mercyseat

Mercy seat is a term used in biblical literature to describe the gold-covered lid of the Ark of the Covenant. The English term is a translation of the Hebrew kapporet, and it is sometimes rendered as “atonement cover.” The lid is depicted as being adorned with two cherubim of gold facing each other with outstretched wings, forming the space above the Ark where God’s presence was believed to dwell.

In the tabernacle and later in the Jerusalem Temple, the mercy seat occupied the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. It functioned as the place of atonement for the community. On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the high priest would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices on the mercy seat to make atonement for the sins of Israel, and God was said to meet with Israel there, speaking from between the cherubim.

Historically, the mercy seat belonged to the Ark as the central sacred object in Israelite worship from the wilderness period through the First Temple era. After the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the First Temple, the Ark’s fate is unknown, and later Jewish worship did not reestablish the same sacrificial apparatus associated with the original mercy seat.

In modern biblical translations, the term is sometimes replaced with “atonement cover” to emphasize its function, while “mercy seat” remains common in traditional English readings (notably the King James Version). In Christian thought, the mercy seat has also acquired metaphorical significance as a symbol of God’s mercy and a symbolic throne of grace accessible through faith.