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 A cherub (; plural cherubim; he, כְּרוּב ''kərūḇ'', pl. ''kərūḇīm'', likely borrowed from a derived form of akk, 𒅗𒊏𒁍 ''karabu'' "to bless" such as ''karibu'', "one who blesses", a name for the lamassu) is one of the u ...

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 if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he poss ...

was said to appear. This was connected with the rituals of the

Day of Atonement Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day's o ...

. 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 Chri ...

, 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 me ...

and was the same width and breadth as the ark beneath it, 2.5

cubits The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term ''cubit'' is found in the Bible regarding No ...

long and 1.5 cubits wide. Two golden

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 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 sa ...

which was separated from the other parts of the temple by a thick curtain (''

parochet A ''parochet'' (Hebrew: פרוכת; Ashkenazi pronunciation: ''paroches'') meaning "curtain" or "screen",Sonne Isaiah (1962) 'Synagogue' in The Interpreter's dictionary of the Bible vol 4, New York: Abingdon Press pp 476-491 is the curtain that ...

''). The Holy of Holies could be entered only by the high priest on the

. The high priest sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat as an

atonement Atonement (also atoning, to atone) is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some other ...

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 The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...

, just as the

Torah scroll A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tor ...

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 ha- ...

(''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 were ...

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 ...

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 su ...

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 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 lette ...

3:25 and

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...

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

as a prefiguration of the

Passion of Christ In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ. Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...

, which was a greater

, 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 ...

(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 Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, 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 p ...

for "covering". The term ''propitiatory'' was also used by J.M. Powis Smith, a Protestant, in ''The Complete Bible: An American Translation'', published in 1939. The originally Protestant translation "mercy seat" was not followed by

Ronald Knox Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox wa ...

, 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 lette ...

Bible versions, such as the New Jerusalem Bible (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