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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comTreasury Of Scripture Knowledge - Exodus 36:8 - 36:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
wise: Exo 31:6, Exo 35:10
made: Exo 26:1-37; 1Ch 15:1
cherubims: Keroovim, cherubim, not cherubims. What these were we cannot determine. Some, observing that the verb kerav in Syriac, sometimes means to resemble, make like, conceive the noun keroov signifies no more than an image, figure, or representation of anything. Josephus says they were flying animals, like none of those which are seen by man, but such as Moses saw about the throne of God. In another place he says, "As for the cherubim, nobody can tell or conceive what they were like." These symbolical figures, according to the description of them by Ezekiel (Eze 1:10; Eze 10:14), were creatures with four heads and one body; and the animals of which these forms consisted were the noblest of their kind; the lion among the wild beasts; the bull among the tame ones; the eagle among the birds, and man at the head of all. Hence some have conceived them to be somewhat of the shape of flying oxen; and it is alleged in favour of this opinion, that the far more common meaning of the verb kerav, in Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, being to plough, the natural meaning of keroov, is a creature used in ploughing. This seems to have been the ancient opinion which tradition had handed down, concerning the shape of the cherubim with the flaming sword, that guarded the tree of life (Gen 3:24). Exo 25:18, Exo 25:22; 1Ki 6:23; 2Ch 3:10; Eze 1:5-28, Eze 10:1-19