Seraphim (Hastings' Dictionary)

The seraphim are an order of celestial ueings referred to only in Is 6-"'. In his vision of .1 " the prophet sees them as attendants of the heavenly court, ministers of the ideal sanctuary. They are apparently human in form — they have faces, hands, and feet (w."-'); each of them has three pairs of wings (v.^) ; they stand or hover above J" as He sits upon His throne (v.-) ; and they proclaim His holmess in antiphonal chant (v.»). Opinion varies as to the origin of the word and the conception.

Gesenius was doubtful, but thought it best to connect the term with the Arab. i__j-..i 'to be noble,' thus viewing the seraphim as the princes or nobles of the heavenly court. A considerable number of Jewish writers, such aa Abulwalid and Kimchi, derived the word from •p.-;', regarding the seraphim as bright or shininrj angels. But ''{Vf means 'to bum,' not 'to shine,' and ac- cordingly others have supposed the word to denote the ardent love or burning zeal of the Divine attendants.

The verbal root, however, is not in- transitive, but active ; it means not to rjlotv with heat, but to consume toith fire. Hence the seraphim would have rather to be regarded as agents of purification by fire. This is in accordance with Is 6', where one of the spirits is represented as carrying celestial fire from oft' the altar to purify the lips of the prophet and purge away his sin (but see Dillm.-Kittel, ad loc).

It is now usual to bring the prophet's conception into relation with popular Hebrew mythology The sarCtph of Nu 21«, Dt 8"> is a 'hery,' i.e. venomous, serpent, which bites the Israelites in the desert (see Sebpent). In Is 14** 30« allusion is made to a ' flying fiery serpent ' {adrdph), which hns its home in the desert between Palestine and SERAE SERPENT 459 Egypt. The latter is certainly a creation of popu- lar imajrinution.

As the analogous cherub was primarily a person ilication of the thundercloud, so the ser!i])h waa of the serpent-like lightning. Now- just as a psalmist represents J" as making the flaming fire His ministers (Ps 104''), so the prophet seize.', the popular notion of tlie seraph and trans- fers il to tue realm of pure spiritual ideas. Not a trace of the serpentine form is left in his conception.

His sera])him are the guardians of J'"8 holiness, who kcej) the profane and unclean at a distance, ■ nd purge from dehlement that which is to be taken into J"'s service. Bj- means of this splendid Bvmbolism the prophet \-ividly expresses the truth tliat ' J" is a consuming fire ' (Dt 4-^ He 12-"5). Another view has been started by Dillm.

-Kittel and Marti owing to the discovery in an Egyptian tomb of the 12tli dynasty at Beni-Hassan, of two winged griffin figures placed as guardians at the entrance. The griffin is represented in Demotic bj- the word sere/, and Marti suggests that the seraphim in Isaiah's vision are to oe thought of as guarding the threshold of the temple.

* The 'living creatures' of Rev 4'"', which are partly like Ezekiel's cherubim, resemble Isaiah's seraphim in possessing six wings and in proclaiming the Trisa-'ion. But Cheyne has remarked that ' the popular notion of the seraphim as angels is, of course, to be rejected. They are, indeed, more like Titans than placid Gabriels or Raphaels' {Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 32). The similarity of the word seraph to the Egyp- tian Serapis led Hifzig and others to identify the two.

Tliis idea has found little acceptance (cf., against it, Dillm.-Kittel, Jes. ad loc), and still less has Knobel's suggestion that seraphim is a false reading for crn.v'i an imaginary Heb. word meaning 'ministers.' LnF.RATURE. — See art. Cherubim, and cf. the Coram, on Isaiah, eep. Cht-yne, DiUm.-Ki5^l, and Marti. J. STRACHAN. SERAR {-Zipip, AV Aserer), 1 Es 5»2 = Sisera, Ezr 2», Neh 7».