“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
17 And thou shalt make a mercy-seat. The primary root of the verb כפר, caphar, from whence this noun is derived, כפרת C. has not derived his explanation of the verb כפר from his usual guide in Hebrew, viz., S.M.; but his remark, that it signifies to smear over with bitumen, or pitch, agrees with its generally acknowledged meaning in Genesis 6:14.
The ark is the chest where God's law, written by His finger, was to rest in the holiest place. Mark how careful preservation of those tables teaches us to treasure God's word, hiding it deep in our hearts as the ark was hidden in the Holy of Holies. Divine Providence guards His revelation in the church as faithfully as ever.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 25:10-22
And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end,.... The situation of the cherubim is particularly explained, lest, as Jarchi observes, it should be thought that there were two at both ends of the mercy seat; whereas there were only one at one end, and another at the other, opposite to each other, and both pointing to the...