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264 71 will attest, such winged divine assistants were called in the Bible Cherubim rather than Mal'akhim. Cherub (the sin- gular of Cherubim) derives from the Akkadian Karabu—to "bless, consecrate." A Karibu (male) was "a_blessed/conse- crated one" and a female Kuribi meant a Protective Goddess. As such the biblical Cherubim were assigned (Genesis 3:24) to guard "the way to the Tree of Life" lest the expelled Adam and Eve return to the Garden of Eden; to protect with their wings the Ark of the Covenant; and to serve as bearers of the Lord, be it as supporters of the Divine Throne in the Ezekiel vision or by simply carrying Yahweh aloft: "He rode upon a Cherub and flew away," we read in II Samuel 22:11 and Psalms 18:11 (another parallel to the tale of Etana). Ac- cording to the Bible, then, the winged Cherubim had specific and limited functions; not so the Mal'akhim, the Emissaries who had come and gone on assigned missions and, as plenipotentiary ambassadors, had considerable discretionary powers. This is made clear from the events at Sodom. Having seen for themselves the viciousness of the people of Sodom, the two Mai 'akhim instructed Lot and his family to leave at once, as lant A KR \ Figure 90 DIVINE ENCOUNTERS