Cherub

Cherub appears as the name of a place of origin in the post-exilic returnee lists, paired in both witnesses with Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Addan/Addon, and Immer. The two passages stand together as a parallel pair — the same set of names with very minor spelling differences between them. (For the winged sanctuary-figures and Ezekiel's chariot creatures, see Cherubim.)

A returnee point of origin

Ezra's catalog of those who came up with the first wave from Babylon includes a clause for returnees whose lineage could not be established: "And these were those who went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, [and] Immer; but they could not show their fathers' houses, and their seed, whether they were of Israel" (Ezra 2:59). Cherub is named as one of the towns from which these undocumented returnees emerged, set among other Babylonian-era place names whose ethnic continuity with Israel they could not prove.

The same list in Nehemiah

Nehemiah's parallel register repeats the catalog with only minor name variation: "And these were those who went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer; but they could not show their fathers' houses, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel" (Nehemiah 7:61). Cherub holds the same position in the parallel, fixed alongside the same companion sites; the place is otherwise unidentified in scripture.