The Ark and the Mercy Seat
10 “They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Its length shall be two and a half cubits, its width a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 You shall overlay it with pure gold. You shall overlay it inside and outside, and you shall make a gold molding around it. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four feet. Two rings shall be on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. 13 You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark. 15 The poles shall be in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it. 16 You shall put the covenant which I shall give you into the ark. 17 You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. 18 You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. 21 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I will give you. 22 There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the covenant, all that I command you for the children of Israel.
The law is placed in a box and covered with a lid where blood is applied, and God speaks from the space above it.
10 “They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Its length shall be two and a half cubits, its width a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 You shall overlay it with pure gold. You shall overlay it inside and outside, and you shall make a gold molding around it.
A wooden chest about four feet long, gold on both surfaces, with rings and carrying poles that shall not be taken from it Exodus 25:15. The poles stay in place permanently, which is a design decision about a people who are not settled: the most sacred object in Israel is built to be picked up and moved at an hour's notice, and nobody is to touch it directly.
You shall put the covenant which I shall give you into the ark.
The contents are the two tablets. That is the whole significance of the box — it is a container for the law, and the law inside it is the standard by which the nation camped around it will be measured. Left there, the arrangement is intolerable. A holy God whose broken law sits at the center of a guilty camp is a danger to everyone in it.
You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width.
The lid is the answer, and it is not an accessory. It is a separate object with its own specification and its own name, made of solid gold rather than overlaid wood, and its function is to cover the law. Once a year blood is brought inside the veil and applied to this lid Leviticus 16:15, directly above the commandments that condemn the people who brought it. That is the arrangement in miniature: judgment underneath, blood on top, and God speaking from above.
The word Paul uses when he says God displayed Christ as an atoning sacrifice Romans 3:25 is the word for this lid. The place where the law is covered by blood is where the argument of the New Testament locates the cross.
18 You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.
Two figures of the same order that guarded the way to the tree of life after Eden Genesis 3:24, now facing inward with their wings over the covering. Their attention is not on the room but on the blood, and they are made of one piece with the mercy seat — not standing beside it but part of it.
There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the covenant, all that I command you for the children of Israel.
The meeting place is specified to within a few inches, and it is the empty space above a blood-stained lid. Not the tablets underneath, and not the gold. Israel's God speaks from the one point in the sanctuary where his law and his mercy occupy the same square foot.
settled What this mark means