20 The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover.
If I were to tell you to think about a soldier in uniform at a graveside, you would probably be able to picture that in your head. If I told you to think of a doctor in an operating room, you could picture that. Or to picture a football game opening kickoff, or a Jedi Knight’s light saber. We have a common set of images in our culture. If you could draw well, you could put those images down on paper. Of if you were a sculptor you could make a 3D representation of those images. Here in our text Moses is told the design of the Ark of the Covenant. Part of that design is the inclusion of cherubim. Do you have any knowledge of what a cherub looks like? I don’t. I have seen artist’s ideas about what they look like, but I have never seen one. And yet Moses is told to include them in the design of the Tabernacle. Moses must have seen them with his eyes. He had to have known what they looked like in order to tell the craftsmen how to make them in the Tabernacle. They did not have Google image search capabilities. This is the reason there is not more of a description of what they look like. Moses and the original receivers of this revelation had that knowledge as part of their common experience. We can all picture those planes hitting those towers on 9/11. Those who were alive can remember the image of the destruction of Challenger as it happened live on TV. We have a set of common cultural images. The Israelites must also have had a similar catalog. Part of the catalog included what Cherubim looked like. We don’t have that in our cultural catalog. I say all this to show that the Lord does not include everything we need to know about everything included in the Scriptures. He does include enough for us to come to an intimate knowledge of His will for our lives. There will always be parts of Scripture that we don’t fully understand, but we can understand enough to live lives pleasing to the Lord.
The Arnold Journey 