TR: kapporeth → hilastērion (Mercy Seat / Propitiation)¶

The Chain¶

Hebrew OT               LXX (Greek OT)              Greek NT
──────────────          ────────────────────         ────────────────────────
כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporeth) → ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion) → ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion)
H3727, 22 verses          16x as primary rendering     2x in NT
"mercy seat / cover"      "propitiatory (place)"       "propitiation" / "mercy seat"

OT Usage (Hebrew)¶

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	Primary Meaning
H3727	כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporeth)	22 verses	Golden lid of the Ark; site of atonement blood rite

The mercy seat was a solid gold slab placed atop the Ark of the Covenant. On Yom Kippur, the high priest entered the Most Holy Place and sprinkled blood from the sin offerings directly on and before the kapporeth (Lev 16:14–15). God declared: "I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat" (Lev 16:2) and "I will meet with thee... from above the mercy seat" (Exo 25:22). The object was simultaneously God's earthly throne, the place of his speaking, and the site where the nation's sins were covered annually.

Key OT passages: - Exo 25:22 — "And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony" - Lev 16:14–15 — blood of the bull and the goat sprinkled on and before the mercy seat

LXX Bridge¶

Hebrew	Greek Translation	LXX Count	Notes
kapporeth (H3727)	ἱλαστήριον (G2435)	16x	Primary LXX rendering (73% of occurrences)

The LXX translators chose ἱλαστήριον — the neuter adjective from ἱλάσκομαι ("to propitiate, expiate") — rather than simply transliterating or using a word for "lid/cover." This interpretive choice foregrounded the object's expiatory function over its physical description. The result: by the NT era, any Greek-reading Jew hearing ἱλαστήριον would immediately think of the mercy seat and its blood-atonement ritual.

Semantic shift: Hebrew kapporeth is concrete and architectural; Greek hilastērion is functional and expiatory. The LXX translation does not lose the physical referent (Heb 9:5 explicitly calls it the "mercy seat"), but adds theological weight that the NT writers exploit in Romans 3:25.

NT Usage (Greek)¶

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	NT Translation
G2435	ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion)	2	"propitiation" (Rom 3:25), "mercyseat" (Heb 9:5)

Key NT passages: - Rom 3:25 — "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (ἱλαστήριον) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God" - Heb 9:5 — "And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat (ἱλαστήριον); of which we cannot now speak particularly"

The two NT uses represent two distinct applications: Hebrews 9:5 refers to the physical OT object in its description of the Tabernacle; Romans 3:25 applies the term directly to Christ. Paul's use in Romans (without the article) presents Christ himself as the ἱλαστήριον — not merely as someone who makes propitiation, but as the place/means where God's wrath is covered and his righteousness displayed through blood.

Direct OT→NT Quotation¶

No direct verbal quotation. The connection is typological: Paul and the author of Hebrews both assume their readers understand ἱλαστήριον as the mercy seat of Leviticus 16. The conceptual argument is: what happened annually at the kapporeth with animal blood (Lev 16) happened finally and publicly at the cross through Christ's blood (Rom 3:25).

Continuity and Shifts¶

What stays the same: - The blood-atonement framework: the mercy seat in both testaments is associated with blood, the covering of sin, and the satisfaction of divine righteousness - The locus character: in OT it is the place where God meets the sinner through the priest's mediation; in NT Christ is that locus himself - The cherubim connection: both Heb 9:5 (explicitly) and the broader context of Rom 3 (the revelation of God's glory/righteousness) maintain the throne-room imagery

What shifts: - From annual to once-for-all: the Yom Kippur rite was repeated; Christ's atonement is not - From architectural to personal: the object becomes a person - From hidden to public: the kapporeth was in the Most Holy Place, inaccessible to all but the high priest; Paul says God "set forth" Christ as the ἱλαστήριον publicly (προέθετο — displayed openly) - Translation divergence: KJV renders G2435 as "propitiation" in Rom 3:25 and "mercy seat" in Heb 9:5, obscuring for English readers that it is the same word in both verses

Generated from: gather_word_data.py (H3727, G2435), search_strongs.py (--lxx-map, --hebrew-source) Last updated: 2026-04-01