Kapporet comes from the same root as kapparah: kaf-peh-resh, the root of covering and atonement. But where kapparah is the act, kapporet is the place. It is the golden lid on top of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place. Exodus 25:17-22 describes it: pure gold, two cherubim facing each other at either end, their wings covering the seat. HaShem tells Moshe, "There I will meet with you, and from above the kapporet, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you." The kapporet is the meeting place.

On Yom Kippur the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year and sprinkled blood on the kapporet (Leviticus 16:14). The blood did not appease a judge. The blood covered the breach between a holy God and a broken people, and the relationship continued for another year. This is the image underneath Romans 3:25 when Sha'ul calls Yeshua a hilastērion. Not a wrath-absorber. The new kapporet. The new meeting place where blood covers the breach and HaShem speaks to His people from above it. The cross is a golden covering, not a courtroom bench.