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HOAR FROST which covers the ground (Exod. 16: 14).
BASONS, that probably had lids (I Chron. 28: 17), and
LION from its habit of lurking in dens or coverts (Jer. 25: 38).
The feminine form kaphoreth is translated "mercy seat" in each of its 27 occurrences.
So far we have considered the usage of the noun. The verb kaphar is translated in the
A.V. as follows: To appease, pacify, put off, cleanse, disannul, pitch with their various
verbal modifications, such as "make reconciliation", which we have not chronicled.
These translations account for 29 occurrences. The remaining 72 are translated by the
word "atonement". The only passage, apart from Gen. 6: 14, that uses kaphar before
the law given in Exodus is Gen. 32: 20, "I will appease him with the present". We
are all, alas, too truly human to pretend that we do not understand Jacob's action and
motive. He had prayed for deliverance from the hand of Esau, for he knew he had
wronged him in days gone by. So he took for his brother Esau a present of goats, sheep,
camels, cows, and asses. When Esau asked Jacob, "What meanest thou by all these
droves that I met?" Jacob replied, "These are to find grace in the sight of my lord" (Gen.
xxxiii.8). When Esau would have refused the gift, Jacob urges him saying:--
"If I have FOUND GRACE in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand, for
therefore have I seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast
pleased with me" (verse 10).
Here is Jacob's own interpretation of what he meant when he said, "I will appease him
with the present". Any attempt to use the idea of "covering" (except perhaps as
Rotherham renders the passage, "I will cover his face with the present", and so shelter
myself from his anger) yields no congruous meaning. The at-one-ment or reconciliation
was the result; the present the basis or cause. This is an example of the idea of a
covering being applied to the person. We have atonement applied to sin as well as to the
sinner: "Deliver us, and purge away our sins" (Psa. 79: 9). Surely the Psalmist did
not merely mean "cover up our sins"? Rather, has he not expressed his meaning in verse
8: "O Remember not against us former iniquities"? In some cases the idea of "covering
by a full and equivalent compensation", in short "an eye for an eye", is to be found, as in
Numb. 35: 31-33:--
"Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer . . . . . the land cannot be
cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him who shed it."
What sense is there in saying: "The land cannot be covered of the blood" unless we
intend covering by compensation, and so canceling? This comes out prominently in
another case. Suppose a man is found in the country, slain. No one knows who the
murderer is. Yet blood has been shed. The elders of the city that is nearest to the spot
are obliged to offer an heifer, and to wash their hands over its dead body, affirming their
innocence, and praying that innocent blood be not laid to their charge. The passage
concludes: "And the blood shall be forgiven them" (Deut. 21: 1-9). The word in verse
8, "be merciful" is kaphar, and in verse 9 we read as an explanation: "so shalt thou put
away the guilt of innocent blood." Therefore "covered" sin is sin "put away", for God
says so. That this "putting away" was no mere "covering up" the false prophet knew