What Does Exodus 37:8 Mean?
One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the other end on that side. From the covering he made the cherubim on its two ends.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the other end on that side: out of the mercy seat made he the cherubims on the two ends thereof.THE KEY
The guardians are formed from the covering itself, so the shelter becomes watchful.
THE MEANING
The sacred center is held by a covering that also gives shape to its guardians; shelter and watchfulness belong to one design. What is protected and the means of its protection meet in one continuous form, with a guardian at each edge.
THE ROOT
כַּפֹּרֶת
kapporet
GROWS FROM
כפר
kaphar
To cover over.
The term for the covering, כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporet), comes from כפר (kaphar), “to cover.” Its word-family also includes כִּפֻּרִים (kippurim), “coverings,” linking the covering above the ark with the language of covering associated with atonement; here the guardians themselves are shaped from that covering.
ALSO GROWS
kippurim: Coverings; acts of covering, also rendered atonement.
כִּפֻּרִים
This branch links the crafted covering to the same root’s language for covering, showing how the form here belongs to a wider pattern of covering.
kofer: Ransom; a covering payment.
כֹּפֶר
This branch shows the root’s covering sense extending to a payment that covers a liability, while this verse gives the covering a visible, protective form.
THE PATTERN
The covering and the guardians that protect the sacred center are formed as one connected design.
Make one cherub at the one end, and the other cherub at the other end; from the covering itself you make the cherubim at its two ends.He takes some of the blood of the bullock and sprinkles it with his finger upon the covering eastward, and before the covering he sprinkles some of the blood with his finger seven times.Above it are the cherubim of weight, casting their shade over the covering, about which we cannot now speak piece by piece.THE THREAD
He takes some of the blood of the bullock and sprinkles it with his finger upon the covering eastward, and before the covering he sprinkles some of the blood with his finger seven times.The “mercy seat” translates כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporet), “covering,” from כפר (kaphar), “to cover.” Leviticus places the blood directly on that same covering, opening the crafted form here into a place where covering is enacted.
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