Beyond the Chubby Child: The Cherubim of the Bible and the Ancient Near East

In Catholicism, cherubim are angels of the second highest order in a hierarchy of nine. The word cherubim is most likely derived from several variants of the Akkadian word karibu, with meanings variously given as "great, powerful, mighty," "one who prays, intercessor," "one who blesses," and "gatekeepers"¹ — though scholars disagree on the precise root. St. Gregory says the name indicates "the fullness of knowledge." The plural cherubim is Hebrew; the singular form is cherub.

Cherubim appear quite often in the Bible. Some notable instances are:

• Cherubim guard the gate of the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:24)
• Cherubim are gold figures forming the throne of God on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18–20)
• Cherubim decorate Solomon's Temple (I Kings 6:29)
• A fallen "guardian cherub" is used as a metaphor for the proud King of Tyre (Ezekiel 28)
• Cherubim serve as a mount for God in Samuel (2 Samuel 22:11)

The cherubim of the Hebrew Bible belong to a broader ancient Near Eastern family of composite guardian beings, of which the Assyrian lamassu (winged bull or lion with a human head) and the Akkadian karibu are the closest relatives. In ancient Near Eastern iconography these figures were typically depicted as composite creatures — part human, part animal, part divine — serving as guardians of sacred or royal spaces, a role consistent with their function in the Hebrew Bible. 

The Israelites appear to have absorbed this widespread iconographic type and its associated vocabulary, reframing it theologically so that these creatures serve Yahweh rather than Babylonian or Assyrian kings and gods. "Cherubim" as such, then, is a specifically Israelite theological category, not a term used across the ancient Near East. Archaeological discoveries related to cherubim have been uncovered at Nimrud, Byblos, Nineveh, and Samaria, among other places.

It was not until Renaissance times that cherubim came to be depicted as chubby, winged children — an aesthetic drift with little serious theological or iconographic grounding, and a significant departure from the formidable guardian figures of the ancient world.²

¹ Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, ed. Allen C. Myers, 1987, p. 204.
² Ibid.