Flaming Swords and Winged Beasts: What Were These Ancient Creatures? The Origins of Cherubim – Part II
The word angel comes from the Old English engel, or ‘messenger’. Angels have an ancient and global tradition, but with belief in these powerful but elusive supernatural beings still going strong today, it’s good to take a look at what the ancient Biblical description of these creatures were.
What are these heavenly creatures so many people believe in? What are they, where do they come from, and what do they look like?
Ancient biblical texts provide details concerning the nature and makeup of ‘angels’: seraphim and cherubim, including a prophetic vision in Ezekiel as to what their roles to a certain degree would be once heaven had been established on earth:
A mid-12th century Flemish piece of copperwork depicting Ezekiel's Vision, an illustrated Old Testament event. (Public Domain)
Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple. The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the Lord. The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far away as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
When the Lord commanded the man in linen, "Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim," the man went in and stood beside a wheel. Then one of the cherubim reached out his hand to the fire that was among them. He took up some of it and put it into the hands of the man in linen, who took it and went out.
Furthermore, Ezekiel goes into more detail concerning their look, stating, “Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes ...”
The Whirling Wheels
It gets more interesting and downright bizarre in Ezekiel 1:15-21 wherein he describes another type of angelic beings alongside the cherubim:
