The cherubim guardians and the flaming sword are indeed motifs from Near Eastern mythology. In Assyria and Babylonia, the karibu were believed to the guardian deities at the entrances of their sanctuaries and were depicted as griffin or sphinx-like beings. Temples and palaces, as an earthly abode of the gods, were designed as representations of the divine abode in heaven or paradise. In Israelite mythology, the cherubim were wind-demons or personifications of the storm wind on which Yahweh (drawing on metereological Baalist imagery) rides in his storm cloud chariot (Psalms 18:11; 2 Samuel 22:11). In other words, the cherubim were the winged wheels of the divine chariot and Yahweh sits enthroned on them and they comprise Yahweh's means of locomotion (cf. 1 Samuel 4:4; Isaiah 37:16; Psalm 18, 65:12; 68:4; 80:1; 99:1; note also 2 Kings 2:11-12 where the "chariot of fire" brings a "whirlwind"). Their wings symbolize the movement of the winds. According to Ezekiel 28:14-16, they serve as the guardians of Eden and we find the same in Assyrian and Babylonian art which depict winged composite beings standing by the side of the Tree of Life; the figures usually have human heads on animal bodies but sometimes have eagle heads on human bodies. They are shown in the act of fertilizing the date-palm (which serves as the Tree of Life in Sumerian and Akkadian myth and occur as the central tree in temples) by transferring the pollen to the flower. Here again they are personifications of the winds, by whose agency fertilization takes place in nature. As winds, they also have the ability to guard the divine garden by blowing away anyone who does not belong. Depictions of such beings were thus placed at the entrances of Assyrian temples and palaces, and similarly colossal cherubim appeared in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:23-25; 8:6) and on the ark of the covenant. Note that in the Eden story, the cherubim were placed at the east entrance to the garden; this is exactly like the later Levites posted as guards at the eastern gate of the tabernacle/temple, who were to strike down any person who encroaches upon forbidden ground (Numbers 1:51-53). As for the fiery sword, this is doubtless related to "the avenging sword of God" that appears in Jeremiah 46:10; Isaiah 34:5; Zephaniah 2:12. It is widely thought that such a sword is related to the weapons of lightning that Marduk and Baal use against the Chaos monster in Babylonian and Canaanite myth. A close parallel can be found in an Assyrian inscription of Tiglath-pileser I which describes the king as a "lightning of bronze" that takes the place of a lahmu or other guardian to the temple. Like the bow that Yahweh lodges into a cloud after the Flood, the sword is probably the same that he used to slay the Chaos monster Leviathan/Rahab at creation (cf. also the Tiamat of the Enuma Elish) and has placed at the entrance to his abode.
