Notes on Ezekiel's Cherub Part Three: Little Sanctuaries

At this point we must engage with Ezekiel’s gigantic cherubinic vision by the river Chebar, and grimly say, with Esther, “If I perish, I perish.” Ezekiel begins his vision (and his book) with a very brief prologue. He starts out by specifying the precise moment in time and exact location in which he received his prophetic call: “in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar.” This precision emphasizes not only the importance of the call to Ezekiel, but also the essential "nowness" of its nature—he was prophesying to his particular people on this particular day. Ezekiel addressed himself not to the past or even the future so much as the present. In verse two, Ezekiel goes over the time again, emphasizing the length of the drudgery and misery of the captivity. The captives have been waiting moment by moment, day by day, month after month, for deliverance. Ezekiel was already a priest at this time, and so was a kind of representative of the Israelite people as an aggregate. He had been brought, with many others of his people, to Babylon as captives following the destruction of Jerusalem. This exile, an event the prophets of the time (such as Jeremiah) had been discussing for decades, created an enormous shift in worship practices. Previously, the Israelites had gathered to the temple on the holy days to offer sacrifice and participate in ritual purification. Now, with the temple destroyed and the holy city occupied, a new, more internal form of spirituality was required. Ezekiel addresses the problem thus:

“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.”

In spite of the fact that the absence of a temple, or sanctuary, nullified many aspects of their religion, Yahweh would become a “little sanctuary,” or temple, within each of His scattered children. Rather than being cast out from spiritual experience, Israel had merely to adjust it’s spiritual expectations. No longer would the sacrificial order of temple ritual be necessary—instead religion had migrated inward as Israel had migrated outward. Ezekiel further clarifies the new concept:

“I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.”

The stony heart of communal temple ritual (the temple was constructed of stone) was replaced by the fleshy heart of internal, individual religious experience. The exiled Israelites, cast out of their beloved and holy land, each carried within them a piece of God, and in Him could find their “sanctuary.” Like all of us, exiled from the presence of God, the Israelites have been granted an inner light with which they may commune with the distant divinity.

The hand of the LORD lights upon Ezekiel and opens the heavens to reveal the magnificent vision that is to come. The hand of the LORD acts in many different ways throughout the Bible. In this case, is it ordaining him to his prophetic call? Smiting him with the fury of vision? Pressing him down with it’s extraordinary power? Lifting him up, nearer to the presence of God? Embracing him with divine love? The hand, as a symbol, generally refers to the possibility of action. The hand of the LORD is upon Ezekiel to impart to him the powers of godlike action—the ability to prophesy, or proclaim, the grandeur of God’s vision.

Notes on Ezekiel's Cherub Part Two: Eden, Etc.

The term "cherub" comes up in the Bible almost from the outset, with the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. After Yahweh creates the universe by organizing it from primordial chaos, He plants a Garden called Eden. This garden is a paradise of blurry innocence. There is no aggression, no death, and no sexuality. There are no hard edges to identity, and indeed Adam and Eve are originally created together as a sort of hermaphroditic man-woman creature (cf. Aristophanes' delightful riff in Plato's Symposium), before Yahweh separates them into a two distinct individuals. Adam and Eve live in an infantile state, like blissful babies who are not aware of any selfhood or otherness, having no needs beyond the giant, engulfing warmth of the mother’s breast.

In addition to the many pleasant trees and plants in the garden of Eden, there are two trees which possess supernatural powers—the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” In partaking of it’s fruit and opening their eyes to knowledge, Adam and Eve lose their innocence and transform their idyllic world into a harsh kingdom ruled by the bloody tyranny of nature. When they are cast out of Eden and into this bleak world, and Yahweh reasons thusly: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:” and elects to place at the east of the garden of Eden “Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.” The “Cherubims” turn every way, presumably in the four cardinal directions, as did the four rivers which sprang from the center of Eden. The design of this creature, or creatures, is to block Adam and Eve from sneaking back into Eden, eat from the Tree of Life, and become immortal in their sinful state. Boundaries are created around the once free and open garden, and mankind is blocked access to his original innocence and to eternal life. The only thing standing between mankind and immortality is the terrifying Cherub, who faces us no matter which way we turn.
Cherubim are frequently mentioned in relation to the ornamentation of the temple, particularly with the Ark of the Covenant, the holy repository of the Tablets of the Law. In Chronicles, the inspired David instructs his son and successor, Solomon, to fashion “the pattern of the chariot of the cherubims, that spread out their wings, and covered the ark of the covenant of the LORD.” Two cherubim were to be fashioned of gold to adorn each side of the “mercy seat,” which sat atop the ark. The word used in the text to designate this piece of divine furniture is kaporet, or “atonement piece.” The word probably descends from kaphar, meaning “to cover.” The Ark, complete with kaporet, resided in the center of the Temple, the holy of holies, which Yahweh had filled with a divine cloud of light as He entered in to accept its dedication. This kaporet, then essentially constituted the throne Yahweh’s divine chariot, with the cherubim acting as exalted steed to draw it forward. It is upon such a throne, in visionary form, that we must suppose Ezekiel beholds Yahweh above the Chebar. The Cherubim, then, may be considered a synecdoche for the Chariot/Throne of the Presence of Yahweh.

Notes on Ezekiel's Cherub Part One: Introduction; Madness

Ezekiel was a monumentally powerful and undeniably bizarre personality. He must have left his contemporaries, in and out of Israel, absolutely bewildered and frankly disturbed. His closest analogue in today’s world seems to me to be the idiosyncratic and iconoclastic “performance artists,” who perform such hijinks as climbing up walls and defecating on spectators. Yet Ezekiel proclaimed some of the most shattering truths and envisioned some of the most supreme images to be found in the entire Hebrew Bible. For centuries, the rabbinical schools have forbidden the study of his book to anyone under the age of thirty—the age of Ezekiel himself when he experienced the spectacular vision by the river of Chebar. Even after age thirty, there remain passages which are singled out as being inappropriate to interpret at any age—Ezekiel’s visionary force is apparently deemed strong enough to shove the unprepared over the brink into an abyss of madness. I recognize that I , perhaps rashly, disregard this counsel with the present outline of my thoughts at the tender age of 25. Be that as it may, I have found Ezekiel’s splendors too fascinating not to be tempted into responding to them, and in particular to the captivating figure of the “covering Cherub.”

To establish what a cherub is, is a task that could easily fill volumes and stretch over lifetimes, but which I will endeavor to sketch in very roughly. Yahweh is referred to throughout the Tanakh as dwelling “between the cherubim,” and indeed this description becomes something of a divine moniker. But what precisely is the Cherub and what does it represent? The imagery of the Cherub appears to have evolved from Assyrian and Babylonian origins. The term cherub (pronounced kay-roob) is cognate with the term karabu meaning 'great, mighty' in Assyrian, and 'propitious, blessed' in Babylonian. In some regions this Assyro-Babylonian term came to refer in particular to spirits which served the gods, in particular to the shedu (human-headed winged bulls). A number of scholars have proposed that cherubim were originally a version of the shedu, protective deities sometimes found as pairs of colossal statues either side of objects to be protected, such as doorways. In the 1930's, a wonderful ivory carving was discovered at Megiddo (which later became an important Israelite city) depicting a creature very much like Ezekiel’s Cherub, strolling through a garden of palms. The carving dates from the 8th or 9th century BCE, about two or three centuries before Israelite habitation. I like to speculate that artists trained in these Megiddan workshops were later employed in the construction of the ornaments of Solomon’s temple. Shedu and karabu eventually evolved into cherubim. These apparently sphinx-like creatures appear to have been representations of power, might and majesty, inspiring awe and even fear in lowly beholders. Millennia later, artists of the Italian Renaissance transformed these fearsome beings into diminutive putti— the winged, rosy-cheeked babies which now adorn countless greeting cards, in what was surely one of the oddest transmutations in Western civilization. Most importantly to the task at hand, cherubim appear throughout the Hebrew Bible, and are usually associated with the presence of Yahweh. Ezekiel certainly offers the fullest and most complex view of these divine beings, and I will return to him more fully after having made a preliminary perusal of some other biblical passages of relevance.

I swear, I know this guy...

I am way more excited about this than I should be.

A blog! To which I'll actually post because it won't be just about me and my boring life. The first post on here should be something epic, hence, the ibex: