Exodus Chapter 25 verse 17 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 17. - Thou shalt make a mercy seat. Modern exegesis has endeavoured to empty the word kapporeth of its true meaning, witnessed to by the Septuagint, as well as by the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:5). It tells us that a kapporeth is simply a cover, "being derived from kaphar, to cover," - used in Genesis 5:14, with respect to covering the ark with pitch. But the truth is that kapporeth is not derived from kaphar, but from kipper, the Piel form of the same verb, which has never any other sense than that of covering, or forgiving sins. In this sense it is used in the Old Testament some seventy times. Whether the mercy seat was the real cover of the ark of the covenant, or whether that had its own lid of acacia wood, as Kalisch supposes, is uncertain. At any rate, it was not called kipporeth because it was a cover, but because it was a seat of propitiation. On the importance of the mercy seat, as in some sort transcending the ark itself, see Leviticus 16:2, and 1 Chronicles 28:11. Atonement was made by sprinkling the blood of expiation upon it (Leviticus 16:14, 15). Of pure gold, Not of wood, plated with metal, or richly gilt, but of solid gold - an oblong slab, three feet nine inches long, two feet three inches wide, and probably not less than an inch thick. The weight of such a slab would be above 750 lbs. troy, and its value above 25,000l. of our money. The length and breadth were exactly those of the ark itself, which the mercy seat thus exactly covered (ver. 10).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersTHE MERCY SEAT.(17) A mercy seat.--Those critics to whom the idea of expiation is unsatisfactory, as Knobel and Gesenius, render kapporeth, the word here used, by "lid" or "cover." Kaphar, it may be Admitted, has the physical meaning of "to cover" (Genesis 6:14); but kipper, the Piel form of the same verb, has never any other meaning than that of "covering," or "expiating sins." And kapporeth is not formed from kaphar, but from kipper. Hence the ?????????? of the LXX., the propitiatorium of the Vulg., and the "mercy seat" of the Authorised Version are correct translations. (Comp. 1Chronicles 28:11, where the Holy of Holies is called beyth-hak-kapporeth, which is certainly not" the house of the cover,' but "the house of expiation.")Of pure gold.--Not of shittim wood, overlaid with a plating of gold, but a solid mass of the pure metal. It has been calculated that the weight would be 750 lbs. Troy, and the value above 25,000 of our money. It was intended to show by this lavish outlay, that the "mercy seat" was that object in which the accessories of worship culminated, the crowning glory of the material tabernacle.