02_eichler_nuovoImpaginato+eliminata_nota24)_DEF_copiaaaaa_26_38 28/04/15 11:32 Pagina 33 CHERUB: A HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION 33 b. B. Bat. 12a), a characteristic activity of oxen 23. They further argued that “the face of an ox” in Ezek 10,14 takes the place of “the face of a cherub” in the parallel Ezek 1,10, indicating that the two have identical appearances. They understood the cheru- bim placed by the Garden of Eden after the expulsion of the pri- mordial humans (Gen 3,24), with their capacity to plow, as replacing the human’s intended function of tilling and tending the Garden (Gen 2,15). Later scholars promoted similar views. Perhaps most notable of these was the seventeenth-century Protestant polymath Hugo Grotius, who defined the cherubim as “calf-like angels” memori- alizing Joseph (who is elliptically equated with an ox in Gen 49,6) and repeated the tosafists’ argument concerning Ezek 1,10 and 10,14 24. Grotius was mentioned in Charles Taylor’s edition of Cal- met’s biblical dictionary, along with fellow seventeenth-century scholars Samuel Bochart and John Spencer, who “think they were nearly the figure of an ox” 25. Bochart introduced the idea that the cherubim are essentially similar to the golden calves of Aaron and Jeroboam opposed in the Bible 26. Taylor himself envisaged the cherub as a winged bull with a human upper body. Unlike those before him, he adduced material evidence to support his view: the human-headed winged bull colossi of Persepolis 27, which were known to him from a drawing and de- scription by Dutch traveler Cornelis de Bruyn 28. Later, the publicity received by colossal human-headed winged bulls in Assyrian palaces 23 H. TORCZYNER, “Ark (Ark of God)”, Encyclopedia Miqra’it I, 538-550 [Hebrew], maintained that the root brk possesses this meaning in biblical Hebrew as well. He emended the phrase in Hos 10,11 ~yrpa bykra, “I will have Ephraim ridden”, which is parallel to hdwhy vwrxy, “Judah will plow”, and to bq[y wl ddvy, “Jacob will harrow”, to read ~yrpa byrka, supposedly “I will make Ephraim plow”. 24 H. GROTIUS, Annotationes in Vetus & Novum Testamentum (London 1727 [1644]) 47. 25 “Cherub”, Calmet’s Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible (ed. C. TAYLOR) (London 1797) I, n.p. 26 S. BOCHART, Sive Bipertitum Opus de Animalibus S. Scripturae (Frankfurt 1675) 358-359. 27 Online photograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Persepo- lis_24.11.2009_13-10-19.jpg [cited 15 June 2014]. 28 C. TAYLOR, Fragments, Illustrative of the Manners, Incidents, and Phrase- ology, of the Holy Scriptures (London 1798) II, 119-130, 159-160; III, 184-185;