Version,' but oftener in the original. The images which Rachel stole (Gen. xxxi. 19) were Teraphim, and the image which Michal laid in the bed to deceive Saul's messengers is rendered "the Teraphim" in the Revised Version. These Teraphim were images, which in those early ages were regarded with superstitious veneration-why, it is difficult exactly to say. Now, you see that the word Teraphim differs from the word Seraphim by but a single letter. As a matter of fact, it is simply the Aramaic form of the same word. If this be so, and if the Seraphim are simply the Cherubim under another name, then it would appear that these Teraphim, which were so frequently found in Jewish houses, were neither more nor less than models of the Cherubim. We have already noted as a strange thing that Moses was told by God to make Cherubim for the Tabernacle, but not told of what shape to make them. We argued that the reason why no description of them was given must have been that their form was so familiar and generally known as to need 1 Judg. xvii. 5, xviii. 14, xviii. 17, xviii. 18, xviii. 20; Hos. iii. 4. no description. Now, if, as some say, the Cherubim which were placed at the east of the garden of Eden remained there till the Floodif, as there appears to be some reason for believing, the men of those early days worshipped before them as the ordinary place of their religious service and the place of the revealed presence of Jehovah, we can easily understand why and how they acquired this familiarity which is thus taken for granted in the sacred narrative, and we can also easily understand how rude images of these mysterious beings should in a primitive age, when there was neither Bible nor Temple to guide men's religious beliefs, become a kind of charms or household gods. Such a supposition, at all events, make much clear in the earlier books of Scripture which we will otherwise have great difficulty in comprehending. What an impression of the majesty of God is given us by the splendour and magnificence of the Cherubim! History tells us of a great French preacher who, officiating before Louis XIV., produced a never-to-be-forgotten impression by the utterance of the one sentence-" God alone is great!" Look at the Cherubim! Consider that, mighty and wonderful beings as they are, they are but servants of God, and may you not gain some conception of what a great God He must be! If the servants are so mighty and magnificent, what must the King Himself be! H |