If you go to Bible college or seminary,
your professor may ridicule the King James,
and say it's wrong when it says
"cherubims" or "seraphims."
They claim it is "obvious that King James translators
didn't know what they were doing."
But I'll show you that the Bible is right.
It was done for the right reasons.
Want to see why the translators did it?
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
It's popular today to say that the King James Bible
has made a grievous error.
They have added an "s" to the ends of words
that are already plural in the original Hebrew,
like in Genesis 3.
In Hebrew, they say, the ending "-im" is used
to indicate a plural, and that's all you need.
You see an "-im" at the end, and you are sure it's plural.
Not so fast.
There was a good reason for putting "-ims" instead of "-im"
in the King James Bible.
The translators wanted the people to know whether
the meaning of the word in its context referred to one, or more than one.
Not all English speakers know that "-im" is plural in Hebrew.
The King James translators believed they were working with
God's holy words.
So they didn't want to leave any meaning out,
when translating it into English.
And they weren't the only translators
with that conviction, as you will find out.
Sometimes that -im Hebrew ending is used when referring to something
that the Bible views as singular, like the mountain range Abarim
in Deuteronomy 32:49.
"Get thee up into this mountain Abarim,
unto mount Nebo..."
These mountains in the range are referred to by
the Hebrew plural name Abarim, while the highest mountain is Nebo.
But the verse puts it in the singular, just like we refer to "the Sierras,"
"the Rockies," "the Appalachians," but it is just one mountain range.
How does that work?
When children draw a mountain, it often looks something like this:
But most mountains don't look like triangles.
They more often look like this:
One mountain, but with many peaks, or many mountains in one range.
Some say that Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, and even Paran
are different peaks on the same mountain --
or part of a mountain range.
So in this verse, "this mountain Abarim"
contains "mount Nebo" as one of its peaks.
But other times the "-im" ending refers to an actual plural of objects,
like the angelic beings around the throne of God.
To make the fact of the plural clear to English speakers,
they added a simple "-s," so it said "-ims."
Look at Exodus 25:18.
It says "cherubims," and we can see why.
There are two of them.
Another heavenly creature is in Isaiah 6:2.
Here it says "seraphims," and again we can see why.
In verse 2 it says "each one," showing there was more than one.
And in verse 6 it says, "Then flew one of the seraphims
unto me."
So the context shows in all of these
that the word is clearly plural.
There is more than one seraph.
But look at Genesis 3:24, the first use of the Hebrew "-im"
in the English Bible.
Genesis 3:24 "So he drove out the man;
and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden
Cherubims, and a flaming sword
which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."
Did you notice?
There is nothing in the verse that tells you whether
there is one or more than one.
In most English Bibles, it just says "cherubim."
And in most pictures, only one heavenly being is drawn.
But in the King James Bible, getting the meaning across
was more important than the exact Hebrew spelling.
That's why they clearly marked it "cherubims."
There was more than one cherub guarding the way to Eden.
People like to pretend the translators were ignorant.
But actually, this was a practice that was already occurring
among Bible translators.
Take a look at four other translations
of Genesis 3:24.
Coverdale (Great) Bible, 1540
"...& at the east side... he set Cherubins..."
1568 Bishops Bible "...and at the east side ...
he set Cherubins..."
1587, 1599 Geneva Bible "...and at the East side ...
he set the Cherubims..."
1602 Reina Valera Spanish Bible "...y puso al Oriente...
Cherubines..."
1611 to present, King James Bible "... at the east of the garden of Eden
Cherubims..."
The same is true for Isaiah 6:2.
1540 Coverdale (Great) Bible "And aboute hi stode
the Seraphins..."
1568 Bishops Bible "And about hym stoode
Seraphims..."
1587, 1599 Geneva Bible "The Seraphims stoode vpon it..."
Reina Valera Spanish Bible, 1602 "Y encima del estavan Seraphines..."
And of course, the King James "Above it stood the seraphims..."
Some people complain, as my professors did,
that it was a double-plural.
Why put a second plural on the word?
Well, for one, it was easy to put a simple "-s,"
instead of writing a Hebrew
explanatory footnote everywhere it occurred.
When it was read out loud, every English speaker
(or Spanish, with the Valera Bible) knew whether the Hebrew word
actually meant one or more than one.
And that is the same reason that they used the already-less-used,
by that time, "thee," "thou," "thy," "thine,"
"doest," "doeth," etc., for singular, and "ye," "you," "your," "yours," etc.,
for the plural.
Communicating accurate meaning is that important.
Let me ask you: What is the plural of "child"?
In Early English, the word "cild," was both singular and plural.
No one knew which was being referred to.
So how did they make it plural?
In Middle English, one way of saying it was "childer."
"-er" or "-re" That communicated the plural.
But another plural of "child" was "chillen."
The "-en" ending made it plural.
So no, that wasn't Southern slang.
It was correct English.
So when the common people started saying the plural of child,
both got blended together, and it became child + er + en --
"Children."
Children is a double-plural that everyone uses
and understands.
And in the same way, everybody knows
that cherubims and seraphims are more than one of each.
By the way, it was my professor,
Dr. Childers, who first told me about this.
We have an amazing language, English.
It adapts parts of many different languages
and adds them in.
It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,
with other languages' rules added to our own.
It's like the saying I've heard.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
It follows them down dark alleyways,
knocks them down
and searches their pockets for loose grammar.
Our King James Bible is God's preserved words.
It wasn't just made for scholars.
It was made for common men, women and children --
or childer, or chillen.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.