Imagine: Angelic Beings

For reference: I have no substantial dispute with this page from the Christian Thinktank. It covers a lot of ground (it’s encyclopedic in length), but in passing takes a look at the images of angelic beings who were depicted in statues and carvings for the Tabernacle and Temple furnishings. I rather like this outline, as well.

The Hebrew people borrowed the image of angelic guardians from the wider Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) culture. The most literal image of a cherub would be a lion’s body, avian wings (typically four, two pair) and a human face. On occasion they might be depicted as more human formed, but that was frankly rather rare. There is no reason to imagine the Hebrews used any other than the most common depiction. This is what would have been on the lid of the Ark of Covenant, not humanoids with a single pair of wings. Ezekiel in his vision describes cherubs as also having human arms and hands under their wings.

The Hebrew word seraph actually refers to a fiery serpent, something rather like a dragon. I’m not aware of any standard depictions from ANE cultures, and it gets far less mention in Scripture. It typically had six wings and they would be leathery reptile wings, not the feathery avian type. It was closer to a snake with limbs, rather than a lizard.

Neither of these beings are referred to as angels, but from our perspective, they are in the same class as other celestial beings. And no angel is ever depicted in the Bible as having wings. They have a standard human form, and are either glowing with divine glory, or masquerading as more common humans. We get a subtle impression they had a tendency to be about as large as the bigger common humans. They were always portrayed as physically intimidating, and can on occasion take a gigantic size.

We have a lot of unlearning to do in extracting ourselves from Western perversions of what the Bible says.