What Does Exodus 25:19 Mean in the King James?
And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The cherubim at either end are made from the covering itself, so the frame and the surface belong to one whole.
THE MEANING
The meeting place takes shape with one cherub at each end, both made from the covering itself. The center between them is framed by the very surface that bears them, so what looks like a boundary also becomes a place of encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a covering only hides: here, the covering bears the figures that frame a meeting.
THE ROOT
כַּפֹּרֶת
kappōret
GROWS FROM
כפר
k-p-r
cover, cover over
“mercy seat” in this verse is kappōret. Kappōret comes from כפר, a root whose concrete sense is covering. The same root names the coating of Noah’s ark and appears in כִּפֻּרִים, the coverings behind the phrase “day of atonement”; here, the covering itself bears cherubim at its two ends.
ALSO GROWS
kāphar: cover over; in Genesis 6:14, cover the ark with pitch
כָּפַר
This verb makes the covering sense concrete: the same root behind the mercy seat also describes a surface being covered.
kippurim: coverings; the word used in the phrase traditionally rendered “day of atonement”
כִּפֻּרִים
This branch keeps the covering connection visible, echoing the kappōret as a covering that bears the figures at its ends.
THE PATTERN
The space between the cherubim is where divine presence meets and speaks.
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, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim-eduth, A Psalm of Asaph. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we can not now speak particularly.THE THREAD
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, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.The same kappōret, the covering, named here is where the meeting and speech occur in the next verse. The cherubim made from its ends frame the place from which the voice comes.
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