Ezekiel 9:3-6 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house… The mark in this case was, as the Hebrew verb indicates, to be the letter Tau, the oldest form of which, as in Phoenician and earlier Hebrew alphabets, was that of a cross. Such a mark had been in use from the time of the Book of Job, as the equivalent of a signature (Job 21:36); or, as in later Arab use, was branded on sheep and cattle as a sign of ownership. To assume that there was any reference in it to the significance which was to attach to the sign of the cross in Christian symbolism would be, perhaps, too bold a hypothesis; but the fact that such a symbol appeared in the crux ansata (the cross with a handle to it) of Egyptian monuments, as the sign of life, may possibly have determined its selection in this instance, when it was used to indicate those who, as the people of Jehovah, bearing His stamp upon them, were to escape the doom of death passed upon the guilty. (Dean Plumptre.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; |
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