Ezekiel 28:14-16 is yet another passage that some critics of the Church quote to try to show that Satan is a cherub, and then they’ll quote another passage of text, that of Ezekiel 1:5-11, to make their claim that cherubim in the book of Ezekiel appear to have a mixed animal and humanoid form. Hence, they reason that Lucifer couldn’t possibly be a spirit child of our Heavenly Father but rather is some other kind of creature that cannot be related in fashion or appearance to the Father of our spirits. Actually, the identification of Satan as a cherub comes from a Hebrew text which many authorities regard as uncertain in meaning. The first word translated “Thou” in verse 14 is part of the problem of interpreting the verse with any degree of certainty. The underlying Hebrew word in the printed and other texts is אַתְּ, which is the feminine singular form of the masculine singular אַתָּה. This text is problematic because the form of the word which now stands here in our Masoretic text is that typically use to address female, while the pronominal suffixes that are in the verbs addressed to this person show that the person is masculine. Some have gotten creative in handling this issue by simply saying that the same form of the word also can be masculine and, must be so. It gets worse than this, however. Originally, the Hebrew text of the Bible was written consonantally, i.e., without the vowels which must later were created and used in the texts. Thus, the first word in the phrase would have been written את. It is probable that the original word in this passage was intended to be אֵת, rather than as it now stands, which means “with” or “together with.” In the Hebrew it would be written את-כְּרוּב. The translators of this verse in the Septuagint Greek text of Ezekiel so understood it with this sense when they rendered the first line of verse 14 as: “With the cherub . . . “ .
The translators of the Syriac version also translated thus:
“You were with the anointed cherub . . .” . In addition, various scholars
ascribe the action of destroying or driving-out to the cherub rather than to
the LORD. This would be consistent if the first word in verse 14 were “with”
rather than “thou.”
The Septuagint also so understands this text: “ . . .a and
the cherub has driven you out . . .” . The wording of verse 1b, in The
Amplified Bible, is “ . . . therefore I cast you out as a profane thing
from the mountain of God and the guardian cherub drove you out . . .” . Several
other versions of the Bible also have followed this idea at verses 14 16. . . .
But even if all this were not true, and Lucifer is the
one who is identified as a cherub in these passages, it still is not a problem.
What are cherubim anyway? Confusion has arisen as to what they are, and what
are their form and appearance. Biblical scholars hold that they are symbolic.
This is because of differing descriptions of them by various biblical writers.
See for example, 1 Kings 6:23-27; 8:7, which refer to them as having two wings.
Ezekiel 1:50-10, where they are described as having four faces and four wings;
and also, Ezekiel 41:18-19, where the temple cherubim he envisions have but two
faces.
It has been said that Jewish tradition maintains that the two
cherubim that were on the ark of the covenant were in the form of men only with
wings. What do we make of that description, if true? Could it be that the word
“cherub” only is a title of a class of angelic beings regardless of the
individual forms of those within the class? The Akkadian cognate verb means “to
praise, bless, adore.” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament,
1:454) It thus also is of interest that those who are called cherubim usually
are in the attitude of praising, blessing, adoring, or otherwise attending upon
God. These evidences all seem to point to the fact that, regardless of their
various forms, whether in the form of man, beast, or both, they are all cherubim
by virtue of what they do. This thus does not preclude some of them from
being only in the form of man and, thus also would allow some of them to be
God’s children—offspring of the Father of spirits. But if the critics will not
accept what here has been presented, we always could have them read Revelation
12:3-9 (where Satan is described as a dragon or serpent with seven heads and
ten horns) and, ask them to explain how that description of the Adversary
accords with Ezekiel’s description of the cherubim found at Ezekiel 1:5-11. If
they say that is symbolic, it likely is so in the description found in this
Ezekiel passage, and we also can say the same, for Revelation and Ezekiel are
apocalyptic texts.
D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods:
Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic
Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and
Supplemented)
(North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018), 351-52, 354-55
