Mercy Seat - in The Hebrew Bible

In The Hebrew Bible

According to the Biblical account (Exodus 25:19; 37:6), the mercy seat was manufactured from pure gold, and was the same width and breadth as the Ark beneath it – 2.5 cubits long, and 1.5 cubits wide; the Ark and mercy seat were, according to this passage, kept inside the Holy of Holies – the Temple's innermost sanctuary, the Sanctum Sanctorum, which was separated from the remainder of the temple by a thick curtain (parochet), because the ark and mercy seat were associated with the presence of Yahweh. The account also states that two golden statues of cherubim were placed at each end of the mercy seat, facing one another and the mercy seat, with their wings spread in order to enclose the mercy seat; according to the Books of Samuel, these cherubim together formed a seat for Yahweh. Although a literal interpretation of the Book of Exodus would conclude that the mercy seat, along with the remainder of the Ark, was constructed according to the commands of Yahweh at the time of Moses, textual scholars regard the passages referring to its construction as originating from the priestly source, which they date to the 7th Century BCE.

According to the Biblical directions, the Holy of Holies could only be entered at Yom Kippur, and even then could only be entered by the Jewish High Priest, who was covenanted to do so in order to sprinkle the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat, as an atonement for himself and his family, the other priests, the Tabernacle, and the people of Israel; the directions specify that incense was first burnt in the Holy of Holies so that a cloud rose up and appeared above the mercy seat. Biblical scholars regard this ritual as an evolution from the simpler sin offering for the first day of the seventh month, given in the book of Ezekiel; though the masoretic text renders this as the seventh day of the month, the Septuagint has ... first day of the seventh month, and scholars think that the sin offering on this day exchanged days with Rosh Hashanah, which in Ezekiel's day appears to have been celebrated on the tenth of the month.