Discovery BoxExodus 25:18-19 
Context25:18 You are to make two cherubim 1 of gold; you are to make them of hammered metal on the two ends of the atonement lid. 25:19 Make 2 one cherub on one end 3 and one cherub on the other end; from the atonement lid 4 you are to make the cherubim on the two ends.
Exodus 36:35
Context36:35 He made the special curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine twisted linen; he made 5 it with cherubim, the work of an artistic designer.
Exodus 37:8
Context37:8 one cherub on one end 6 and one cherub on the other end. 7 He made the cherubim from the atonement lid on its two ends.
1 tn The evidence suggests that the cherubim were composite angelic creatures that always indicated the nearness of God. So here images of them were to be crafted and put on each end of the ark of the covenant to signify that they were there. Ezekiel 1 describes four cherubim as each having human faces, four wings, and parts of different animals for their bodies. Traditions of them appear in the other cultures as well. They serve to guard the holy places and to bear the throne of God. Here they were to be beaten out as part of the lid.
2 tn The text now shifts to use an imperative with the vav (ו) conjunction.
3 tn The use of זֶה (zeh) repeated here expresses the reciprocal ideas of “the one” and “the other” (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 26, §132).
4 sn The angels were to form one piece with the lid and not be separated. This could be translated “of one piece with” the lid, but it is likely the angels were simply fastened to it permanently.
5 tn The verb is simply “he made” but as in Exod 26:31 it probably means that the cherubim were worked into the curtain with the yarn, and so embroidered on the curtain.
6 tn Heb “from/at [the] end, from this.”
7 tn The repetition of the expression indicates it has the distributive sense.
