What Does Exodus 39:35 Mean?
The ark of the witness, and its poles, and the covering.
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
The ark of the testimony, and the staves thereof, and the mercy seat,THE KEY
The “mercy seat” is named as a covering: the place above the testimony is part of the same carried structure as the testimony itself.
THE MEANING
The verse presents the testimony, its carrying poles, and its covering together. What bears witness is held within a structure that can be carried, and the covering belongs to that structure. The mercy seat marks the surface above what bears witness.
THE ROOT
כַּפֹּרֶת
kappōret
GROWS FROM
כפר
Cover; cover over.
The Hebrew kappōret (כַּפֹּרֶת, kappōret), rendered “mercy seat,” names the covering over the ark. The testimony, its carrying poles, and its covering appear together, so what bears witness is shown within a carried structure and beneath a cover.
ALSO GROWS
kaphar: To cover; cover over.
כָּפַר
This verbal form makes the covering sense audible within kappōret, the cover above the testimony.
kippur: Covering; atonement.
כִּפּוּר
This related form carries the same covering language, connecting the ark’s cover with the broader root-family of covering.
THE PATTERN
The covering over the testimony is the marked place of meeting and approach.
And there I meet with you, and I speak with you from above the covering, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the witness, all that I command you to the children of Israel.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
And you set the covering atop the ark; and into the ark you place the witness which I give you.This verse spells out the arrangement compressed into the inventory: the testimony is placed inside the ark, and the mercy seat above it. The ark, poles, and covering form one carried structure around what bears witness.
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