Gesenius (who knew more about these matters than any human before or since) found the etymology difficult to state definitively, but ended by concluding that it must be a transposition of the letters of RECHUV (רחוב), and thus means "divine steed". It is not obvious how he achieves this, however: RECHOV was, still is, used for a "street", later for the plaza immediately inside the city gates, the Medina of the Arab world, the market square of the European. KAROV (כרוה), on the other hand, means "near", and indicates the ministers who served the gods; a kind of celestial civil service (in middle Yehudit the word came to mean "relatives", as in "nearest and dearest", and is still used as such in modern Ivrit).
And if Gesenius were correct, we would need to follow the root down its other obvious path, which is to RACHAV (רחב), the Prince of the Sea in the Kena'ani (Canaanite) world, sometimes rendered as RAHAV (רהב), the "harlot" of Yericho in the Biblical (Joshua 2:1 and 6:17).
Alas, though, this is a case of false etymology; in spite of which he may actually be correct in the definition!
Why? Because the root-word SALM that gives us Shalem, Av-Shalom (Absalom), Shelomoh (Solomon), Salome, Yeru-Shala'im (Jerusalem), et cetera) is linked across the Hittite common source, manifested, for example, in the Greek myth of Bellerophon (his enemies were the Solymians or Beney Salma), which is precisely the story of a divine, and indeed a winged steed, Pegasus, by name; and the tale of the Isra (Al Isra' wal Miraj), Muhammad's night-journey from Mecca to Yeru-Shala'im on the winged and talking horse known as al Burāq probably stems from the same tradition. (All cities and capes bearing the Salm name face east, following the sun's direction, rather than looking towards it, a fact which I only mention because it was after the night of the Isra that Muhammad changed the direction of the Qibla, from facing Yeru-Shala'im, to facing east; later he changed it again, to facing Mecca).
So there may be more truth in his conjecture than even Gesenius realised; the key, as always, and as he knew, lies in the etymology, and we have 200 hundred years of advantage over Gesenius, as well as the invention of the Internet.
The root that he couldn't find turns out to be the Persian word Keruv, which by considerable oddity also yields the English word "griffin", less etymologically than culturally, the original griffins having been the guardians of the gold-producing mountains of Kesed (Chaldea), and again a form of divine steed.
In Genesis 3:24 they are guardians of the gates of Eden, Yisra-Eli (or really Persian) equivalents of the dragon of the Golden Fleece, or the one that Siegfried killed in the Nibelungenlied, guardians of the sacred treasure/shrine/cave.
Logically, because all these myths stem from the same "common source", there would have been a similar dragon-guardian outside the Cave of Machpelah at Chevron, and a Yisra-Eli King Arthur who... and of course, in the myths of the Beney Yisra-El, there is, King David, only the cave shifts to Adul-Am, even though it was his conquest of Chevron, with its royal tomb at Machpelah, that secured his throne, supported, of course, by his personal Merlin, or Mer-ddin if you prefer, Shemu-El (Samuel).
According to Ezekiel 1 & 10, which offers two extremely full descriptions of the Keruvim, the Keruv (קרוב) was a being of sublime and celestial nature, composed of four parts: man, ox, lion and eagle, the three animals symbolising power and wisdom; just like the rivers of Eden, the head of Horus as a mandala etc.
The function of the Keruvim (קרובים) was to bear the throne of Elohim - specifically Elohim, not YHVH - though it is specifically the word of YHVH that came to the prophet (Ezekiel 1:3) - on their wings through the clouds (2 Samuel 22:11, Psalm 18:11).
Wooden statues of them, overlaid with gold, stood in the innermost part of the holy tabernacle (Exodus 25:18 ff) and of the temple of Shelomoh/Solomon (1 Kings 6:23), where figures of them were also carved on the walls.
It is this latter that really gives them away, and ensures the correctness of the RACHAV connection. The moon-goddess was always conceived as a Triad, with the lion her spring symbol, the goat or ox her summer symbol and the serpent or eagle her winter symbol (a double-Triad actually; this is her annual symbolism; the waxing, full and waning moons are her monthly symbols, though the concept of young year, high season and autumn have obvious parallels).
The Greek Chimaera is depicted in precisely this way in a Hittite temple at Carchemish, and a damaged glass plaque at Dendra near Mycenae shows the hero (probably Theseus, who founded Mycenae) wrestling Ya'akov-like with a lion with a goat's head and serpent's tail. The Keruvim were thus teraphim or wooden carvings of the moon-goddess in her tripartite identity; the man - the fourth part in Yechezke-El's version (Ezekiel 1 and 10 above) - added later when the religion was patriarchalised.
The function of the Keruvim (קרובים) was to bear the throne of Elohim - specifically Elohim, not YHVH - though it is specifically the word of YHVH that came to the prophet (Ezekiel 1:3) - on their wings through the clouds (2 Samuel 22:11, Psalm 18:11).
Wooden statues of them, overlaid with gold, stood in the innermost part of the holy tabernacle (Exodus 25:18 ff) and of the temple of Shelomoh/Solomon (1 Kings 6:23), where figures of them were also carved on the walls.
It is this latter that really gives them away, and ensures the correctness of the RACHAV connection. The moon-goddess was always conceived as a Triad, with the lion her spring symbol, the goat or ox her summer symbol and the serpent or eagle her winter symbol (a double-Triad actually; this is her annual symbolism; the waxing, full and waning moons are her monthly symbols, though the concept of young year, high season and autumn have obvious parallels).
The Greek Chimaera is depicted in precisely this way in a Hittite temple at Carchemish, and a damaged glass plaque at Dendra near Mycenae shows the hero (probably Theseus, who founded Mycenae) wrestling Ya'akov-like with a lion with a goat's head and serpent's tail. The Keruvim were thus teraphim or wooden carvings of the moon-goddess in her tripartite identity; the man - the fourth part in Yechezke-El's version (Ezekiel 1 and 10 above) - added later when the religion was patriarchalised.
We know from 1 Kings 11 (and there is much further evidence) that Shelomoh/Solomon's Temple was not exclusively to YHVH, but also to the moon-goddess his consort, under the name Astarte, but also as Anat or Anatha, and in the centuries that followed most of the Yisra-Eli kings likewise followed the polytheistic deities, including RACHAV.
It is possible that the meaning of the Yehudit changed at some point through confusion with the Chaldean KARUZ = "a herald"; whence the Yehudit root KARAZ (כרז) = "to proclaim, cry out"; whence also "a herald". More significant than all this however is the fact that, in Farsi, Chaldee and in Yehudit, the word Karuv (כרוב) indicates a swastika! Or Svastika, to be pedantic, in ancient Sanskrit. And the "flaming sword" (Lahat ha Cherev - להט החרב) mentioned in the same phrase with Keruv in Genesis 3:24, was almost certainly a swastika. In ancient times the swastika (which Hitler managed to get the wrong way round!) was a fire-wheel, a permanent flame which the vestals could use to keep the sacred fire alight, but also a devining instrument pointing, like the mandala, to the four quarters of the cosmos.
LAHAT (להט) = "to burn, flame", from Lihet (להט) = "to kindle". It also has the sense of concealment, as in the use of occult and magical arts; thus "a flame", especially flaming steel. LAHATIM (להטים) are incantations. We can deduce that the flaming sword, if not the Keruvim, formed part of the ritual of the oracular prophets and prophetesses: their oracles an attempt to devine the future by astrological prediction.
HA CHEREV (החרב): Note the aural pun on Keruv (קרוב) and Charav (חרב). CHARAV = "to be dried up" (as of water, earth, river), "to become dry, desolate, laid waste" (of cities); also "to be amazed, astounded". In only one sense does Cherev (חרב) mean "a sword", and this is oblique to say the least. From the same root comes CHOREV (חורב) = Mount Horeb, another of the sacred mountains of the Beney Yisra-EL, or simply another name for the same sacred mountain.
ET HA KERUVIM VE ET LAHAT HA CHEREV HA MIT’HAPECHET LISHMOR ET DERECH ETS HA CHAYIM
אֶת הַכְּרֻבִים וְאֵת לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת לִשְׁמֹר אֶת דֶּרֶךְ עֵץ הַחַיִּים
in Genesis 3:24 may therefore mean "and he established the shamans and the magical arts of the shrine on Mount Horeb", and not the seemingly meaningless "and he placed there herldic beasts (keruvim), and a swastika (lahat ha cherev)" at all. The words that follow are: "Lishmor et derech ayts ha-chayim", usually translated as "to guard the way to the Tree of Life". But shamar (שמר) means "to observe" as well as "to guard" (cf Shomron - שמרון = "a watchtower", or even a "watch-mountain" in 1 Kings 16:24). Astrologers always do prefer high places, because the heavenly bodies are more readily visible.
None of which makes any sense to you who have been brought up on mediaeval Art and the theology of Christianity, where a Keruv is not a beast of the apocalypse or a guardian steed at all, certainly not the sacred dragon of the mother-goddess at the entrance to her sacred grove, but...In the mediaeval idealisations of, for example, Francesco Gonin's classic cherub-painting (on the left), the Keruv has miraculously been transformed into a "cherub", those darling little babies who are the toddler-class of the winged-angels, plump and healthy, with blue eyes and a white bib... sorry, but it doesn't do, though it would be interesting to try to work out why and how it changed from winged lions into that, and when.
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