And he made the mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and one cubit and a half the breadth thereof.
Parallel translations
- WEB He made a mercy seat of pure gold. Its length was two and a half cubits, and a cubit and a half its width.
- BSB He constructed a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.
- NKJV He also made the mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits was its length and a cubit and a half its width.
- NASB He also made an atoning cover of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide.
- NLT Then he made the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It was 45 inches long and 27 inches wide.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A mercy seat of pure gold was made as the cover of the ark. It was the place where atonement was made and God met His people.
Overview
The 'mercy seat' (atonement cover) was sprinkled with blood on the Day of Atonement and was the very place of God's presence between the cherubim. The New Testament calls Christ our 'propitiation' (the same idea, Romans 3:25), making Him the true mercy seat where God's justice and mercy meet. The dimensions follow Exodus 25:17.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Heb 9:5And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.
- Lev 16:12–15And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:
- 1 Chr 28:11Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat,
- Gal 4:4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
- Titus 2:14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
- Rom 3:25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
- Exod 25:17–22And 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.
- 1 Jn 2:2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 37:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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