Mercy Seat

Biblical Text

The mercy seat is a slab of pure gold placed like a lid on top of the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 25:17-22, God commands Moses to make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide. At its two ends are to be two cherubim of hammered gold (winged heavenly beings; see seraphim and cherubim), whose wings are to cover the mercy seat. God promises, "there I will meet with thee," and says that He will speak from between the two cherubim (Exodus 25:22). The account of its construction appears in Exodus 37:6-9. In Numbers 7:89, Moses hears the voice speaking from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim.

According to the regulations for the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, the high priest (Aaron) entered the Most Holy Place once a year. He sprinkled the blood of a bullock and a goat upon and before the mercy seat to make atonement for himself and for the people (Leviticus 16:14-15).

Terminology and Background

The Hebrew word kapporet derives from the same root as the verb kipper, usually translated "to make atonement." Some explanations connect it with the sense "to cover," but scholars disagree about its etymology. The Septuagint rendered the term hilastērion, and the Latin Vulgate rendered it propitiatorium. The English term "mercy seat" is generally said to have been coined by William Tyndale, following Luther's German translation. The New Korean Revised Version translates it sokjeoso ("place of atonement"), and the New Korean Standard Version translates it sokjeopan ("atonement plate").

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

The Old Testament describes God as the One who "dwelleth between the cherubims" (1 Samuel 4:4; Psalm 99:1). For this reason the mercy seat came to be understood as the place where God's presence and atonement meet. The mercy seat is also mentioned in the temple plans that David handed to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:11). After the Babylonian exile, Scripture does not record what became of the Ark and the mercy seat.

In the New Testament, Hebrews 9:5 refers to the mercy seat directly. In Romans 3:25, Paul writes that God set forth Jesus as a hilastērion; the New Korean Revised Version renders this hwamok jemul ("sacrifice of reconciliation"). Words from the same root appear in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10. In the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the tax collector's prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13), also uses a verb from the same root.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• The meaning of Romans 3:25: One interpretation takes the word as referring to the mercy seat itself and reads Christ as the "new mercy seat." Another reads it in the broader sense of an "atoning sacrifice."
• Propitiation or expiation: This question was debated in twentieth-century English-language scholarship. One side holds that the term means "propitiation," the turning away of God's wrath; the other holds that it means "expiation," the cleansing of sin. The Reformed and evangelical traditions generally tend to emphasize the former understanding.
• The text and later embellishments: Interpretations that match each detail to Christ, such as gold representing divinity and the cherubim representing angels, belong to the church's interpretive tradition and are not stated directly in the text. The story that Jeremiah hid the Ark appears in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees (chapter 2) and is not found in the Protestant canon.

In the Korean Church

The mercy seat is frequently treated in expositions of the tabernacle, in tabernacle seminars, and in sermons on Leviticus and Hebrews. It is commonly used as an illustration to explain the atonement accomplished on the cross, and it is sometimes preached in connection with "the throne of grace" (Hebrews 4:16).