Herein, we continue considering Michael Heiser’s “Preliminary Investigation” and “brief overview” which contains some “very tentative” conclusions and some things about which he is “still thinking…and my views may change.” This is all in regards to “brief overview into the matter of serpentine / reptilian beings in the Hebrew Bible.” The previous segment left off with whether Angels, Watchers, Cherubim and Seraphim all have overlapping features such as hands, feet, human face and wings (find my full write up here).
Seraphim: As per Isaiah 6, they have: Feet: which they cover with two wings so we do not know what they look like; whether human looking or not. Face: which they cover with two wings so we do not know what they look like; whether human looking or not.
Wings: they have six; two cover face, two cover feet and two are used for flight (they may fly with four or all six at other times).
Cherubim: As per Ezekiel 1 and 10, they have: Hands: “they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides.” Feet: “their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot.”
Face: Ezekiel 1 describes them as having four face; human, lion, bull or ox and eagle or vulture and chap 10 lists them as human, lion, eagle/vulture but not bull/ox but rather, Cherub. But what would it mean that one of the Cherubs faces is the face of a Cherub? This simply seems to be a copying error; a parablepsis owing to homoioteleuton or homoiarkton which his when one reads a word in the original text, looks away to write it down and then looks back but accidentally ends up in a slightly different place in the manuscript. In Ezekiel 10 the word Cherub appears 21 times so this is very possible.
Wings: they have four in Ezekiel 1 and 10. However, in Revelation 4:7-8 we find living beings or beasts, “And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within.” Thus, there may be four and six winged Cherubim or there is another copying issue in Revelation 4.
Heiser’s statement “not all cherubim have four faces” seems to be based on the Revelation text which seems to imply that each being had one single face and they were all different. However, it may simply be that they each faced John with a different one of the four faces.
Angles and Watchers (assuming that Watchers are Angels): As per too many texts to site but see Judges 13 where Samson’s parents speak to an Angel and refer to him as a man as they do not realize he is an Angels until he ascends to heaven: Hands, feet and faces: yes, as they look like human males.
Wings: No.
Where Michael Heiser misses the mark in asserting that “they are names for the same entities”; keeping in mind his qualifier, “This conclusion is very tentative…I am still thinking about all this, though, and my views may change.”
Also, Heiser wrote of his “very tentative…suspicion that” the “seraphim, cherubim, and Watchers (in Daniel)” are described “as ‘human like beings clothed in white linen.’” Yet, this is not the case, let us consult the relevant texts in Daniel.
In 10:5 we learn of one instance of “a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz”:
His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.
12:6-7 has Daniel addressing this “man”:
And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
Within the next, and final, segment we will consider whether we have enough biblical information to conclude that “seraphim, cherubim, and Watchers” are described “as ‘human like beings clothed in white linen’” “(in Daniel).”
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Here are links to Michael S. Heiser’s books:
The Façade (The Façade Saga) Volume 1
The Portent (The Façade Saga) Volume 2
I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible
When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, the Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic
War of the Seed
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