Chapter 7 – The Cherubim – in Exodus, by Fay Berry

Chapter 7 – The Cherubim – in Exodus, by Fay Berry

At the foot of Sinai, as the children of Israel huddled in fear at a distance from the mountain, Michael the Archangel; Israel’s Angel, the mighty Angel of the Name who dwelt between the Cherubim and who was to go with Israel throughout all their wilderness wanderings, “spake all these words” to Moses, saying “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex 20:1-2). Moses listened in awe as God gave him all the laws and commandments which he was to teach and administer to the children of Israel during their wanderings in the Wilderness.

Most prominent among these laws were “the Ten Commandments,” beginning with “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” What other nation was there upon the earth who had received its laws and statutes from the mouth of the God of Heaven? Yet, it had to be through the hand of a mediator, because Israel could not bear to “hear” the voice of words directly from God and so Moses became the mediator of the “old covenant,” (Heb 9:19).

Moses ascended Mt Sinai the first time in Ex 19:3), when God “called unto him out of the mountain,” and spoke to him and there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud that emanated from the Cherubim at the top of the mountain, and the mountain was altogether on a smoke, and Michael the Angel Of Yahweh, stood upon the mountain in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly and the people in the camp below trembled as Michael the Archangel of the Lord came down upon mount Sinai and Moses ascended to the top of the mount to meet Him (Ex 19:20).

And so Moses went up and down the mountain at God’s command, and on the third time Moses was told to bring Aaron with him, but not the priests or the people (Ex 19:24). In Ex 20:21 Moses ascended the mount for the fourth time and he drew near to the “thick darkness where the Angel of God was,” and God promised Moses that he would send the Angel of the Lord with Israel to bring them into the land. He warns Moses to beware of him and obey his voice and provoke him not: for he will not pardon your transgressions: for he is the Angel, Michael the Archangel, who bears the name, which is the glory of God.” (23:20).

Seven times Moses went up and down Mount Sinai, three times in Ex 19, the fourth time in Ex 20.On the fifth ascent, Ex 24:9, God tells Moses to bring Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel and they are permitted to worship God afar off. Then Moses “rose up with his minister Joshua and Moses went up into the Mount of God.” Moses leaves Joshua on the Mount for the 40 days and nights that he is receiving God’s laws on the top of the mountain. Moses alone makes the ascent to the top of the mount, but for the first time, people other than Moses are allowed to touch the mountain.

How amazing it must have been for those representatives of Israel to took upward as they did and see see the Cherubim and Michael the Archangel “standing upon a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.” This description of the Cherubim is the same as that in the book of Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation. The representatives of the nation of Israel “saw God” and did eat and drink, probably “bread and wine,” the tokens of the new covenant. They
were permitted to ascend partway up the mountain because God was ready to make an agreement with Moses and so commanded Moses to bring up some representatives of the nation in order to ratify the covenant between God and the nation, (Ex 24:4). All does not go to plan because it is on this fifth ascent that the people engage in the disgraceful conduct with the “golden calf.” Almost before the ‘the ink had dried’ on the new covenant between God and Israel, the nation had broken its promise to God.

When Moses left Joshua on the mount while he ascended to the top of the mountain, it was reminiscent of when Abraham offered Isaac on the mountain at God’s command telling his servants “we will come again.” It is also reminiscent of when Jesus ascended to his father, and the Angel told his disciples that “this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as Ye have seen him go into heaven.”Abraham, Moses and Jesus all ascended the mountain to receive God’s covenant with his people and they all “came again” to deliver the words of the covenant to God’s people.