What Does Exodus 25:20 Mean?

The cherubim's wing-spread creates the mercy seat's overhead canopy: the wings extend upward and spread over the mercy seat, sheltering the space between them. The "face toward one another" specification creates the cherubim's mutual orientation: they do not gaze outward or upward but toward each other, with their faces looking down toward the mercy seat's surface. The mutual-facing, downward-looking cherubim describe the throne-room's creatures as attentive to the covenant space between them: the space where YHWH meets with Moses and where the high priest comes annually with the blood of atonement.

The downward-facing orientation of the cherubim toward the mercy seat reflects the heavenly Angels' stance before the divine presence in Isaiah 6:2: the seraphim "covered their faces" in the divine presence with two of their six wings. The cherubim whose faces look down toward the mercy seat are the tabernacle's version of the same reverential-but-attentive orientation: the heavenly creatures are present at the divine throne-location, attentive to it, but not gazing at the divine face directly. The covered-face seraph and the downward-looking mercy-seat cherub express the same reverential attentiveness.

1 Peter 1:12 uses the cherubim's attentive downward gaze as an image of the angels' relationship to the gospel: "things into which angels long to look." The gospel that the cherubim hover attentively over, the mercy-seat atonement that covers the covenant accusation, is the mystery that the heavenly guardians themselves lean to observe. The downward-facing cherubim of the mercy seat are the physical expression of the spiritual reality that 1 Peter describes: the angelic beings who guard the divine presence are also the beings most attentive to the divine mercy that it mediates toward the covenant community's failures.