What Does Exodus 25:18 Mean?

The two gold cherubim hammered from the mercy seat's ends are the tabernacle's most humanly-shaped objects: winged beings flanking the divine presence-location. Cherubim (keruvim) are the heavenly creatures who guard the divine throne and protect access to the divine presence: they first appear in Genesis 3:24 guarding the tree of life with a flaming sword after the Fall. Their presence on the mercy seat is the throne-guardian imagery applied to the sanctuary: the same beings who guard the divine presence in the heavenly throne-room are reproduced in gold at the ark's covering to Mark it as the throne's earthly analog.

The cherubim being hammered (mikshah) from the same piece of gold as the mercy seat makes them integral to the kapporeth rather than separately attached. Cherubim and mercy seat are one continuous piece of solid gold: the divine protection and the divine grace are not two separate objects but aspects of the same reality. The craftwork required to hammer two winged figures from the ends of a solid gold slab while maintaining the mercy seat's flat surface is among the most technically demanding tasks assigned to Bezalel and the tabernacle craftsmen. Sacred art demands the highest technical skill available.

Ezekiel's chariot-vision (chapters 1-3) describes the four-faced, four-winged cherubim that carry the divine throne across the heavens. Revelation 4:6-8's four living creatures ("like a Lion, like an Ox, with the face of a man, with the face of an Eagle) correspond to Ezekiel's cherubim as the heavenly throne-room's permanent inhabitants. The two gold cherubim flanking the mercy seat are the tabernacle's miniature reproduction of the heavenly throne-room's cherubim guard: the earthly sanctuary is a scaled-down copy of the heavenly court, with the same creatures marking the same divine presence in the same throne-guardian stance.