4. The son of Azriel, and one of the persons charged with the apprehension of Jeremiali and Baruch (Jer. xxxvi, 26). B.C. 606.
5. The son of Neriah and brother of Baruch (Jer. li, 59, 61). He held a high office in the court of king Zedekiah. the nature of which is somewhat uncertain. In the A. V. we have, " This Seraiah was a quit^t prince" nni;'2 TCJ, which, according to Kimchi, means a charrb- berlain, or one who attended the king when he retired to rest (i. e. prince of rest) ; but better, perhaps, accord- ing to Gesenius, " chief of the quarters" for the king and his army, that \s,quai'termastei-(jeneral, after the mean- ing of memichdh as a halting-place of an army (Numb. X, 33). The suggestion of Maurer, adopted by Hitzig, has more to commend it, that he was an officer who took charge of the royal caravan on its march, and fixed the place where it should halt. Hiller (Onomast.') says Se- raiah was prince of Menuchah, a place on the borders of Judah and Dan, elsewhere called Manahath. This Seraiah was sent by Zedekiah on an embassy to Baby- lon, probably to render his submission to that monarch, about four years before the fall of Jerusalem. B.C. 594. He was charged by Jeremiah to communicate to the Jews already in exile a book in which the prophet had written out his prediction of all the evil that should come upon Babylon (Jer. li, 60-6-1). It is not stated how Seraiah acquitted himself of his task ; but that he accepted it at all shows such respect for the projihet as may allow us to conclude that he would not neglect the duty which it imposed.
6. The high-priest at the time that Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldseans. B.C. 588. He was sent pris- oner to Nebuchadnezzar at Eiblah, who put him to death (2 Kings xxv, 18; 1 Chron. vi, 14; Jer. lii, 24; Ezra vii, 1).
7. The son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and one of those to whom Gedaliah promised securitv (2 Kings xxv, 23 ; Jer. xl, 8). B.C. 587.
8. A priest, the son of Hilkiah, who returned from exile (Ezra ii, 2, Neh. x, 2; xi, 11 ; xii, 1, 12). He is called Azariah (q. v.) in Neh. vii, 7. B.C. 536.
Seraphic Doctor. See Bonaven tura.
Seraphic Hymn, the Ter-sa?ictiis, or " Holy, holy, holy," wliich concludes the preface in the communion service. Its basis is found in Isa. vi, 3. The hymn it- self occurs in every ancient liturgy. It must not be confouniled with the Trisayion (q. v.).
Ser'aphim (Heb. Seraphim' ,W''S'yO ; Sept. Sspa- (pifi, or Seraphs; the plural of the word >r|"l'J, saruph). celestial beings described in Isa. vi, 2-6 as an order of angels or ministers of (iod, who stand around his throne, having each six wings, and also hands and feet, and praising (iod with their voices. They were therefore of liuman form, and, like the ('berubim, furnished with wings as the swift messengers of (Jod. Some have in- dee<l identified the Cherulnm and Seraphim as the same beings, but under names descriptive of different quali- ties: Seraphim denoting the burning and dazzling ap- pearance of the beings elsewhere described as Cherubim. It would be difficult either to prove or disprove this; but there are differences between tlie (Iherubim of Eze- kiel and the Seraphim of Isaiali wiiich it does not ap- pear easy to reconcile. The " living creatures" of the former prophet had four wings ; the " Seraphim" of tiie latter, six; and while the Cherubim had four faces, the Seraphim had but one (comp. Isa. vi, 2, 3; Ezek. i, 5-12). If the ligures were in all cases purely sym-
bolical, the difference does not signify (see Hendewcrlf, iJe Seraph, et Cherub, nan Biversis [Reg. 1836]). See CuEKUBiM. There is much symbolical force and pro- priety in the attitude in which the Seraphim are de- scribed as standing, while two of their wings were kept ready for instant tiight in tlie service of God; with two others they hid their face to express their unworthiness to look iqion the Divine IMajesty (see Exod. iii, 6; 1 Kings xix, 13 ; comp. Plutarch, (Incest. Rom. vol. x), and with two others they covered their feet, or the whole of the lower part of their bodies — a practice which still prevails in the I^ast when persons appear in a monarch's presence (see Lowth, ad loc). Their occupation was twofold — to celebrate the praises of Jehovah's holiness and power (Isa. vi, 3), and to act as the medium of com- munication between heaven and earth (ver. 6). From their antiphonal cliant ("one cried unto another") we may conceive them to have been ranged in opposite rows on each side of the tlirone. As the Seraphim are nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, our conceptions of their appearance must be restricted to the above par- ticidars, aided by such uncertain light as etymology and analogy will supply. We may observe that the idea of a winged human figure was not peculiar to the He- brews : among the sculptures found at IMourghaub, in Persia, we meet with a representation of a man with two pairs of wings springing from the shoulders and extending, the one pair upwards, the other downwards, so as to admit of covering the head and the feet (Vaux, jYiw. and Persej). p. 322). The wings in this instance imply deification ; for speed and ease of motion stand, in man's imagination, among the most prominent tokens of divinit}% The meaning of the word " seraph" is ex- tremely doubtful; the only word which resembles it in the current Hebrew is sarciph, '^■^^•2J, "to burn," whence the idea of brilliancy has been extracted. Such a sense would harmonize with other descriptions of celestial be- ings (e. g. Ezek. i, 13 ; Matt, xxviii, 3) ; but it is object- ed that the Hebrew term never bears this secondary sense. Gesenius {Thesaur. p. 1341) connects it with an Arabic term signifying hif/h or exalted, and this may be regarded as the generally received etymology; but the absence of any cognate Hebrew term is certainly worthy of remark. It may be seen in the article Ser- pent that a species of serpent was called suraph, and this has led some to conceive that the Seraphim were a kind of basilisk-headed Cherubim (Bauer, Thenlnq. A . T. p. 189); or else that they were animal forms with serpent's heads, such as we find figured in the ancieiit temples of Thebes (Gesen. Comment, in Jes.). Hitzig and others identify the Seraphim with the Egyptian Serapis ; for although it is true that the worship of Sera- pis was not introduced into Egypt till the time of the Ptolemies (Wilkinson, Anc. Ecpjpt. iv, 360 s. q.), it is known that this was but a modification of the more an- cient worship of Kneph, who was figured under the form of a serpent of the same kind, the head of which afterwards formed the crest of Serapis. But we can hardly conceive that the Hebrews would have borrowed their imagery from such a source. Knobel's conjecture tliat Seraphim is merely a fiilse reading for sharathim (D^ri'd), " ministers," is ingenious, but the latter word is not Hebrew. — Kitto; Smith. See the Stud. u. Krit. 1844, ii,454. See Angel; Cherub; Living Creature; Teraphim.