כַּפֹּרֶת
mercy seat
‘mercy seat’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 25 times (93%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 2 times (7%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 27 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3727 appears — 22 distinct verses across 4 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Exodus 16 verses
- Exodus 25:17 כַפֹּ֖רֶת n c fs cs 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 breadth.
- Exodus 25:18 הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.
- Exodus 25:19 הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs 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.
- Exodus 25:20 הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs 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.
- Exodus 25:21 הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you.
- Exodus 25:22 הַ/כַּפֹּ֗רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs 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 testimony, all that I command you for the children of Israel.
- Exodus 26:34 הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony in the most holy place.
- Exodus 30:6 הַ/כַּפֹּ֗רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs You shall put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.
- Exodus 31:7 הַ/כַּפֹּ֖רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the mercy seat that is on it, all the furniture of the Tent,
- Exodus 35:12 הַ/כַּפֹּ֑רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs the ark, and its poles, the mercy seat, the veil of the screen;
- Exodus 37:6 כַּפֹּ֖רֶת n c fs cs He made a mercy seat of pure gold. Its length was two and a half cubits, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
- Exodus 37:7 הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs He made two cherubim of gold. He made them of beaten work them, at the two ends of the mercy seat;
- Exodus 37:8 הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. He made the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends.
- Exodus 37:9 הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs The cherubim spread out their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat.
- Exodus 39:35 הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs the ark of the testimony with its poles, the mercy seat,
- Exodus 40:20 הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs He took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the poles on the ark, and put the mercy seat above on the ark.
Leviticus 4 verses
- Leviticus 16:2 הַ/כַּפֹּ֜רֶת הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs and Yahweh said to Moses, "Tell Aaron your brother, not to come at all times into the Most Holy Place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark; lest he die: for I will appear in the cloud on the mercy seat.
- Leviticus 16:13 הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs and he shall put the incense on the fire before Yahweh, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the testimony, so that he will not die.
- Leviticus 16:14 הַ/כַּפֹּ֖רֶת הַ/כַּפֹּ֗רֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs He shall take some of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
- Leviticus 16:15 הַ/כַּפֹּ֖רֶת הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fs "Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with his blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
Numbers 1 verse
1 Chronicles 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“mercy seat” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun כפרת (kappôreth). It clusters heavily in Exodus, which alone accounts for 73% of its uses. It turns up in 22 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. Lexicons map it across 2 senses. Older and newer Bibles part ways — “mercy seat” in the King James Version, “atonement lid” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. See the sense tree, 22-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3727 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 22
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 22 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,226
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,226 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 22 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 22 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 21 verses · 95%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 5%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Mercy seat 18×
- American Standard Version: Mercy-seat 18×, One piece with the mercy-seat 2×, Thereof 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Mercy seat 24×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Atonement lid 24×, Atonement lid of 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3727 across 27 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3727 across 27 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3727 across 25 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3727 across 27 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- mercy-seat, place of atonement
- the golden plate of propitiation on which the High Priest sprinkled the seat 7 times on the Day of Atonement…
Word origin
n. propitiatory, late techn. word from כּפר cover over sin: the older explan. cover, lid has no justification in usage; 𝔊 ἱλαστήριον; only P: Ex 25:17, 18, 19, 20(×2), 21, 22; 26:34; 30:6; 31:7; 35:12; 37:6, 7, 8, 9(×2); 39:35; 40:20 Lv 16:2(×2), 13, 14(×2), 15(×2) Nu 7:89, and 1 Ch 28:11; it was a slab of gold 2 ½ cubits × 1 ½ c. placed on top of the ark of the testimony. On it, and a part of it, were two golden cherubim facing each other, whose outstretched wings came together above and constituted the throne of Yahweh. When the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement it was necessary that this highest place of atonement should be enveloped in a cloud of incense. The blood of the sin-offering of the atonement was then sprinkled on the face of and seven times before it. The temple proper, as distinguished from porch etc., was called בֵּית הַכּ׳ 1 Ch 28:11.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כפר (kâphar) (H3722) — to atone.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
כַּפּוֹרֶת
- v. preced.) [cover; in symbolical language place of atonement,]
- 1. cover of the Holy Ark. Sifra Vayikra, N’dabah, Par. 1, ch. II. Men. 27ᵇ אל פני הכ׳ up to the very front of the kapporeth, contrad. to מבית לפ׳ the room occupied by the k., Holy of Holies. Ib. מקדש שני דלא הוו ארון וכ׳ during the Second Temple when ark and cover no longer existed. Yoma 55ᵃ; a. e.
- 2. (= בית הכ׳) the innermost of the Temple, the Holy of Holies (מקדש הקדש). Shek. VI, 5; Tosef. ib. III, 1 זהב לַכַּ׳ (inscription on one of the offering boxes) ‘Gold for the k.,’ expl. ib. 6 עושין … ציפוי לבית קה"ק of these offerings were made gold foils for the inside of the Holy of Holies. Tosef. Tem. IV, 8 אין … אפי׳ לאחורי בית הכ׳ we dare not use it for gold foils even for the back wall of &c.; [Ar.: כְּפוֹרֶת plating for the Temple roof; comment. כְּפֹ׳ (collect. noun) vessels, v. כְּפוֹר II.]
כַּפֹּרֶת
- , v. sub כַּפּוֹר׳.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 10 distinct written forms H3727 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/כַּפֹּֽרֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:18 | 6 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֔רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:20 | 5 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֛רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:19 | 5 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֖רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 31:7 | 3 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֗רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:22 | 3 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֑רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 35:12 | 1 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֜רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Leviticus 16:2 | 1 |
| הַ/כַּפֹּ֨רֶת֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 7:89 | 1 |
| כַפֹּ֖רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 25:17 | 1 |
| כַּפֹּ֖רֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 37:6 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3727, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- כפור kᵉphôwr H3713 bowl
- כפיר kᵉphîyr H3715 young lion
- כפר kâphâr H3723 village
- כפר kôpher H3724 ransom
- כפר kippur H3725 atonement
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 21 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 22 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
