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propitiation, noun  Although the word propitiation does not appear in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, it is familiar to many Christians through their worship and their reading of the King James Version.  In the seventeenth century, the English translators chose propitiation to translate three Greek words that suggest appeasement because they are rooted in the Greek hilaos, as is hilaros, meaning cheerful.  Recent translators, however, have preferred to use atone or atonement¹.  Their reasoning seems to be that when  these three words occur in the early Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, they stand for Hebrew words related to kaphar, such as kippur, meaning to cover.  For example, the cover (that is, the lid) for the ark of the covenant is called the kapporeth.  In most instances, however, kaphar and its derivatives appear in English as atone or atonement or other words suggesting pardon or forgiveness rather than propitiation.

 hilasterion

        Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.  [Romans 3:24-25, KJV

         And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and
            a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the
            breadth thereof.  ─ kapporeth  [Exodus 25:17, KJV]

hilaskomai

          He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.  [I John 2:2, KJV]

          Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake. ─ kaphar   [Psalm 79:9, KJV]

 hilasmos

         Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  [I John  4:10, KJV]

         Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. ─ kippur  [Leviticus 25:9, KJV] 

Although modern translators have recoiled at the idea of God’s being appeased by the death of Jesus, the question remains as to how well the early Greek-speaking Christians understood the Hebrew concept of  covering sins.²  If Paul and the author of the first letter attributed to John knew their scriptures only in Greek, they might well have been using a metaphor that suggested trying to put a grumpy God into a better mood.  If they were familiar with the Hebrew Bible, however, they would have been using a metaphor that suggested putting a cover over anything ugly or disgusting in the past so that people could get on with their lives.

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1. For atone and atonement see From Literal to Literary, pp. 33-35
2. For sin, see From Literal to Literary, pp. 231-232

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From Literal to Literary: The Essential Reference Book for Biblical Metaphors