17 And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof.

18 And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.

19 And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.

20 And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.

21 And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.

We heard already of the body, the poles, and the interior of the ark, today we hear about the lid that will go on top of it all. It is to feature two golden statues of cherubs, with wings extended over the whole thing. Traditionally their wingtips are often depicted as having touched, though that requirement is not specifically called for in these verses.

I spent some time trying to research why the lid is being called “the mercy seat,” as it doesn’t seem to be describing a traditional sort of seat at all. From my study I found the following possible explanations (perhaps there are more):

1. The ark as a whole was meant to be seen as the throne of God. Who knows, perhaps the angle of the cherubim’s wings even formed a seat and a back. Thus, approaching the ark was approaching God’s throne, and it would occur within the tabernacle, whose primary function was to facilitate the forgiveness and realignment of God’s people. Thus this was a throne, and one of mercy, not of punishment.
2. It does not mean “seat” as something that you sit upon, but as the core or origin of something, like how we say that the government is “the seat of power” in the land. The ark of the covenant was the origin of mercy for God’s people, therefore the “seat of mercy,” or “mercy seat.”
3. The name “mercy seat” is merely an artistic choice by the translators of the King James Bible, and not necessarily the most fitting for our modern vernacular.
   The original word here, כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporeth), really means “propitiation,” or “atonement,” which is the act of accounting for the sins of the people so that they can be restored to their God. The word has at its root כָּפַר (kaphar) and כֹּפֶר (kopher), which mean “to cover over, pacify,” and “the ransom for a life” respectively. Thus, there is a notion of atoning, covering, and ransoming. Many other translations utilize those words, calling it something like an “atonement cover” (NIV) instead of a “mercy seat.”

I can’t help but note the special pun that exists in the English translation. The top of the ark is functionally a lid, which can also be called a cover, but it is described symbolically as an atonement/ransom, which is to cover the sins of the people. Perhaps this isn’t a pun, but baked into the etymology of the word. I do not know enough to identify whether there is any common root in Hebrew that would apply to both a “lid” and an “atonement,” such as we have in the English word “cover,” but perhaps there is a connection which bled its way into our modern English. Perhaps it is deliberate that the top of the box is both a lid and a sign of atonement, because in both senses it covers.