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‘Angels and archangels and all the company of heaven’: the Old Testament background to Cherubim and Seraphim

In this article I examine the biblical references to Cherubim and Seraphim. The dominant conceptual image behind all of the references to the Cherubim is the Jerusalem Temple. The descriptions of the two central Cherubim of the Temple and the Tabernacle are linked. They both invite the reader to imagine the Cherubim covering the Ark in the same way that the protective covers were draped over the Tabernacle itself. By using the formula ‘he who sits enthroned among the Cherubim’ we imagine Yhwh not simply ‘sitting’ among the Cherubim, but moving among them. Isaiah's Seraphim are snakes, but with extra features. Both Cherubim and Seraphim were members of the heavenly host that surrounded Yhwh and protected him. The loss of the serpentine identification of the Seraphim early in the tradition made it possible for later generations to equate Cherubim and Seraphim and to see them as particular types of angels.