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Journal for the Study of

the New Testament
Between the Cherubim: The © The Author(s) 2021
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Revelation in Romans 3.25 DOI: 10.1177/0142064X211049101
https://doi.org/
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Nathan Porter
Duke University Department of Religion, USA

Abstract
Although the long-standing debate about the meaning of hilastērion in Rom. 3.25 has
led to no consensus, readings are nearly always either (1) metaphorical (hilastērion as
place of atonement/expiation) or (2) metonymic (hilastērion as a means of atonement/
expiation). However, in many Second Temple Jewish texts, the word refers to a place of
divine revelation. Proposing a fresh semantic topology of usages of hilastērion, this article
argues that there is no unambiguous metonymic usage of the word, and that references
to atonement in Lev. 16 are secondary to the revelatory function of the ‘mercy seat’.
Attending to overlooked intertextual complexities, it suggests that the hilastērion was
the site where God promised to reveal the definitive interpretation of his law. The
revelatory function of the hilastērion possesses prima facie plausibility as a reading of
Rom. 3.21-26, which is driven by the theme of God’s self-revelation in Jesus.

Keywords
Atonement, Romans, hilastērion, mercy seat

Introduction
Although the labors of nearly a century and a half of scholarship have been
expended on the meaning of ἱλαστήριον in Rom. 3.25,1 this article argues that

1. Important early studies include Deissmann 1895; Cremer 1866; and Ritschl 1882. For a his-
tory of the debate, see Hultgren 1985: 47-71, and more recently, Hultgren 2011: 661-65. For
a survey of older scholarship, including the use of the word from the Fathers to the modern
period, see Mollaun 1923: 8-44.

Corresponding author:
Nathan Porter, Duke University Department of Religion, 118 Gray Building Campus Box 90964, Durham,
NC 27708, USA.
Email: nathan.porter@duke.edu
2 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

a very important usage of the word has been overlooked. Rather than primarily
signifying a place or (metonymically) a means of propitiation/expiation, as is
widely supposed,2 it very often refers to a place of divine revelation. Although a
few commentators have noted this possibility, it has by and large been ignored,
especially in the context of Romans.3 This is surprising, given that God’s self-
revelation in Christ is central to Rom. 3.21-26, as is widely recognized. To make
the case for this interpretation, I evaluate the word’s usage in Second Temple
Jewish sources, particularly Philo, Josephus and the LXX (including the much-
disputed 4 Maccabees). I show that the lexical range of the word in these texts
and in the pagan evidence is limited to four possibilities:

1. the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, understood as a site of divine revelation
(Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, a mostly unnoticed allusion in Hab. 3, and
Philo);
2. the same lid, understood as a place of atonement (Lev. 16 and 4 Macc.
17);
3. a place of sacrifice in general, without reference to the Ark (Amos and
Ezekiel);
4. pagan votive offerings (Josephus and non-Jewish evidence).

The ἱλαστήριον is primarily used to refer to a place of revelation. Moreover, with

the exception of (4), which few scholars accord any decisive significance in the

2. A strict reading of ἱλαστήριον as a place of atonement is rare today, but see recently, e.g.,
Hultgren 2011: 157-58; Wright 2016: 263-353 (discussed below); Hultgren 2019; etc.
Reading it metonymically as a means of propitiation, see, e.g., Finlan 2004: 123-62; Moo
1996: 236; Campbell 1992; etc. The locus classicus for the interpretation of the word as a
means of expiation is Dodd 1930: 31-33, 128-30. Each of these views has numerous variants.
For example, Barrett contended that the word signified an ‘expiatory person’ and that the
Maccabean martyr traditions stood behind Paul’s usage (1957: 2171-8); many have followed
the latter aspect of this reading (e.g., Campbell 2009a: 640-55). For our purposes, however,
these can be regarded simply as nuances; see below.
3. Writers who have made use of this interpretation include Barth (1933: 104-106), though
this dimension of the ἱλαστήριον ultimately drops out from his treatment of Romans; Bailey
(1999); and Talbert (2002: 113-15), very briefly. Among patristic commentators, Origen
(among others) understood the ἱλαστήριον to be a place of divine revelation (Comm. Rom.
3.25). The possibility of reading ἱλαστήριον this way is usually noted by lexicographers and in
general reference works, going back at least as far as Cremer, who also related this possibility
to Rom. 3: ‘It must be noted that according to Exod. 25.22 and Lev. 16.2, the Caporeth is the
central seat of the saving presence and gracious revelations of God, so that it need not surprise
that Christ is designated ἱλαστήριον’ (1872: 295). Büschel likewise notes the function of the
ἱλαστήριον as a ‘place of divine revelation’, but asserts that it is ‘unimportant’, with no further
explanation (1965). Patristic commentators will be considered below, but we may also note
that Luther’s interpretation in his early lectures on Hebrews is very much in line with what I
will set out here (1962: 160-63).
Porter 3

interpretation of Rom. 3,4 none of these refers to a sacrifice or other offering

– including, as this article argues, 4 Maccabees, which is better understood as
referring to a place of atonement. Hence, the evidence for a metonymic reading
of ἱλαστήριον is at best very thin (and, if this article is correct about 4 Maccabees,
nonexistent), and we ought to side with the interpretation that is supported by
both the context of Rom. 3.21-6 and the dominant usage of the word in Second
Temple Jewish literature.
The second part of this article defends the coherence of the revelatory inter-
pretation of ἱλαστήριον in the context of Rom. 3.21-26. As we will see, the rev-
elatory function of the ἱλαστήριον was bound up with the law, and specifically
with God’s authoritative disclosure of the proper interpretation of the law. Paul
refers to Jesus as a ἱλαστήριον because he is the place where God reveals the
definitive interpretation of the law to his people. The faith of Jesus Christ is the
content of this revelation, the true meaning of the law.

The Meaning of ἱλαστήριον in Second Temple

Jewish Sources
Exodus (LXX)
The word occurs 28 times in the LXX: Exodus (13×), Leviticus (7×), Numbers
(1×), Amos (1×), Ezekiel (5×) and 4 Maccabees (1×). While much of the schol-
arly discussion has focused on 2 Maccabees and Lev. 16 (often taking it for
granted that the other LXX references to the ἱλαστήριον conform to the usage of
Leviticus),5 the usage of the word in Exodus and Numbers is actually very differ-
ent from that of Leviticus. Whereas the emphasis in Lev. 16 is on the function of
the ἱλαστήριον as a place of atonement/expiation, Exodus and Numbers see it as
a site of divine revelation, with no suggestion that it might be used as a place of
atonement. Importantly, however, there are no clear instances of a revelatory act
at the ἱλαστήριον until Numbers, when the substance of the law has already been
delivered. As we will see, this does not undermine the revelatory interpretation
of ἱλαστήριον, but is best understood as suggesting that the ἱλαστήριον was used
primarily to disclose interpretations of the law that had already been set down
rather than to reveal entirely fresh information.

4. See below for discussion of the pagan usage.

5. So, for example, in his commentary on LXX Exodus, Gurtner provides little discussion of the
word’s actual usage in Exodus, instead citing older and largely Leviticus-focused analyses of
the word as ‘an instrument used for propitiation’ and afterwards referring to it simply as the
‘propitiatory’ (2013: 415-16). So also Wevers 1992: 398-99, though he does briefly note the
revelatory function of the ἱλαστήριον later, while still referring to it primarily as a place of
atonement (1992: 341).
4 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

(1) When ἱλαστήριον first appears in the LXX, no mention is made of atone-
ment. Rather, the word designates a place of divine revelation. The first seven
occurrences are clustered in Exod. 25.17-22, in the instructions to build the lid
for the Ark of the Covenant.6
17
And you shall make a ἱλαστήριον, a cover of pure gold … 18And you shall make two
cherubim of elaborate gold, and you shall place them on both ends τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου.
19
And there shall be made one cherub on one corner and one cherub on the second end
τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου … 20And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, their wings
overshadowing τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου, and their faces shall be toward one another; toward τὸ
ἱλαστήριον shall the faces of the cherubim be. 21And you shall place τὸ ἱλαστήριον upon
the ark, and into the ark you shall place the Witnesses [i.e., the Ten Commandments]
that I will give to you. 22And I will be known to you there (γνωσθήσομαι σοὶ ἐκεῖθεν)
and I will tell you, from above τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου between the two cherubim who are
above the ark of witness, everything that I would command you (ἐντείλωμαί σοι)
concerning the sons of Israel.

The ἱλαστήριον functions as a place of divine revelation in this passage, and

more specifically as the site where information pertaining to the law would be
revealed (as the use of ἐντέλλω in v. 22 suggests).7 Yet the broader context of
the passage is puzzling, for there is no clear example in Exodus of any act of
revelation occurring at the ἱλαστήριον. Indeed, most of the law that is recorded in
Exodus has already been delivered by the time the ἱλαστήριον is commissioned in
ch. 25.8 The only exceptions are the tabernacle instructions, which are delivered
while Moses is on Mount Sinai (and, because they include instructions for the
ἱλαστήριον, could not have been delivered from it; Exod. 25–31), and the miscel-
laneous commandments written by Moses on the new set of stone tablets, also
delivered on Mount Sinai (Exod. 34). As we will see, it is only in the book of
Numbers that we learn the character of the material disclosed at the ἱλαστήριον,
although both Exodus and Leviticus insist on its revelatory function.9

6. Gurtner (2013: 18) notes that the ἱλαστήριον (Heb. ‫)כּפ ֶֹרת‬ ַ is not explicitly a ‘cover’ (ἐπίθεμα)
in the MT. Still, it is clearly meant to function as such in v. 21. ‫מ ְל ָמ ְע ָלה‬ ‫ֹן‬
ִ ‫ל־ה ָאר‬
ָ ‫ע‬ ‫ת‬
ַ ‫ת־ה ַּכּפ ֶֹר‬
ַ ‫א‬ 
ֶ ‫וְ נָ ַת ָּת‬
(‘And you shall put the kapporeth on the ark, above it’).
7. As in, e.g., Exod. 34.32, 34; 40.16; Lev. 7.36, 38; 8.5; Num. 1.54; 3.42; 27.22; Deut. 1.3; 4.14;
6.24; 9.16; 27.11; etc.
8. A fact that usually goes unnoticed (e.g., Gurtner 2013: 416; Wevers 1992: 401). Milgrom
(2003: 459) does briefly acknowledge it.
9. The situation at first seems to be different in Leviticus. The book begins with the Lord calling
and speaking to Moses from (ἐκ) the Tent of Witness (Lev. 1.1) – the now-completed taber-
nacle, that is, where the ἱλαστήριον and the Ark it covered were housed. Yet the narrative sug-
gests that God did not speak to Moses inside the tent at all, for the end of Exodus, with which
Lev. 1 is narratively contiguous (Milgrom 1998), claims that Moses was unable to enter the
Tent because it was filled with God’s glory (Exod. 40.35). Thus, ἐκ in Lev. 1.1 probably indi-
cates that the voice came from the Tent to Moses, who listened from the outside.
Porter 5

(2) Ἱλαστήριον occurs again in Exod. 31.7, 35.12 and four times in 38.5-8,
where its function is not specified but is assumed to be continuous with the
description in Exod. 25.17-22.10 The construction of the cover is recounted in
Exod. 38.5-8, where the directives of 25.17-22 are echoed, with no suggestion
that the completed Ark was designated for any function other than what had been
set out in the preliminary construction plans of 25.17-22.
(3) The non-sacrificial function of the ἱλαστήριον in Exodus is confirmed by
another passage. In speaking of the burnt offering which was to be offered daily
at the door of the Tent, the Lord says to Moses.
42
It shall be a perpetual sacrifice at the door (ἐπὶ θύρας) of the Tent of Witness before
the Lord in the place where I will be known to you, so as to speak to you (ἐν οἷς
γνωσθήσομαί σοι ἐκεῖθεν ὥστε λαλῆσαί σοι). 43There I will command the children of
Israel, and I will be sanctified in my glory. 44I will sanctify the Tent of Witness and
the altar (τὸ θυσιαστήριον), and Aaron and his sons to serve as priests before me. 45I
will be called upon by the children of Israel and I will be their God. (Exod. 29.42-45)

Although this passage speaks of sacrifice, it refers not to sacrifices of atonement,

but rather to the daily burnt offering at the door of the tent. In Exodus, atone-
ment is made on the altar of incense (θυσιαστήριον θυμιάματος, Exod. 30.1, 10),
and not on the ἱλαστήριον (which has so far not been designated as an altar at
all).11 Moreover, the altar of incense is placed ‘opposite the veil that is over the
Ark of the Witnesses (ἀπέναντι τοῦ καταπετάσματος τοῦ ὄντος ἐπὶ τῆς κιβωτοῦ
τῶν μαρτυρίων) where I will be known to you’ (30.6), drawing a clear distinction
between this altar of atonement and the ἱλαστήριον.
(4) The revelatory function of the ἱλαστήριον is related in a striking passage in
Exod. 33. We are told that Moses was in the habit of pitching the Tent of Witness
outside the camp, where he would then go to confer with God:

[T]he pillar of cloud descended and stood over the door of the tent and spoke to
Moses. And all the people saw the pillar of cloud stand over the door of the tent, and
all the people stood up and worshiped … And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face,
as one speaks to one’s own friend (ἐνώπιος ἐνωπίῳ ὡς εἴ τις λαλήσει πρὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ
φίλον). (Exod. 33.9-11)

Although the ἱλαστήριον is not mentioned explicitly in this passage, the reference
to the Tent and to the face-to-face revelation occurring inside make it clear that
the ἱλαστήριον is implicitly present.

10. As many commentators in effect take for granted, e.g., Gurtner (2013: 480).
11. Wevers’ claim that the LXX ‘does not distinguish between the altar of incense and the altar of
burnt offering’ (1992: 510) is mistaken. Although in Exod. 31.7, the two are referred to together
as τὰ θυσιαστήρια, there is no reason to think that the altar of burnt offering (Exod. 27.1) is iden-
tical with the altar of incense (30.1); each is introduced as a separate item to be built.
6 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

Numbers (LXX)
As Milgrom (2003: 59) notes, it is only in Numbers that revelation actually takes
place at the ἱλαστήριον. Unlike Leviticus, which has God speaking to Moses from
(ἐκ) the Tent (Lev. 1.1), God here speaks to him in (ἐν) the Tent (Num. 1.1), and
specifically from the ἱλαστήριον: ‘Moses went into the Tent of Witness to speak
to him [God], and he heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him from above the
ἱλαστήριον, which is on the Ark of Witness between the two cherubim, and he
spoke to him’ (Num. 7.89).12
This is reinforced by an incident in which Miriam and Aaron begin to grumble
against Moses, asking whether he alone was the rightful recipient of the Lord’s
revelation (Num. 12.2). The Lord summons all three to the door of the tent:
6
And the Lord said, ‘Listen to my words. If there is a prophet of the Lord among you,
I am known to him (αὐτῷ γνωσθήσομαι) in a dream, and I speak to him in his sleep.
7
Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in my whole house. 8I speak to him
mouth to mouth in a visible form (ἐν εἴδει) and he beholds the glory of the Lord (τὴν
δόξαν κυρίου εἶδεν). Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
(Num. 12.6-8)

This clearly refers to the Lord’s meetings with Moses in the Tent of Meeting. For
γνωσθήσομαι, as we have already seen, is characteristically used to speak of the
revelation delivered from the ἱλαστήριον within the Tent and, as in Exod. 33, the
visual character of this revelation is stressed.
The fact that we must wait until Numbers to learn about the character of the
revelation delivered from the ἱλαστήριον does not obviate its revelatory function
but clarifies it. More specifically, it becomes clear that new material is not
revealed at the ἱλαστήριον. Rather, God there discloses authoritative interpreta-
tions of the law in response to the ongoing communal life of Israel. The Torah’s
more significant legal codes were revealed in Exodus and Leviticus, and the new
laws that are revealed in Numbers are either comparatively insignificant or have
already been covered in detail elsewhere.13 However, some of the revelatory acts

12. As is frequently noted, the referent of ‘him’ is ambiguous in both Greek and Hebrew, and
could even be taken to refer to Aaron; the LXX clears this up by identifying the voice that
Moses hears as the Lord’s (Wevers 1998: 117). This is all the more striking in view of the
argument of Findlay (2006) that parts of LXX Numbers are driven by a ‘priestly ideology’ on
the part of the translator, which accentuated the role of Aaron and the priesthood, esp. in Num.
16–17. Despite this emphasis on the priesthood, however, there is no hint that the ἱλαστήριον
was used sacrificially, and certainly not for the purpose of atonement.
13. These include a command to take a census (Num. 1–3; 4.34-49; 26.1-4); requirements for
Levites (4.1-33); purification and marriage laws (5.1-31); requirements for vows (6.1-21);
sacrifices and requirements for Levitical service (8.1-26); Passover requirements (9.1-14);
sacrificial requirements and the command to make tassels (15.1-32, 37-41); laws concerning
Porter 7

in Numbers offer interpretations of law previously dispensed. For example, in

Num. 9, God instructs Moses to command Israel to keep the Passover festival at
the appointed time, but he appends something peculiar to this injunction:
‘According to its law (κατὰ τὸν νόμον αὐτοῦ) and according to its interpretation
(κατὰ τὴν σύγκρισιν αὐτοῦ) you shall keep it’ (9.2). Σύγκρισις, a rare word in the
LXX, only refers elsewhere to the interpretation of a dream, when Joseph inter-
prets the dreams of his fellow prisoners and of Pharaoh (Gen. 40.12-18) and
when Daniel interprets those of the king (Dan. 2.45; 4.19, 24; 5.17). Δικαίωμα
and κρίσις are the preferred translations of ‫משפטיו‬ (Exod. 15.25; 21.1; 21.9; etc.)
and would have been unobjectionable here. What is the significance of this very
different rendering?
Most of the Israelites kept the Passover, but there was a group of them who
were unclean and were thus unable to do so. The reasons supplied for this differ
between the MT, which attributes their uncleanness to contact with a dead body,
and the LXX, which says that they were ἀκάθαρτοι ἐπὶ ψυχῇ ἀνθρώπου (Num.
9.6). Whether these are equivalent is unclear (but see Wevers 1998: 135 for dis-
cussion). Earlier in the book, God commanded that anyone who had contact with
a corpse (MT; LXX πάντα ἀκάθαρτον ἐπὶ ψυχῇ) was to be kept outside the camp
(5.2), and this was apparently the reason for excluding this unclean group from
the Passover celebration. In any case, the group inquires of Moses as to why they
should be excluded. Moses replies, ‘Wait, and I will hear what the Lord will
command concerning you’ (9.7-8). The response from God is that anyone who is
unclean in this particular way should still keep the Passover (9.10). In other
words, God has reinterpreted the laws previously given, in accordance with the
new events in Israel’s life. Although it was in principle required that the unclean
should remain outside the camp, the Passover was of such significance that they
could be readmitted for the festival. There was no provision for this in the origi-
nal laws, yet from the ἱλαστήριον the Lord was able to provide an interpretation
which upheld the law’s integrity and also dealt compassionately with the plight
of the unclean. Moses is not simply to keep the Passover according to the law
(νόμον), but also according to its interpretation (σύγκρισιν; 9.2).
The scattered and occasional nature of the laws revealed in Numbers (noted
above) suggests that most of them are to be understood as interpretations of the
laws given in Exodus and Leviticus, where their fuller but nevertheless prelimi-
nary descriptions are set out.14 The ἱλαστήριον, then, is the site where divine

sacrifice and cleanliness (18–19); inheritance laws (27.1-23; 36.1-12); calendar, sacrifices,
feasts (28–29); division of the land and cities of refuge (34–35); and inheritance laws (36).
On variations between the LXX and the MT on details such as these, see Flint 2009: 108-10.
14. For another, perhaps even clearer, example of this, see Num. 27 and 36, where questions of
inheritance in peculiar cases are raised, especially the situation of daughters when all poten-
tial male heirs have died (27.1-11) and that of the members of such daughters’ tribe when the
8 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

interpretations of the law are delivered, where the giver of the law guides his
people in faithful adherence to the legal codes of Exodus and Leviticus. It is
where the word of God becomes responsive to changing circumstances and
events in the life of Israel, not by annulling older laws, but by showing how they
can be faithfully kept in light of these historical and cultural shifts. (The attentive
Pauline scholar will see where this is going.)

Leviticus (LXX)
The only place in the Torah where atonement is associated with the ἱλαστήριον is
Lev. 16, yet even there it is initially described as a place of God’s self-revelation:

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell your brother Aaron that he must not come at just
any time into the inner holy place behind the curtain, to the place before the ἱλαστήριον
which is on the Ark of Witness, so that he may not die, for I will be seen in a cloud
above τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου’. (Lev. 16.2)

The function of the ἱλαστήριον as a place of atonement in Lev. 16.2 (as well
as in vv. 13-15), remains situated within its revelatory function, a fact that has
been largely ignored by scholars.15 In view of the fact that most references to
the ἱλαστήριον in the Torah are absolutely silent about atonement, we should say
that it was a place of revelation that also functioned as a place of atonement on
select occasions.16

daughters marry outside their clan and thereby give their property over to another tribe (36.1-
13). Note that Numbers emphasizes that these disputes take place at the Tent of Meeting,
where the people gather to bring their petition to Moses, who brings their request before the
Lord in the Tent (27.2, 5).
15. E.g., Gelardini 2011: 232; Janowski 2012: 25 (cf. Janowski 2000: 347); etc. Finlan asserts
that we are not told what will be revealed at the ἱλαλστήριον or why; it is only stated as a bare
fact, which suggests that we should not allow these texts any decisive influence upon our
interpretation of the word (Finlan 2004: 125, 154). However, the function of the ἱλαστήριον as
a place of atonement is subordinated to its use as a place of revelation, and we are told what
is to be revealed, namely, God’s commandments to the children of Israel (Exod. 25.22). It is
irrelevant that we are not told why God would reveal himself from the ἱλαστήριον. We could
say the same about many tabernacle furnishings without implying the irrelevance of their
given functions.
16. If the ἱλαστήριον is not primarily a place of atonement in the Torah, it is also not, in the words
of N.T. Wright, ‘the place in the tabernacle or Temple where God promises, as the focus of
his covenant, to meet with his people and to that end provides cleansing for both the people
and the sanctuary so that the meeting can take place’ (Wright 2016: 302). Wright cites Exod.
25.17-22 repeatedly (2016: 108, 327), but it is plain that the only meeting that took place
there was with Moses, not with the people. The people may have gathered at the Tent, as in
Numbers, but it was only Moses (and the high priest, on the Day of Atonement) who went
inside the Tent to the ἱλαστήριον. Moreover, it is not primarily a place per se, but a place
Porter 9

Ezekiel and Amos (LXX)

Daniel P. Bailey has argued, persuasively to some (e.g., Tabb 2017: 94-95) that
ἱλαστήριον only signified either (1) the mercy seat or (2) pagan votive offerings
until the second century CE (Bailey 1999). However, he accords little attention
to Ezekiel and Amos, and it is not obvious that the mercy seat – whether in its
revelatory or in its sacrificial functions – is referred to in these texts. Amos 9.1
reads as follows: ‘I saw the Lord standing ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου and he said,
“Strike ἐπὶ τὸ ἱλαστήριον and shake the gates …”’ (9.1). The Septuagintal trans-
lation of MT ‫ הכפתור‬as ἱλαστήριον has puzzled scholars, but the explanation is
clear enough. Although the MT likely refers to the capital of a pillar, ‫ הכפתור‬can
refer more generally to a top or a crown. Thus, because the Lord was standing
above an altar (ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου = ‫)על־המזבח‬, the Septuagintal translators
took ‫ הכפתור‬to refer to the top of the altar, and the ἱλαστήριον, as the lid of the
Ark, was substituted. However, it does not here refer to the top of the Ark, but
to that of a pagan altar. For the ‘striking’ of the ἱλαστήριον is best read in light
of Amos 3.14-15, which speaks of the Lord executing justice on ‘the altars of
Bethel (τὰ θυσιαστήρια Βαιθηλ)’, destroying ‘the horns of the altars (τὰ κέρατα
τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου)’, and ‘striking the house circled round about with columns [i.e.
the temple] (πατάξω τὸν οἶκον τὸν περίπτερον)’ (cf. 7.9). There is no reference to
the temple in Jerusalem, so it would appear that these altars are pagan places of
sacrifice. It seems, then, that ἱλαστήριον here refers to the top of a generic place
of sacrifice.
This is likewise the most plausible interpretation of the word’s three occur-
rences in Ezek. 43.14-20. Here the ἱλαστήριον is not in a pagan temple but in the
eschatologically restored temple of Israel’s God. However, there is a variety of
sacrifices offered upon it, including burnt offerings (ὁλοκαυτώματα, 42.24), sin
offerings (ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτίας, 43.25) and ‘deliverance’ offerings (τὰ τοῦ σωτηρίου,
43.27). Thus, it is not simply used for atonement, unlike the strictly defined use
of the altar described in Lev. 16. Moreover, there are also two ἱλαστήρια in
Ezekiel, a lower/larger one (τὸ ἱλαστήριον τὸ μέγα τὸ ὑποκάτωθεν) and a higher/
smaller one above it (τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ μικροῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ἱλαστήριον τὸ μέγα, 43.14).
Whatever we wish to make of this, it is clear that Ezekiel’s use of the word is not
immediately assimilable to that of Lev. 16, for it is neither the lid of the Ark nor
only a place of atonement. It appears that in Ezekiel, as in Amos, ἱλαστήριον
refers to a generic place of sacrifice.

of revelation, as is plain from the passages we have examined. Wright is clearly dependent
on the MT here rather than the LXX. As Wevers notes, the LXX has rendered the meeting-
focused language of the MT (‫ׁשם‬ ‫ָך‬
ָ ‫ל‬ ‫י‬
ְ ‫נֹוע ְד ִּת‬
ַ ְ‫ )ו‬with revelatory language (γνωσθήσομαι; Wevers
1992: 401).
10 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

Habbakuk
Although it has gone largely unnoticed in modern scholarship, LXX Habakkuk
appears to contain an allusion to the ἱλαστήριον that should not be overlooked,
especially by readers of Romans.
2a
[…] Between two living creatures you will be known (ἐν μέσῳ δύο ζῴων γνωσθήσῃ);
When the years come, you will be recognized (ἐπιγνωσθήσῃ); 2bWhen the appointed
time arrives, you will be displayed (ἀναδειχθήσῃ); When my soul is troubled by wrath,
you will show mercy. (Hab. 3.2)

The phrase ἐν μέσῳ δύο ζῴων γνωσθήσῃ echoes Exod. 25.22: ‘I will be known to
you (γνωσθήσομαί σοι) there and I will speak to you from above the mercy seat
between the two cherubim (ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν δύο χερουβιμ)’. Cherubim are often
referred to as living creatures (ζῴων).17 The allusion is clear (see Bucur 2018: 163-
68, 192-93) and was widely recognized among patristic commentators, includ-
ing Origen (Comm. Rom. 3.5, though cf. Princ. 1.3.4) and Cyril of Alexandria (In
Hab. 3.2; Scholia 14).18 That an act of revelation is being described is clear from
the repeated use of revelatory language (γνωσθήσῃ, ἐπιγνωσθήσῃ, ἀναδειχθήσῃ),
and also from the fact that it appears to describe the fulfillment of a promise of
future revelation made in Hab. 2.2-4.19 Habakkuk thus hints that the disclosure
of the mysterious vision will take place in a revelatory event reminiscent of those
that occurred at the ἱλαστήριον in the Tent of Meeting, and so implicitly sees the
ἱλαστήριον as a place of revelation, with no reference to its sacrificial function.

4 Macabbees 17.22
The bastion of the traditional reading is 4 Macc. 17.22, which most acknowledge
to be the only use of ἱλαστήριον in the LXX that can be construed as a metonymic
reference to the sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement (and so the only
direct support for the usual reading of Rom. 3.25):

17. Seventeen times in Rev. 4–7, 14–15 and 19; and 13 times in Ezek. 1 and 10. In Ezekiel, there
are also echoes of the revelatory events at the Tent of Meeting. For example: ‘And in the
midst of the living creatures (ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ζῴων), there was a vision (ὅρασις) like that of burn-
ing coals of fire; in the midst of the living creatures (ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ζῴων), there was a sight
(ὄψις) like that of conjoined lights …’ (1.13). Despite the later use of ἱλαστήριον in Ezekiel as
a place of sacrifice, then, he apparently understands the ἱλαστήριον as it was used in the old
temple as a place of revelation (hence ὅρασις and ὄψις).
18. See Bucur on Clement of Alexandria, Pseudo-Methodius and Isidore of Seville (2018: 166-
68, 194-95). For alternative interpretations, see Bucur and Mueller 2011.86-103.
19. This was the opinion of several ancient and numerous modern interpreters (Tuell 2017: 263;
cf. Bucur 2018: 191). Tuell argues that, while the vision described in Hab. 2 is visual, that of
Hab. 3 is auditory (2017: 263-74). This is true, however, only in the MT.
Porter 11

20
These [martyrs], then, having been sanctified by God, were honored not only by this
honor, but also because through them our enemies did not prevail over our nation;
21
and also because the tyrant was punished and the homeland was cleansed (τήν
πατρίδα καθαρισθῆναι), since they became a ransom (ἀντίψυχον) for the sins of the
nation. 22And διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐκείνων, and διὰ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου
αὐτῶν, divine providence saved the previously mistreated Israel. (4 Macc. 17.20-22)

Interpreters of this text usually see two main possibilities for the meaning of
ἱλαστήριον: a pagan votive offering or a metonymic reference to the sacrifices
offered at the mercy seat. Bailey’s argument for the first reading has persuaded
few (Finlan 2004; Williams 2010: 61-63). For one thing, neither blood nor the
giving up of a life are usually associated with votive offerings (Tiwald 2012:
193). Using a sacrifice as a means of purification has strong precedent in Israel’s
cultic framework, but in pagan worship it was more often the case that one had to
purify oneself before entering a sanctuary (Hughes 2017: 94; Rouse 1902: 199).
In general, the cultic language seems to situate these martyrdoms squarely within
the Jewish sacrificial system.20
Granted this, however, it does not follow that ἱλαστήριον metonymically
signifies an atoning sacrifice. There is a third option: it could refer to the place of
atonement with no metonymic reference.21 The “altar” – the instruments of tor-
ture with which the brothers were tormented and then executed – is the means by
which by which (δία) atonement was accomplished. Through the bloody,
sacrificial deaths of the martyrs, and through the altar on which those deaths
were offered to God, Israel was saved. Though it has rarely been entertained,
there is much to commend this view.
(1) Throughout the LXX, an arthrous noun referring to the altar is often paired
with a genitive noun referring to the sacrifices offered upon it: τὸ θυσιαστήριον
τῶν ὁλοκαυτωμάτων means ‘the altar on which burnt offerings are offered to
God’, and τὸ θυσιαστήριον τοῦ θυμιάματος means ‘the altar on which incense is
offered to God’ (Exod. 30.26-28).22 This matches the formulation of 4 Macc.

20. Van Henten 1997: 152-54.; Williams 2010: 62; etc. Wright quotes 4 Macc. 17.20-22 as evi-
dence that the work moves ‘in a more pagan direction’ (2016: 344). But that punishment was
precisely on the tyrant and not on the brothers. Moreover, despite the fact that 4 Maccabees
has repeatedly been said to describe the propitiation of God’s wrath (see Jewett 2007: 286
n. 173, for references), this is never actually stated; it is rather the text that (Wright alleges)
is less pagan, 2 Maccabees, that claims that the death of the brothers will ‘bring to an end the
wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation’ (7.38; see Finlan 2004: 197,
who describes this as the peculiar feature of that work). As for Wright’s claim that ‘little sense
is left in this book of the larger covenant story of God, Israel, and the world’ (2016: 344), we
should remind ourselves of the constant allusions to Abraham and Isaac, to Daniel, Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego (4 Macc. 17.23).
21. It goes unnoticed by, e.g., Van Henten 1997: 152-54; Williams 2010: 62; etc. Tabb 2017:
93-96 takes a position similar to this one.
22. So also Exod. 31.8-9; 35.15-16; 37.25; 38.1; 40.6, 10, 29; Lev. 4.7, 10, 18, 25, 30, 34.
12 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

17.22 (τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῶν, ‘the altar on which their deaths were
offered to God’).
(2) It is not true that δία + genitive would make more sense in speaking of a
sacrifice than in speaking of an altar. To be sure, it is unusual to find διὰ paired
with ἱλαστήριον, or indeed with the ordinary word for ‘altar’, θυσιαστήριον, in the
LXX.23 However, comparable constructions that refer to sacrifices themselves
(e.g., διὰ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ, διὰ τῆς θυσίας, διὰ τῆς ὁλοκαυτώσεως) are non-existent in
Septuagintal Greek,24 and related constructions are also absent.25 Whether
ἱλαστήριον is construed as an altar or a sacrifice, then, it is surprising to find it
paired with δία in 4 Maccabees, and we should not disregard the former reading
because it seems peculiar to speak of salvation occurring through an altar. From
the perspective of ordinary Septuagintal Greek, it would be equally odd to speak
of salvation occurring through a sacrifice.
Further, (3) these instruments of torture are said to be the means by which
salvation is procured: ‘But all of them, as if running the course to immortality,
hastened to death by torture’ (14.5; so also 9.8); ‘As though transformed by fire
into immortality, he nobly endured the torturing’ (9.22). It was not simply their
agony, but rather their agony on the wheel that brought about their salvation and
the nation’s. The machines of torture were thus instrumental to salvation.
Moreover, (4) the instruments of torture are characterized in altar-like lan-
guage. As the brothers endured their torture, ‘the wheel was completely smeared
with [the first brother’s] blood (ἐμολύνετο δὲ πάντοθεν αἵματι ὁ τροχός)’ (9.20),
just as Israel’s altars were often sprinkled with blood. The brothers are stretched
out upon a wheel, and a fire is kindled beneath them, a fire over which the broth-
ers are ‘roasted’ (11.19) and which consumes their bodies (14.10; 15.14-15, 20).
In Leviticus, fire is said to consume the sacrificial victims (Lev. 9.24).

23. We do, however, find an instance of διὰ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου in the Christian period. In Theodoret’s
discussion of Rom. 3.25, he identifies τὸ ἱλαστήριον as the mercy seat (with no suggestion of
metonymy) and speaks of it as the means by which sacrifices are offered to God and by which
Christ ‘worked out our salvation’ (PG 82.84).
24. The phrases διὰ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ, διὰ τῆς θυσίας, διὰ τῆς ὁλοκαυτώσεως and their anarthrous vari-
ants never occur in the LXX. There is an instance of διὰ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ in Eusebius (Comm. Ps.
[PG 23.1264]), but no extra-biblical uses of διὰ τῆς ὁλοκαυτώσεως are recorded in the TLG.
There is one instance of διὰ τῆς θυσίας in the NT (Heb. 9.26), speaking of Christ’s sacrifice,
and there is one also in Philo, which is inconsequential for our purposes: he warns people
‘not to sin through their offering for sin [τοῦ μὴ ἁμαρτάνειν διὰ τῆς θυσίας τοῦ περὶ ἁμαρτίας]’
(Spec. 1.193). Although there is an explosion of instances of διὰ τῆς θυσίας in the Christian
period, a sizable number of them are quotations of Hebrews (e.g., Origen, Or. [PG 27.15]).
25. Ἀπὸ τῆς θυσίας is used only in irrelevant ways in the LXX (e.g., Lev 3.3, ‘And they shall
bring fruits from the sacrifice of deliverance [ἀπὸ τῆς θυσίας τοῦ σωτηρίου] to the Lord’), and
neither ἁπὸ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ nor ἀπὸ τῆς ὁλοκαυτώσεως (nor their anarthrous variants) ever occur.
Similarly, there are no instances of ὑπὸ τῆς θυσίας, ὑπὸ τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ or ὑπὸ τῆς ὁλοκαυτώσεως,
whether arthrous or anarthrous, in the LXX. The TLG also turns up nothing for these phrases.
Porter 13

(5) The importance of the instruments of torture in the narrative is clear. They
are constantly in view, and are described in graphic detail: ‘the wheel’ (5.3, 32;
11.10, 17; 12.11; 15.22), the ‘catapult’ (9.26; 11.9, 26; 18.20), the ‘spit’
(ὀβελίσκος) that is used to ‘roast’ them (11.18), the ‘torture machine’ (9.26), the
‘rack’ (7.4; 8.24), the ‘instruments of torture’ (6.1; 8.19-25), ‘maliciously con-
trived instruments’ (6.25). They are the source of the brothers’ agony (4 Macc.
11.9-1; 11.17-19; 12.11; 15.22; 18.20-21).
Further, (6) other texts make it clear that it was possible to conceive of the
instruments used to execute martyrs as altars through which salvation could be
procured. For example, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the church in Rome,

Grant me only to be poured out as a drink offering, while there is still an altar
(θυσιαστήριον) ready … Release me to the wild beasts, through whom (δι᾽ ὧν) it is
possible to attain to God … Entreat the Lord for me, that through these instruments I
may be found a sacrifice to the Lord (ἵνα διὰ τῶν ὀργάνων τούτων Θεοῦ θυσία εὑρεθῶ).
(Ign. Rom. 2, 4)

The wild beasts are the altar on which Ignatius is sacrificed, and their soterio-
logical instrumentality is made as explicit as one could desire (Lookado 2018:
266-67. Cf. Cyprian of Carthage, Exhort. 5).
Finally, (7) there is no precedent for interpreting ἱλαστήριον metonymically. If
plausible alternatives are available, we should certainly side with those before
positing the existence of an otherwise unattested metonymy.

Philo and Josephus

Apart from the LXX, our two Jewish sources on the question are Philo and
Josephus. Josephus’s usage reflects pagan influence (Ant. 16.182). After plunder-
ing David’s tomb, Herod’s guards are destroyed by fire. Thus ‘the king himself
was afraid, and as a propitiation (ἱλαστήριον) of the terror he built at the entrance
a monument of white marble …’ This has little to do with the usage of the word
in the LXX, as most now agree, and it also does not refer to the mercy seat
(Bailey 1999: 43-46; Tabb 2017: 94).
In Philo, on the other hand, ἱλαστήριον seems to refer to a place of divine rev-
elation with no connection to atonement. Exodus 25.22 regularly appears in his
discussions. In QE 2.68, he describes it as a place where the Logos, acting in a
mediatorial capacity, ‘brought about friendship and concord’. The Logos appears
between the Cherubim (which symbolize the dyad of God’s ‘creative’ and
‘authoritative’ powers), and above the Logos, the Speaker (ὁ λέγων) appears. The
lid of the Ark itself represented one of the powers stemming from the dyad,
God’s gracious (ἴλαος) power. The adjective ἴλαος evidently suggested itself to
Philo on account of the word ἱλαστήριον, for he says that the phrase ‘above the
ἱλαστήριον’ (Exod. 25.22) means that ‘God is above the gracious (ἵλεω) and crea-
tive and every other power’ (2.68). There is, however, no hint that Philo
14 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

envisions God’s ἴλαος δύναμις as functioning in connection to atonement. Rather,

it is explained in terms of his self-revelation in the Logos. The Logos creates
friendship between God and creation, Philo writes, because it ‘fills all things’ in
nature and thereby brings about concord. For Philo, of course, the Logos fills all
things in part because of its relation to the Forms, on the model of which the
world’s inhabitants were created; that is, divine–human friendship is brought
about because of the intelligibility that the Logos brings to the created order.
Here too the ἱλαστήριον is a symbol of God’s self-revelation in creation through
the Logos, who stands ‘between’ the powers and makes the Speaker known. A
similar reading can be offered for the other occurrences of the word in Philo
(Her. 166; Cher. 25; and Mos. 2.96-7).26

Conclusion
We may summarize the results of our survey as in Table 1.

Table 1. Semantic range of ἱλαστήριον

Exod. 25.17-22; 31.7; 35.12; 38.5-8

Lev. 16.2
as place of revelation Num. 7.89
Hab. 3:2
Philo: QE 2.60-68; Fug. 100-101; Her. 166;
Lid of ark Cher. 25; Mos. 2.96-97
non-metonymic (= place of atonement):
Lev. 16.2, 13-15
as place of atonement 4 Macc. 17.22
metonymic (= atoning sacrifice): no evidence
place of sacrifice in Amos 9.1
Place of sacrifice
general Ezek. 43.14-20
Josephus, Ant. 16.182
Sacrificial offering pagan votive offerings
pagan evidence

Rereading Romans 3.21-26

The ἱλαστήριον as Site of Divine Revelation
The evidence adduced here demonstrates the importance in the LXX and in other
Second Temple Jewish literature of the revelatory interpretation of ἱλαστήριον.

26. Mollaun (1923: 65-67) notes the revelatory function of the ἱλαστήριον in each of these pas-
sages but concludes that, for Philo, it was ‘the place par excellence where God manifested
His presence and His expiating and propitiating power’ – although Philo never describes it as
a place of propitiation or expiation.
Porter 15

Immediate contextual evidence suggests that it offers a prima facie plausible

reading of the word in Rom. 3.21-26, which is thematically driven by God’s
self-revelation in Jesus: ‘But now the righteousness of God has been revealed
(πεφανέρωται)’ (v. 21); ‘whom God publicly displayed/set forth (πρόεθετο) as
a ἱλαστήριον’ (v. 25); ‘as a demonstration/display (ἔδειξιν) of his righteousness’
(v. 25); ‘for a demonstration/display (ἔδειξιν) of his righteousness’ (v. 26). Given
that there is no attested use of ἱλαστήριον as a metonymy for sacrifice (and even
if the sole possible instance of metonymy in 4 Maccabees were correctly read as
such), there is reason to consider the revelatory interpretation.
A crucial reason to accept this interpretation lies in the implausibility of alter-
native readings. The main rivals divide into two categories: (1) metaphorical
readings, which include (a) sacrificial-metaphorical and (b) revelatory-meta-
phorical interpretations, and (2) metonymical readings.27 Metonymical readings
tend to see Paul as speaking of Jesus as a sacrifice of one sort or another; impor-
tantly, these understand the reference to the lid of the Ark of the Covenant as a
metonymic vehicle with sacrifice as its target domain (to use the language of
cognitive linguistics). Metaphorical readings tend to understand Paul as speak-
ing of Jesus as a place of sacrifice or, rarely, as a place of revelation.28

Ἱλαστήριον as Metaphor?
When read metaphorically, the ἱλαστήριον has most often been understood as a
place of atonement (and usually the lid of the Ark of the Covenant in particular).
There are very few who hold this view today, and for good reason. It is difficult
to understand what it could mean to say that Jesus is a place of atonement. As
Douglas Campbell writes,

27. Although the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is significantly more complex
than I am making it out to be, I will here understand metaphor (very, very) roughly as the
description of X in terms of Y, and metonymy as the description of X in terms of something
related to/associated with Y. (Relatedness is of course to be understood very broadly; see the
catalog of possibilities set out in the influential paper of Radden and Kövecses 2007: 335-59).
28. Another metaphorical reading that has little support today understands ἱλαστήριον as a pagan
votive offering. This was most influentially argued by Deissman in his Bibelstudien (taken up
by, e.g., Morris 1955–66 and Wilson 2017). He made his case partly on the grounds that the
biblical usage was too obscure to ancient pagan readers for Paul to expect them to understand
it (so also Morris 1955–66: 42). Most scholars now agree that he was mistaken. First of all,
a great many of his subsequent readers did understand it (Origen, Theodoret, Cyril and many
others). Second, early Christianity was not constituted only of pagans; Jewish Christians
might well have been able to clarify the point (Black 1973: 69), and the ‘god-fearers’ may
have been of service (Finlan 2004: 143; cf. Hultgren 2011: 671). It is also unclear that the
word was regularly in use in pagan circles (Hultgren 2011: 669-72). For a survey of the pagan
usage of the word, which will not be discussed here, see Mollaun 1923: 45-54, along with
Bailey 1999: 15-75.
16 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

Few commentators actually grasp this point. If ἱλαστήριον means, literally, the mercy-
seat, then Christ’s death is being compared (somewhat incongruously) with this
specific object. What most commentators find most meaningful in the comparison,
however, is not the kprt itself, but its role as the place of sacrificial propitiation on the
Day of Atonement. (Campbell 1992: 112)

Most metaphorical readers resort to identifying the ἱλαστήριον with some abstract
property of the place. For example, T.W. Manson, the best-known advocate of
this view throughout much of the twentieth century (Manson 1945: 1-10),29 held
that the mercy seat, as a place of atonement, was the place where ‘God’s mercy
was supremely manifested’ (Manson 1945: 4).30 On this reading, however, the
ἱλαστήριον becomes merely symbolic, abstracted from its associations with the
law, atonement, revelation, and so forth. Metaphorical readings are forced to
generalize in this way, since it is not obviously meaningful to say that Jesus is the
place where sacrifices are offered. This position ‘makes the imagery intolerably
complicated’, as Morris (1955–66: 41) wrote.31
The difficulties of this position are illustrated well by Arland J. Hultgren’s
recent commentary on Romans. He writes that ‘the crucified Christ is the place
at which atonement is made for all of humanity’ (Hultgren 2011: 547). This
appears to mean that atonement took place ‘at’ Christ’s body as at an altar. But
what was offered at this altar if not his body itself? The strangeness of this read-
ing is ultimately unmanageable for Hultgren, and his metaphorical interpretation
collapses into metonymy: ‘Paul says, in effect, that the crucified Christ is the one
… whose death was prefigured in the OT ritual at the mercy seat on the Day of
Atonement … in the atoning death of Jesus, the OT promise [of forgiveness via
an atoning sacrifice] has been fulfilled…’ (Hultgren 2011: 157). For Hultgren,
the point of calling Jesus the place of atonement is really to refer to his sacrificial
death.32

29. His position was defended by Hill (1967) and others. Hengel wrote that ‘Manson already said
all that needed to be said about this verse’ (1981: 45).
30. Manson does not derive his claim from the description in Exod. 25.22. He has, without any
explicit textual support, simply asserted that this was the point of the mercy seat as a place of
atonement, relying solely on Lev. 16. His claim is that God’s mercy is revealed through his
forgiveness of sins at the mercy seat, but this is not stressed in Exodus.
31. Stephen (not Arland, discussed below) Hultgren has recently argued at length for a reading of
ἱλαστήριον along the same lines, and it is a clear example of the sort of theological abstraction
evident in Manson: ‘Christ is the “place” where divine justice and mercy meet’ (2019: 547).
32. The recent position taken by Wright, which goes further than most in trying to maintain a
strict reading of the ἱλαστήριον as a place of sacrifice, ultimately suffers the same collapse. He
tends to focus on what he holds to be the other dimension of the ἱλαστήριον, its function as a
place of meeting. When he discusses its function as a place of sacrifice, he quickly returns to
the metonymic reading (2016: 336). See also Jewett 2007: 285-87.
Porter 17

While we certainly need to allow for the possibility that Paul used the word
‘inaccurately’, as Finlan (2004: 200) claims, and also for the truth that metaphors
cannot be pushed too far, there must be at least some possibility that we might
ask Paul what he meant and very properly expect a cogent response. A strict
sacrificial-metaphorical reading, however, implies that Paul’s only answer must
be either incoherent (if he really means that Jesus is a place of sacrifice) or con-
fusingly detached (if he is in fact comparing Jesus to some abstract property of
the ἱλαστήριον).

Ἱλαστήριον as Metonymy?
Defenders of metonymic readings wish to interpret ἱλαστήριον not as the place
but as what is associated with the place, the sacrifice that was offered on the
ἱλαστήριον. There are three lines of evidence adduced in support of this con-
tention. (1) 4 Maccabees, it is usually said, refers to the sacrifice offered at the
mercy seat metonymically. (2) The reference to Jesus’ blood seems to allude to
his sacrificial death, and the close tie between the blood of sacrificial victims
and the mercy seat suggests that a metonymic reference is plausible. (3) In the
LXX, the ἱλαστήριον was closely associated with other elements of Israel’s cultic
system, particularly its sacrificial practices; the ἱλαστήριον might be said to con-
stitute the heart of the sacrificial system as a whole.
Despite the popularity of these arguments (Finlan 2004: 123-62; Moo 1996:
236; Campbell 1992), it is not usually recognized how tenuous they are. We have
already seen that 4 Macc. 17.22 does not demand to be read metonymically.
More problematic, however, is the assumption that the mere mention of blood is
enough to prove a metonymy. Metonymies are notoriously difficult for transla-
tors and even strong contextual indicators are often misleading (Vandepitte et al.
2015: 127-44; Littlemore 2015: 186-89). This problem is particularly severe in
the literature on Rom. 3.25, for scholars are all too ready to speak of ‘resonances’
and ‘associations’ in vague and indeterminate ways. For example, Stephen
Finlan’s metonymic reading posits widely differing ‘resonances’ at different
points in his argument, though he does not seem to recognize these shifts. He
variously has ἱλαστήριον referring to (1) ‘Christ spilling his blood’ (Finlan 2004:
156), (2) ‘the atonement or purification process’, since ‘the mention of blood and
the usage of the technical term that is at the center of the sacrificial system cer-
tainly suggest sacrifice’ (Finlan 2004: 128), (3) the victim itself, since, he claims,
there is an ‘implied equation’ of ‘Christ with an animal victim’ because ‘the
ἱλαστήριον is the place where the sacrificial animal’s blood is sprinkled’ (Finlan
2004: 156, 128) or, finally, (4) ‘the temple and all its rituals’, for which he claims
that ἱλαστήριον is ‘obviously a synecdoche’ (Finlan 2004: 155). These are not the
same, and Paul is certainly not comparing Jesus to all of them. But this exegeti-
cal instability is indicative of the lack of a determinate point at which to connect
18 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

ἱλαστήριον with other aspects of the cult: there are very nearly countless meto-
nymic connections that might be made, and it is not immediately obvious why
any one of them should be privileged.
The plausibility of the metonymic reading is dependent upon the assumption
that no metaphorical interpretation of ἱλαστήριον as a place could make sense.33
As we have seen, when the ἱλαστήριον is taken to be a place of sacrifice, this
assumption is very reasonable. However, a metaphorical reading of ἱλαστήριον is
considerably more plausible when we consider its revelatory function. To say
that Christ is where God is revealed means that Christ, in his spatiotemporal
particularity, constitutes the location of God’s self-disclosure. There is nothing
unintelligible about this, and it greatly weakens the motivation for positing a
metonymy.
The coherence of the revelatory reading of ἱλαστήριον, however, needs to be
tested against other parts of the passage as well as Rom. 1–4 and the letter as a
whole. The latter two tasks are beyond the scope of this article, but I will con-
sider several key sections of Rom. 3.21-26 as test cases for this reading. In view
of the fact that much of Rom. 3.21-6 is highly contested in contemporary schol-
arship, I will be forced to make a number of major interpretive decisions for
which I cannot fully argue here, though not all of them are peculiar to this
reading.

‘The Righteousness of God’

Granting, with most scholars, that the LXX context is in view for Paul, his use
of ἱλαστήριον implies a revelatory act connected to the law, and specifically a
reinterpretation of the law. This accounts for the puzzling claim that Paul’s mes-
sage does not undermine the law but establishes it (3.31), and it also explains
the assertions that God’s revelation in Christ is both ‘apart from the law (χώρις
νόμου)’ and ‘attested by the law and the prophets’ (v. 21). It could not have been
known apart from God’s revelation in Jesus, but it remains an interpretation of
Israel’s scriptures, a disclosure of their inner meaning, just as we saw in the
book of Numbers. This also suggests an interpretation of the ‘righteousness of
God (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ)’ that is infrequently found in contemporary scholarship.
In three of the four parts of the passage that contain clear revelatory language,

33. Indeed, this is usually the motivation for identifying metonymies. For example, suppose a
friend asks, ‘Can I borrow your Shakespeare?’ Hearing this for the first time, a first response
might be, ‘How could he possibly think that Shakespeare is mine?’ Realizing that this could
not possibly be what was meant, you recall that there is a volume of Shakespeare’s writings
on the shelf, and that your friend has recently become interested in Elizabethan literature, and
so conclude that this must be a way in which people speak about books in shorthand. (The
example is borrowed from Zheng 2014: 29.)
Porter 19

God’s righteousness is the content of his revelation: ‘the righteousness of God

has been revealed’ (v. 21); ‘as a demonstration/display (εἰς ἔνδειξιν) of his right-
eousness’ (v. 25); ‘as a demonstration/display (πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν) of his right-
eousness’ (v. 26). The only exception is the double accusative object of προέθετο,
which refers to the setting forth of Christ as a ἱλαστήριον (v. 25). If, then, we
accept the revelatory reading of ἱλαστήριον, the implication seems undeniable
that God’s righteousness is the content of the revelation at the Christological
ἱλαστήριον, and therefore that the righteousness of God is an interpretation of his
law, a definition of what he takes to be righteousness in human beings.34
Thus, it is not a matter of God’s upholding the penalties of the law in the face
of human sin, nor is it simply the ‘saving righteousness’ that has been so
influential since Käsemann (1980).35 Yet it seems deeply mistaken to think that
the righteousness of God, understood as his law, should be at variance with his
saving action in the world. Several OT texts closely unite the two. Well-known
texts from the Psalms take this view (Ps. 118/119.50; 118/119.107), and Isaiah
claims that the future revelation of God’s righteousness, in an act that accom-
plishes the world’s salvation, will be precisely the disclosure of his law among
the nations (Isa. 51.4; cf. 2.2-3; Mic. 4.1-3). Moreover, there are texts that appear
to directly equate God’s righteousness with his law (e.g., Ps. 118/119.42, 106,
138, 172; Bar. 4.13).36 A powerful case can be made that Paul read biblical law
as fundamentally death-dealing, taking the sufferings of Israel in the desert as the
law’s paradigmatic result, as it was by Watson (2015). Yet Meyer (2004) has
persuasively argued that the pernicious effects of the law were, for Paul, the
result of the law’s captivity to the power of sin and death. The liberation of
human agents from bondage to sin is intimately bound up with the liberation of
the law itself. God’s saving action in the world, then, does not come straightfor-
wardly through the law, but is also inseparable from it. If God’s righteousness in
Rom. 3 is not to be equated precisely with his deliverance, then, we need not
think that they are thereby divorced from each other.

‘Attested by the Law and the Prophets’

Paul’s claim that God’s self-disclosure is ‘attested by the law and the prophets’
(v. 21) echoes the formulaic phrase ‘the law and the prophets’ (Chapman 2000:
69 n. 237). If the ἱλαστήριον was above all the place where the inner meaning
of the law was disclosed, then this statement takes on a subtle meaning. ‘The
law’ constitutes the starting point for the interpretive action that takes place;

34. For a related but different reading, see Watson 2007: 226ff. and 2015: 43ff.
35. For contemporary iterations of interpretation, see, e.g., Wright 2013; Jewett 2007.
36. This reading also found wide acceptance among the Greek fathers (e.g., Chrysostom, Hom.
Rom. 3.18; Origen, Comm. Rom. 1.15; etc.).
20 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

‘the prophets’, however, provide its hermeneutical key. It has sometimes been
suggested that Paul’s quotation of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17 should be taken as the
basic content of what he describes as the witness of the prophets in Rom. 3.21
(so, e.g., Watson 2015: 64). One good reason for this is the clear link between
the phrase ἐκ πίστεως and Paul’s quotation of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17 (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος
ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται). Campbell has pointed out that ἐκ πίστεως appears over 20
times in Romans and Galatians, both of which also quote Hab. 2.4, but the phrase
and the quotation are otherwise absent from his letters. This ‘perfect correla-
tion’, Campbell argues, gives us reason to think that any instance of ἐκ πίστεως
in Romans and Galatians is meant to draw us back to this quotation. One such
instance is, of course, in Rom. 3.26 (τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ), and Campbell sug-
gests that δία πίστεως in 3.22 should be taken synonymously (2009b: 58-59). We
thus have good reason to link Paul’s quotation of Habakkuk to Rom. 3.21-6, and
it suggests that ‘the prophets’ of 3.21 refers specifically to Hab. 2.4 as a kind of
summary of the prophetic witness, and thus as Paul’s hermeneutical key for the
law. The way in which this key functions is best understood in light of the con-
nection between Paul’s quotation of Hab. 2.4 and his later quotation of Lev. 18.5
in Rom. 10.5: ‘For Moses writes concerning the righteousness that is from the
law, “The person who does these things will live by them (ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς)”’
(Shepherd 2018: 329-30; Watson 2015). The function of the ἱλαστήριον as a site
of the law’s reinterpretation suggests that Hab. 2.4 is being used to interpret Lev.
18.5. Specifically, Habakkuk reveals that faith is what the law requires, that a
person who is righteous by the law is the one who lives by faith.

‘Through the Faith of Jesus Christ’

Faith, then, is the true interpretation of the law, and this interpretation is revealed
‘through the faith of Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 3.22).37 It is true that this gives an
exemplary character to the faith of Christ. Some have cited as evidence against
this Rom. 3.26, which asserts that Christians are righteous ‘from the faith of
Jesus’ (3.26), but this cannot be detached from the implication of v. 23 that all
Christians also have faith. It is considerably less difficult to reconcile these than

37. For the subjective genitive reading of πίστις χριστοῦ on which this reading depends, see
Campbell 2009b and Hays 2002. Campbel l– addressing a different reading of the passage
– claims that it makes little sense to say that faith ‘discloses or reveals the “righteousness of
God” in instrumental terms. “Faith” simply does not function as the means by which some-
thing moves from a position of invisibility to one of visibility, from the unknown to the known
…’ (2009b: 68). This objection has little force against the present reading. There is nothing
‘meaningless or ungrammatical’ (Campbell 2009b: 69) about saying that the righteousness
of God – that is, what he regards as fulfilling the law, which is faith – is revealed through the
faith of Jesus Christ.
Porter 21

it is sometimes thought to be.38 Christ is the one from whose faith Christians are
righteous, not because he alone has faith or has a faith that is categorically differ-
ent from ours, but because he is the wellspring of our own faith; his trust in God
is formally constitutive of the relation between God and Christ-followers. But
he is not exemplary of a faith that can be isolated from his own person, for it is
precisely the faith of Christ, manifested above all in his unwavering trust in God
even in the face of a brutal death, that acts as the paradigm of Christian trust.39
This is, indeed, at the heart of Paul’s understanding of salvation and participation
(Nikkanen 2018; Gorman 2015, 2019): ‘We are heirs of God, and fellow heirs
with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with
him’ (Rom. 8.17). Jesus’ death in its exemplarity does not point to some more
general paradigm, but this does not imply that his death in its particularity cannot
be paradigmatic. It means only that his exemplarity must be understood as irre-
ducibly participative. Paul captures this by modifying ἱλαστήριον with the phrase
διὰ πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι, ‘through faith in his blood’ (3.25) – through,
that is, the faith that was supremely manifested in his bloody death. ‘Blood’ is
connected to the ἱλαστήριον because it is the means by which Christ is displayed
as the place of God’s self-revelation. It is through his bloody death and through
the faith demonstrated in it that God proclaims his authoritative interpretation of
the law.40

‘A Display of his Righteousness’

The twin claims that God’s revelatory act was ‘for a display of his righteousness’
(3.25, 26), in light of the interpretation offered here of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, refer not
to a demonstration that God is righteous because he has been propitiated (so Moo
1996), but to a demonstration of what he regards as righteousness in humans,
namely, faith. The demonstration is ‘on account of the overlooking of previous
sins in the forbearance of God (διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων
ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ)’ (3.25-26) because it shows that the sinners whom God
justified had in fact fulfilled the law, which ultimately required faith for right-
eousness. The accusative could be read instrumentally (so Campbell 2009a), but
it is more naturally and more frequently read in a causal sense (e.g., Moo 1996),
which suggests that God’s overlooking of past sins motivated this demonstration

38. Especially by defenders of the so-called apocalyptic reading of this text. Käsemann’s anxie-
ties can be seen in his objections to the ‘ethical interpretation’ of Phil. 2.6-11 (1968: 83-88).
39. It is probably correct to identify connotations of martyrdom here (so, e.g., Stowers 1994: 211-
12, who rightly notes that this does not imply sacrifice), but this does not undermine the point
being made. Jesus’ death resonates with martyrological accounts in a way that enriches rather
than undermines its revelatory character.
40. See above for a fuller discussion of the problematic character of metonymic readings that rely
on the phrase ‘in his blood’.
22 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 00(0)

of righteousness. However, God’s demonstration of righteousness was not a mat-

ter of proving that he had faithfully dealt out the penalties required by the law,
but a manifestation of what truly counted as righteousness in a human being, and
hence why he had been right to overlook what appeared to be transgressions. A
clear illustration of this, as we have already seen, is to be found in Num. 9.1-10.
God ‘overlooked’ the inclusion of unclean persons in the celebration of Passover
because of an act of reinterpretation, one that penetrated to the heart of the law,
despite the fact that this permission appeared to break the law that excluded
unclean people from the festival.
I have offered a preliminary argument for the coherence of the revelatory
reading of ἱλαστήριον, but more remains to be said. The decisive argument in its
favor, however, lies in the untenability of alternative readings. Most writers rec-
ognize that metaphorical readings cannot be sustained and, as we have seen,
metonymic readings of the word rely on arbitrary decisions about the target
domain of the metonymic vehicle that are otherwise unattested in Second Temple
Jewish texts. Both of these also overlook clear evidence of a very different inter-
pretive possibility found throughout the LXX and other Second Temple texts,
one that accords well with the revelatory motifs of Rom. 3.21-26. The balance of
evidence suggests that this interpretation of the word merits considerably greater
attention than it is normally given.41

ORCID iD
Nathan Porter https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7214-7114

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