According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, the ''kaporet'' ( ''kapōreṯ'') or mercy seat was the gold lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant, with two cherubim beaten out of the ends to cover and create the space into which

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately fr ...

was said to appear. This was connected with the rituals of the Day of Atonement. The term also appears in later Jewish sources, and twice in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

, from where it has significance in Christian theology.

Etymology

The etymology of ''kaporet'' () is unclear. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion'' states that "some translate simply 'cover'."

In Judaism

In the Hebrew Bible

According to the biblical account (; ), the cover was made from pure

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

and was the same width and breadth as the ark beneath it, 2.5 cubits long and 1.5 cubits wide. Two golden cherubim were placed at each end of the cover facing one another and the mercy seat, with their wings spread to enclose the mercy seat (). The cherubim formed a seat for Yahweh (). The ark and mercy seat were kept inside the

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies (Hebrew: ''Qōḏeš haqQŏḏāšīm'' or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also הַדְּבִיר ''haDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where God's pres ...

, the temple's innermost

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a s ...

which was separated from the other parts of the temple by a thick curtain ('' parochet''). The Holy of Holies could be entered only by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. The high priest sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat as an atonement for the sins of the people of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

In rabbinic tradition

After the destruction of the Second Temple, just as the Torah scroll was contained in a

Torah ark A Torah ark (also known as the ''Heikhal'', or the ''Aron Kodesh'') refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls. History The ark, also known as the ''ark of law'', or in Hebrew the ''Aron Kodesh'' or ''aron h ...

(''Aron HaKodesh'', "Holy ark") in synagogues so also the term ''kaporet'' was applied to the valance of the ''parochet'' (Hebrew: "curtain") on this ark.

Second Temple era sources

In the

Hellenistic Jewish Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism we ...

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

the term was rendered (ἱλαστήριον, "thing that atones"), following the secondary meaning of the Hebrew

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

verb "cover" ( ) in and as "to cover sins," "to atone" found also in . ''Hilastērion'' is relatively rare in classical Greek and appears largely in late writings to reference a sacrifice to appease the wrath of a deity. The term in the Septuagint was translated in the Latin Vulgate Bible with the word propitiatorium from which we get our English word propitiation.

In Christian tradition

In the New Testament

''Hilastērion'' is found twice in the New Testament: Romans 3:25 and

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and ...

9:5. In the passage in Romans the term is typically translated propitiation or sacrifice of atonement, whereas in the passage in Hebrews the term is typically translated mercy seat, the traditional term for the gold lid on the Ark of the Covenant. The difference in translation is explained by the different contexts. In Romans the context is the sacrificial death of Christ, whereas in the Hebrew passage the context is a description of the Holy of Holies and its contents. The Epistle to the Hebrews portrays the role of the mercy seat during Yom Kippur Day of Atonement as a prefiguration of the Passion of Christ, which was a greater atonement, and the formation of a

New Covenant The New Covenant (Hebrew '; Greek ''diatheke kaine'') is a biblical interpretation which was originally derived from a phrase which is contained in the Book of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 31:31-34), in the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament of the C ...

(Hebrews 9:3-15). The Yom Kippur ritual was a ''shadow of things to come'' (Hebrews 10:1). The continual sacrifice for sin under the Mosaic covenant became obsolete following the once-for-all sacrificial death of Christ.

In English Bibles

The first English Bible, translated from Latin 1382, renders the term a ' following the

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus&nbs ...

, and in the first occurrence, Exodus 25:17, also inserts an unbracketed gloss "that is a table hiling the ark" – ''hiling'' is

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

for "covering". The term ''propitiatory'' was also used by

J.M. Powis Smith John Merlin Powis Smith (28 December 1866 – November 1932) was an English-born, American orientalist and biblical scholar. Smith was born in London, son of William Martin and Anne Powis Smith. He was orphaned at age five and thereafter raised ...

, a Protestant, in ''The Complete Bible: An American Translation'', published in 1939. The originally Protestant translation "mercy seat" was not followed by Ronald Knox, but has since been largely adopted also by

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

Bible versions The Bible has been translation, translated into Bible translations by language, many languages from the biblical languages of Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, Aramaic, and Koine Greek, Greek. all of the Bible has been translated into ...

, such as the

New Jerusalem Bible ''The New Jerusalem Bible'' (NJB) is an English-language translation of the Bible published in 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd and Les Editions du Cerf, edited by Benedictine biblical scholar Henry Wansbrough, and approved for use in study and ...

(NJB) 1985.

Footnotes

References

External links

Matthew Henry on Exodus Chapter 25

{{Ten Commandments Tabernacle and Temples in Jerusalem New Testament theology Biblical phrases Hebrew Bible objects Book of Exodus Gold objects Ark of the Covenant