Boastful Assyrian comes to grief

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

  

 

 

 

“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!”

 

Isaiah 14:12

 

 

 

 

 

Commenting on his recent finding of my article:

 

Sargon II and Sennacherib, More Than Just and Overlap

 

https://www.academia.edu/8854988/Sargon_II_and_Sennacherib_More_than_just_an_overlap

 

a reader has written to me:

 

Damien,

 

I was studying this past week for a sermon on Isaiah 14, and trying to determine, "Who is the King of Babylon?" Nebuchanezzar, Nabonidus, and Belshazzar did not seem to be compatible with the details. I discovered that Sennacherib and Sargon II have been proposed by some.

That was interesting. I read up on them online and discovered that Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal (I think) claimed the title "King of Babylon". That was really interesting. 

I discovered that Sargon II was a great conqueror, and thought that fit with the image of an oppressor who had put down a lot of kings, who would be quite excited to see him thrust down to Sheol. I discovered that his death sounded a lot like Isaiah 14:19, in which a corpse does not find a grave and is not joined in burial with the other kings.

However, the declarations of verse 13, in which the king exults himself against God, intends to be higher than God, and intends to scale the mount of the congregation (the temple mount in Jerusalem) sounded a lot more like Sennacherib who blasphemed God in a manner much like that, and intended to conquer the city of Jerusalem. I was quite puzzled. Was the king of Babylon Sargon II or Sennacherib? Then I found your writing, "Sargon II and Sennacherib, More Than Just and Overlap." That was quite a moment!

Thanks for that writing. It was really helpful. Would you consider adding the suggestion to Wikipedia that Sargon II and Sennacherib could be the same person? It would be nice to rescue Assyrian chronology from being entirely dominated by secular influence. 

Seeing the King of Babylon as the Assyrian king of Babylon really helps make sense of Isaiah 14:25, where God says that he will break the Assyrian in "my land". If Sennacherib is in view in the passage, this verse referring to the death of the 185,000 soldiers is entirely in context, and not just oddly inserted.

I also discovered that James Ussher in Annals of the World, p. 82, said, "Sargon is also called Sennacherib." Do you know why scholars rejected this understanding, if it was current in Ussher's day?

How do you harmonize the suggestions that Sargon was killed in battle, and his body never found, with the story of Sennacherib killed in a temple by his sons? Are there other details that are difficult to fit into your theory?

Once again, Thanks so much! God bless your studies. ….

 

 

Damien Mackey’s response to this terrific e-mail:

 

A big part of the problem that has led to a wrong arrangement of ancient kings and dynasties is - as Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had pointed out in his Theses and in his various books - the artificial over-extension of Egyptian chronology that has largely been used as the measuring rod for other nations, such as Assyria and Babylonia, thereby throwing these right out of whack.

See e.g. my article on this:

 

The Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited

 

https://www.academia.edu/3665220/The_Fall_of_the_Sothic_Theory_Egyptian_Chronology_Revisited

 

So even though some of the early, say, biblical historians, such as Ussher (and thank you for pointing this out) may rightly have discerned that, as you quote: "Sargon is also called Sennacherib", later biblical historians, tying themselves to a faultily constructed Assyrian chronology, are forced then to mangle the biblical record in order to ‘make it fit’ the wrongly construed secular one.

 

What a mess!

 

The much lauded Edwin Thiele, for instance, has completely ruined the chronology of the Judean king Hezekiah by making it fit with what he imagines to be a virtually rock-solid neo-Assyrian chronology. (Thiele’s Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings)

A pity that the likes of Thiele did not pay attention to an ancient source like the Book of Tobit, which has “Sennacherib” directly succeeding his father, “Shalmaneser” (Tobit 1:15). No mention whatsoever there of Sargon – not because he did not exist, but because, well we know why, Sargon was Sennacherib. Isaiah 20:1 mentions “Sargon”, the only known reference to this great king down through the centuries until his city of Dur-Sharrukin (“Fortress of Sargon”) was discovered at the site of Khorsabad in the C19th AD.    

“In time, the ruins were buried by the sands and the city was forgotten. The settlement known as Khorsabad came to be established on the spot, and then, in 1873 CE the archaeologist Paul Emile Botta began excavations there. These were later carried on by another archaeologist named Victor Place”. https://www.ancient.eu/Dur-Sharrukin/

 

In my university thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background

 

https://www.academia.edu/3822220/Thesis_2_A_Revised_History_of_the_Era_of_King_Hezekiah_of_Judah_and_its_Background

 

I had written regarding the earlier puzzlement about Sargon (Volume One, pp. 134-135):

 

Sargon was for many centuries a complete mystery as Boutflower has explained,[1] with reference to Isaiah’s verse 20:1, which Boutflower gives as: “The year that the Tartan [Turtan] came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him”:

 

... Sargon, the founder of the last and greatest dynasty of Assyria’s warrior kings. Of the dynasty which he founded Sargon was the ablest monarch: indeed he is regarded by some as the greatest of all Assyrian kings .... For long ages the only mention of this great king was found in the opening verse of Isa. xx, which heads this chapter. Accordingly, the older Biblical commentators were much puzzled as to who Sargon could be. Was he Sennacherib? or Shalmaneser? or a successor of Shalmaneser and immediate predecessor of Sennacherib?

 

The early archaeological efforts of the mid-C19th solved the problem, so Boutflower thought:

 

The mystery was at length solved when the first Assyrian palace, brought to light by the excavations of Botta at Khorsabad in 1842, proved to be the palace of Sargon, erected by him in his new city of Dur-Sargon: and it was presently seen that the last guess was the right one.

 

Indeed there are several very strong indicators, at least on the surface of things, as to why one should adhere to the textbook view, as summed up by Boutflower, that Sargon was “a successor of Shalmaneser and immediate predecessor of Sennacherib”.

 

[End of quotes]

 

How to reconcile supposed separate (different types of) deaths of Sargon II, of Sennacherib?

On p, 137 of my university thesis I told of a mischievous insertion by Winckler and Delitzsch of the name “Sargon” into the Assyrian texts:

 

Another seemingly compelling evidence in favour of the conventional chronology, but one that has required heavy restoration work by the Assyriologists, is in regard to Sennacherib’s supposed accession. According to the usual interpretation of the eponym for Nashur(a)-bel, (705 BC, conventional dating), known as Eponym Cb6, Sargon was killed and Sennacherib then sat on the throne:[2]

 

The king [against Tabal....] against Ešpai the Kulummaean. [......] The king was killed. The camp of the king of Assyria [was taken......]. On the 12th of Abu, Sennacherib, son [of Sargon, took his seat on the throne].

 

Tadmor informs us about this passage that: “Winckler and Delitzsch restored: [MU 16 Šarru-ki]n; ana Ta-ba-lu [illik]”. That is, these scholars took the liberty of adding Sargon’s name.

 

Jonsson, who note has included Sargon’s name in his version of the text, gives it more heavily bracketted than had Tadmor:[3] “[Year 17] Sargon [went] against Tabal [was killed in the war. On the 12th of Abu, Sennacherib, son of Sargon, sat on the throne]”.

This document will become hugely significant in the context of this thesis.

 

[End of quotes]

 

 

 

To cut to the chase, the ill-fated “Assyrian” who died in the land of Israel just prior to the rout and devastation of king Sennacherib’s 185,000-strong army, was Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the devious “Nadin” (Nadab) of the Book of Tobit, the world-conquering commander-in-chief “Holofernes” of the Book of Judith, according to my reconstructions, e. g:

 

"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith

 

https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judith

 

Oh, yes, and this Ashur-nadin-shuni was indeed a king of Babylon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashur-nadin-shumi

As crown prince of Assyria, Ashur-nadin-shumi was installed by his father as King of Babylon about 699 BC. In 694 BC when Sennacherib attacked southern Elam in pursuit of Chaldaean rebels, the Elamites attacked Babylon. Ashur-nadin-shumi was captured and taken to Elam, where [sic] he was probably killed.^[1]

 

He was in fact slain by the Simeonite heroine, Judith, near Shechem (“Bethulia”).

 

 

 

 

---

[1] The Book of Isaiah, p. 110.  

[2] H. Tadmor, ‘The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur’, p. 97.

[3] ‘The Foundations of the Assyro-Babylonian Chronology’, p. 21.

Naqia also like Adad-guppi, Nabonidus’ mother

Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis

 

Part Two:

Naqia also like Adad-guppi, Nabonidus’ mother

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

“In addition to telling us a little of Semiramis, Herodotus narrates a story of a

Babylonian queen called Nitocris. While some have identified this legendary figure with Zakutu (Naqia), the wife of Sennacherib and mother of Esarhaddon,

others have proposed Adad-guppi, the mother of Nabonidus”.

 

Cambridge Ancient History

 

 

 

That Queen Naqia of Assyria, mother of Esarhaddon (c. 681-669 BC, conventional dating), invites strong comparisons with the legendary Queen Semiramis, has been noted by scholars. And I have discussed some of these perceived likenesses in Part One:

https://www.academia.edu/37775839/Naqia_of_Assyria_and_Semiramis

drawing upon examples to be found in, for instance, Dr. Stephanie Dalley’s tremendous book, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon (2013).

For example, Dr. Dalley writes:

 

Here, then, we have a group of material that indicates attachment of Naqia’s deeds to the name ‘Semiramis’. As second wife of Sennacherib, she bears comparison with the historical Sammu-ramat for having her name on inscriptions written during her lifetime, and for supporting publicly first her husband and then her own son, both as kings.

There was every reason, therefore, to conflate the two great queens, two great builders, Naqia would be the wife of the later Assyrian king to whom Diodorus referred when he wrote: ‘the Hanging Garden, as it is called, which was built, not by Semiramis, but by a later Syrian [a Greek reference to Assyrian: Dalley] king …’ His account that ‘Semiramis alongside a Ninus founded ‘Babylon’ on the Euphrates gives details that are applicable to Nineveh: two palaces, technical details of water supply, walls adorned with hunting scenes. ….

[End of quote]

 

It becomes apparent from Dr. Dalley’s book that some Assyrian advancements and technology were wrongly attributed later (by e.g. the Greco-Romans) to Babylonia - Sennacherib of Assyria commonly being confused by them with Nebuchednezzar.

That is understandable to some extent if I am correct in my proposed collapsing of late neo-Assyria into early neo-Babylonia, and actually identifying Sennacherib of Assyria’s successor, Esarhaddon, with Nebuchednezzar. See e.g. my article:

 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar

 

https://www.academia.edu/38017900/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar

 

The Cambridge Ancient History (Vol. III, pt. 1, 1982, pp. 243-244) tells, in regard to Nitocris, of scholars being unable to determine if she were meant to represent Naqia or Adad-guppi:

 

Related to this discussion is the matter of legends about Assyrian and Babylonian individuals which has been preserved in other languages and literatures, in particular the tales told of Semiramis, Nitocris, and Ahiqar. Legends about Semiramis are found in Greece, Armenia, and Persia but the best-known version is that of Ctesias, as preserved in Diodorus. Since the early days of Assyriology it has been widely accepted that the heroine of the tale should be identified with the historical Sammuramat, wife of Shamshi-Adad V and mother of Adad-nirari III …. In addition to telling us a little of Semiramis, Herodotus narrates a story of a Babylonian queen called Nitocris. While some have identified this legendary figure with Zakutu (Naqia), the wife of Sennacherib and mother of Esarhaddon, others have proposed Adad-guppi, the mother of Nabonidus.

[End of quote]

 

Similarly, Matt Waters in Ctesias’ “Persica” in Its Near Eastern Context (p. 46) ‘ties up’ altogether Semiramis, Naqia and Adad-guppi:

 

Semiramis’ legends as preserved in Greek traditions have been traced through prominent Assyrian and Babylonian women such as Naqia (also called “Zakutu”), the wife of Sennacherib (r. 705-681) and mother of Esarhaddon (r. 681-669), as well as Nabonidus’ mother, Adad-guppi.

 

Naqia may herself, in fact, have been a Babylonian: “Naqia was probably born in Babylonia, but her family may have originated in the Harran area”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqi%27a

 

That queen Naqia and Adad-guppi would be alike comes as no surprise to me, given that I have already identified Naqia’s son, Esarhaddon (= Nebuchednezzar) with Adad-guppi’s son, Nabonidus (= Nebuchednezzar). See e.g. my article:

 

Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans

 

https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans

 

Nor would it be surprising if Naqia’s “family may have originated in the Harran area”, given

Adad-guppi’s close association with Harran – some think she was born there: “Adad-guppi Princess of Assyria. Date, Place, Source. Born : -, b. 649 BC in Harran”: http://www.american-pictures.com/genealogy/persons/per01964.htm

“Adad-guppi, was an Assyrian priestess, a devotee of the moon god Sîn in the northern Assyrian city of Harran”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addagoppe_of_Harran

 

 

 

 

 

Shalmaneser V and Nebuchednezzar II were ‘camera-shy’?

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

“… there is no known relief depiction of Shalmaneser V …”.



 



Such is the case according to the article, "Shalmaneser V and Sargon II", at: http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/Rel302/Shalmaneser%20V%20and%20Sargon%20II.htm

.... The revolt of Israel against Assyria during the days of King Hoshea, last king of Israel, brought on a siege by the Assyrians (1 Kings 17). The siege was led by Shalmaneser V, King of Assyria (there is no known relief depiction of Shalmaneser V). During the siege, he died. Sargon II replaced Shalmanezer V as King of Assyria, who finished the siege and sacked Samaria.

 

Whilst that may be surprising in itself, the fact is – I believe - that Shalmaneser (so-called V) was the same person as Tiglath-pileser (known as III) of whom there are plenty of depictions.

 

 

And the lack of apparent portraits of Nebuchednezzar II was part of Dr. I. Velikovsky’s reason for (rightly) seeking to find an alter ego for the Great King (though wrongly, I think, equating him with the Hittite emperor, Hattusilis). Velikovsky wrote in Ramses II and His Time, p. 184: “At Wadi Brissa in Lebanon, Nebuchadnezzar twice had his picture cut in rock; these are supposedly the only known portraits of this king”.

A Description of the Building of Sargon II’s City in the Book of Judith. Part Two

 

Part Two:

Were northern Israelite captives involved?

 

  

 

 

“The city of Halah, or Halahhu, in which Israelites were resettled was therefore located

just outside Sargon’s new capital city complex. Amazingly, in spite of this knowledge, apparently no one -- historian, scholar, or archaeologist -- has ever examined

this Halahhu city mound area. There seems to be no effort to trace lost Israel!”

 

Jory Steven Brooks

 

 

 

 

The only preliminary comment that I (Damien Mackey) would need to make regarding this interesting piece by Jory Steven Brooks:

http://www.hope-of-israel.org.nz/captiveisrael.html is that I may not necessarily accept the precise BC dates given therein.

 

The Book 2 Kings ch.17 v.6 reveals that one of the places to which Israel was transplanted was called, "Halah." Little has been written about this in Christian literature, and some scholars plead ignorance as to the correct location of this place of exile. However, the Anchor Bible Dictionary (III. 25) tells us that this word matches letter for letter with the Assyrian district of "Halahhu," except for the doubling of the last "h" and the addition of the characteristic Assyrian "u" case ending. The latter is not unusual, because the Biblical Haran (Genesis 11:32, 12:4-5, 28:10 & 29:4) appears in Assyrian as "Haranu", and Ur, the birthplace of Abraham (Genesis 11:28 and 31, 15:7 and Nehemiah 9:7), is written as Uru.

 

This district of Halahhu was located north-east of the city of Nineveh in northern Assyria. A map shown in the Rand-McNally Bible Atlas (1956) indicates that Halahhu covered all of the area from Nineveh to the Zagros Mountains to the north and north-east (p. 244-5). In the midst of this district, King Sargon II purchased land along the Khosr River from the inhabitants of the small non-Assyrian town of Maganuba to build a new capital city. This new city was named Dur-Sharrukin, the Fortress of Sargon; it is better known today as Khorsabad after the modern small village of that name built on part of the ruins.

 

Halahhu was also the name of a city as well as a district. The Rand-McNally Bible Atlas (p. 297-8), informs us,

 

"Halah lay northeast of Nineveh, which city at a slightly later day had a gate named the 'gate of the land of Halah' [Halahhu]. Since there is reason to believe that the city lay between Nineveh and Sargon’s new capital [Khorsabad], the large mound of Tell Abassiyeh has been nominated for it. ….."

 

The city of Halah, or Halahhu, in which Israelites were resettled was therefore located just outside Sargon’s new capital city complex. Amazingly, in spite of this knowledge, apparently no one -- historian, scholar, or archaeologist -- has ever examined this Halahhu city mound area. There seems to be no effort to trace lost Israel! Is it perhaps because of the popular myth in books and journals that no Israelites were ever exiled or lost?

 

The reasons why Sargon moved the capital of Assyria from Nimrud to the new city of Dur-Sharrukin has been a fertile subject for speculation among scholars. Historians believe that his predecessor, Shalmaneser V, was murdered in Palestine during the siege of Samaria. The exact date of Shalmaneser’s death is unknown, but it may have been in 721 BC, because Sargon claimed to be the conqueror of the capital of Israel. If Sargon was in some way involved in the conspiracy that enabled him to seize power (an obvious supposition), he may have disdained ruling in the palace of his predecessor. Another possibility is that Sargon wished to expand the borders of Assyria northward into the sparsely inhabited Zagros Mountains, its foothills and valleys, to strengthen his northern border.

 

Whatever the reasons, a marvellous palace complex came into being almost a mile square, twelve miles north-east of Nineveh along the Khosr River. It was a massive building project. Assyrian scholar William R. Gallagher tells us that in Assyrian terms, Dur-Sharrukin was 2,935 dunams in size, compared to the city of Jerusalem at only 600 dunams (Sennacherib’s Campaign, p. 263). Yet this accomplishment was in spite of the fact that Assyria had a massive labour shortage:

 

 

"At least two letters to Sargon indicate a shortage of manpower. In one letter the sender complained that the magnates had not replaced his dead and invalid soldiers. These amounted to at least 1,200 men. The second letter, probably from Taklak-ana-Bel, governor of Nasibina, reports a scarcity of troops" (ibid., p.266).

 

This labour shortage was partly due to the massive capital building project, but also because of a deadly epidemic resembling the bubonic plague that later raged across Europe in the fourteenth century AD. The Akkadian word for it was "mutanu", the plural of "mutu," meaning death. This epidemic struck not just once, but several times (802, 765, 759, and 707 BC) with deadly effect. Historical records indicate that this plague had so decimated the Assyrian army by 706 BC that they were unable to engage in any military missions at all that year (ibid., p. 267).

 

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago carried out an archaeological excavation at the site of Dur-Sharrukin during the years 1930-33, and published an account of their discoveries in a volume written by Henri Frankfort which says the following:

 

"We know that Sargon used a considerable amount of forced labor in the building of his capital -- captives and colonists from other parts of the empire" (p. 89).

 

Assyrian scholar Gallagher adds:

 

"Sargon II’s cumbersome building projects at Dur-Sharrukin had placed a great strain on the empire...Much of the forced labor on Sargon‘s new city was done by prisoners of war. The conditions shown on Sennacherib’s palace wall reliefs for the transport of his bull colossi were undoubtedly the same as in Sargon‘s time. They show forced laborers under great exertion, some clearly exhausted, being driven by taskmasters with sticks" (ibid., p. 265).

 

Mackey’s comment re: “The conditions shown on Sennacherib’s palace wall reliefs for the transport of his bull colossi were undoubtedly the same as in Sargon’s time”.

Sargon II was Sennacherib:

 

Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib

 

https://www.academia.edu/people/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=mackey+sargon+II+otherwise

 

Jory Steven Brooks continues:

 

A text inscribed upon a carved stone bull at Dur-Sharrukin states,

 

"He [Sargon] swept away Samaria, and the whole house of Omri" (Records Of The Past, XI:18).

 

The "House of Omri" was the Assyrian designation for Israel, and was spoken with a guttural applied to the first vowel, so that it was pronounced "Khumri." Following Sargon’s terse statement was a notice of the building of the new Assyrian capital city. Construction of Dur-Sharrukin began in 717 BC, only four years after the fall of Samaria, and took over ten years, with ceremonies marking its completion in 706 BC.

 

Although there is no record of the exact date that the Assyrians marched the Israelite residents of Samaria eastward to Halah(hu), it is probable that Sargon knew from the beginning of his rule (or even before he became king) that he would build his palace in that location. Did he send the Israelites there in order to help build his new city, the capital of Assyria? If not, why were they there during these years of construction? Although proof does not exist at present, the correlation of location and dates, coupled with the great need for labourers, makes it highly probable that YEHOVAH’s people were involved.

 

And how appropriate was the symbolism resulting from this circumstance! Israel was called to build the Kingdom of YEHOVAH God on earth, but refused. They turned their hearts to false gods and worshipped the work of men’s hands. Because of this, YEHOVAH used the Assyrians, perhaps the foremost pagan idolaters, to punish his people. Those who had been offered the highest honour of building YEHOVAH’s earthly dominion instead were consigned the deepest dishonour of building the earthly dominion of the enemies of YEHOVAH God.

 

Many of the wall reliefs, stone idols, and other important finds from Dur-Sharrukin are now on display at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Included is a massive stone winged bull termed in Assyrian, "Lamassu," that formerly stood at the doorway to King Sargon’s throne room. The carving and moving of several of these monstrous stone monuments was undoubtedly one of the most amazing feats of human labour. They were composite figures, with a human face, a body that was part bull, part lion, and wings of a bird. The king was thus symbolically empowered with the formidable qualities of speed, power, and intelligence.

Part Three:

Was Sargon II aware of Solomon’s cherubs?

 

“… it appears that cherubs are a kind of divine guard. This fits in with the description

of the cherubs in Solomon’s Temple as well (1 Kings 6:23-28), which were ten cubits (approximately twenty two feet) high”.

 

Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber

 

 

Sargon II’s lamassu at Khorsabad were apparently slightly less than fourteen feet high:

https://sites.google.com/site/adairarthistory/ii-ancient-mediterranean/25-lamassu-from-the-citadel-of-sargon-ii-dur-sharrukin-modern-iraq

 

Form: high relief sculpture from a monolithic stone of gypseous alabaster 13'9" tall It stands more than 4 meters high by 4 meters wide and is a meter in depth Human headed winged bulls were very large protective genies called shedu/ lamassu, and were placed as guardians at certain gates/ doorways of the city and the palace.  Carved from a single block the original position of these winged bulls: This one formed the left jamb of Door K in the palace

Function: Guardian figures at the city and citadel gates symbol of the king's power also architectural purpose to hold up an arch to enter the citadel Protective spiritual guardians were placed on either side of these entrances to act as guardians. They also had a strictly architectural function, as they bore some of the weight of the arch above An inscription on two panels between the hind legs of the bull: praises the ruler by rehearsing his virtues and calls down a curse on who ever should seek to harm the edifice Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against enemies. …...

 

 

Whilst Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber will adopt the standard view, that the biblical accounts had borrowed from the pagan world, might it not have been the other way around considering that cherubim (כְּרֻבִ֑ים) guardians were known as far back as the days of Adam (Genesis 3:24) and, afterwards, Moses (Numbers 7:89), long before Sargon II?

Rabbi Farber writes: https://thetorah.com/the-cherubim/

 

….

Modern scholarship approaches the topic of cherubs both by looking at the contextual clues from the biblical stories (similar to what ibn Ezra and Bekhor Shor did) and by looking at the ancient Near Eastern evidence.

 

Keruvim and Karibu

The name kerub seems to be a loanword from the Akkadian karibu.[11] The word karibu is a noun derived from the Akkadian root karābu, which means “bless.” The karibu are the blessed ones; they were genies or lower level divine beings who function as supplicants, standing before the god and praying on behalf of others. The karibu were generally pictured as colossal bulls.[12] Apparently, the Torah incorporates the Akkadian concept of karibu in the Hebraicized cherub. But was their function there same as their Mesopotamian antecedents? Biblical accounts offer a variety of answers.[13]

 

Image 1 – Guards

As noted earlier, Genesis 3:24 suggests that God stations Cherubim outside the garden of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from trying to re-enter.

He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

From this source, it appears that cherubs are a kind of divine guard. This fits in with the description of the cherubs in Solomon’s Temple as well (1 Kings 6:23-28), which were ten cubits (approximately twenty two feet) high.

Unlike the cherubs of the Ark, they were gigantic in size and instead of facing each other they both faced the door. The effect of such a display would be to intimidate people, forcing those who enter the room to be somber and frightening off unauthorized people who might be curious. [14]

 

Solomon’s daunting cherubs (as well as the cherubs outside the garden of Eden) are highly reminiscent of the Ancient Near Eastern practice of placing giant statues of heavenly beasts, called karibu, apkallu (from Sumerian Abgal), lamassu, sheddu,[15] or alad-lammu outside of palaces.

Figure 1 – Assyrian Style Lamassu Guards from Nimrud (now in the Louvre)

Figure 2- The Gate of All Nations: Persian Palace of in Persepolis

 

Although this is true for Solomon’s cherubs, the cherubs on the Ark, however, do not seem to be guards, since they face each other not the outside, and are small and hardly intimidating.  ….