mercy seat
1
9.9
- noun
- Literature
:
propiciatorio
- The cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat.
Examples
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You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide.
Blog text (34) -
You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark, you shall put the testimony which I will give to you.
Blog text (34) -
It's the mercy seat.
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You shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat.
Blog text (34) -
Make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends.
Blog text (34) -
There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.
Blog text (34) -
The cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat.
Blog text (34) -
It's a sad waste of energy to defend oneself in the shadow of the mercy seat—forgiveness being part of the unfathomable mystery of God.
Blog text (24) -
The priest placed the incense on the mercy seat as a sign of worship in the temple.
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According to scripture, God's presence appeared above the mercy seat between the two cherubim.
Surface Forms
Morphology
mercy + seat
Although 'mercy' (compassion or leniency) and 'seat' (a place to sit) could suggest a literal 'seat associated with mercy', the term refers to a specific, culturally and theologically grounded object (the golden lid of the Ark/the symbolic throne of God). This specialized biblical referent is not predictable from the constituents alone, so a B1 learner who knows the words would unlikely infer the precise meaning.
Etymology
Mercy seat comes from the Bible: it was the gold lid of a special box called the Ark, and people saw it as a kind of seat where God's mercy, or forgiveness, seemed to appear. That's why the phrase points to the place of 'God's forgiveness' or God's presence.