Cherubim and Seraphim of Isaiah and Ezekiel; and the lion, the bull, the man, and the eagle are probably emblematical representations of the supremacy, strength, wisdom, and rapidity of Providence.”

The Hutchinsonians regard the Cherubim as emblems of the Almighty in his trinity of persons; and Michaelis had a strange opinion that they were a sort of “thunder-horses “of Jehovah, resembling the horses of Jupiter among ...