are reflected in iconography from the biblical period.73 Neither is ever qualified with the term malʾāk, and so it is incorrect to think of cherubim and seraphim as angels.74 In Alice Wood’s detailed treatment of the Hebrew term in her major study on cherubim,75 she notes: Shades of meaning that are attributed to the cherubim in the biblical texts can be further accentuated by means of a comparison with the corresponding Semitic data. It is the form kurı̄bu, derived from the Akkadian karābu “to