mercy seat (plural mercy seats)

1. (Judaism, Christianity) The lid of the Ark of the Covenant, on which God is said to have been enthroned; taken to represent the throne in heaven.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Exodus 25:17 ↗:

     And thou shalt make a Mercieseat of pure gold: two cubites and a halfe shalbe the length thereof, and a cubite and a halfe the breadth thereof.

   • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society (2007), page 206:

     The greatest mystery of Religion is expressed by adumbration, and in the noblest part of Jewish Types, we finde the Cherubims shadowing the Mercy-seat.