Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 16:22
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
22. The goat that was sent away was a symbol of the entire removal of the sins for which the blood of the sacrificed animals had already made atonement ( Lev 16:14-15 ; Lev 16:18). In Lev 16:20 it is expressly said that the high priest had made an end of atoning.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
22. a solitary land ] Heb. a land cut off, ‘a land not inhabited,’ as A.V., or a land from which return was cut off.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited,…. Where it would never be seen, and from whence it would never return more; and so was a proper type of Christ, who has borne all the sins of all his people in his own body on the cross, and all the punishment due unto them; and so has made full satisfaction for them, and has removed them from them, as far as the east is from the west, and out of the sight of avenging justice; so that when they are sought they shall not be found, nor shall they ever return unto them, or be brought against them any more; see Isa 53:12:
and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness; that is, the man that was appointed to have him thither; and so the Targum of Jonathan,
“and the man shall let go the goat into the wilderness of Zuck; and the goat shall go upon the mountains of Beth Chadure (or Chadudo), and a tempestuous wind from the Lord shall drive him down, and he shall die.”
The manner of conducting this whole affair was this; they made for him a causeway (i.e. for the man that had the goat committed to his care, to have it out of the court, and out of the city), because of the Babylonians, who would pluck him by the hair, and say, Get out, begone, get out, begone. The nobles of Jerusalem accompanied him to the first booth, for there were ten booths from Jerusalem to Zuck, which were ninety furlongs, seven and a half to every mile; at every (i.e. twelve miles) at every booth they said to him, Lo food, lo water, and they accompanied him from booth to booth, excepting the last of them; for there was not one went with him to Zuck, but stood afar off, and observed what he did: what did he do? he parted a scarlet line, half of it he bound to the rock, and half of it he bound between his horns (the goat’s), and pushed him backwards, and he rolled and went down, but before he came half way down the mountain he was dashed to pieces; then he (the man) went and sat under the last booth until it was dark–they said to the high priest, the goat is got to the wilderness; but from whence did they know that the goat was got to the wilderness? they made watchtowers or beacons, and they waved linen cloths, and so knew when the goat was come to the Wilderness k. But the Scripture is entirely silent about the death of this goat, though it no doubt died in the wilderness, only says that it was let go, and was at liberty to go where it would; intimating that the people of Israel were free from all their sins, and they should be no more seen nor remembered; typical of the deliverance and freedom of the people of God from all their sins by Christ. This affair was imitated by Satan among the Heathens, particularly the Egyptians, as has been observed by many out of Herodotus l; who relates, that they used to imprecate many things upon the head of a beast slain for sacrifice, and then carried it to market, where were Grecian merchants, to whom they sold it; but if there were none, they cast it into the river, execrating the head after this manner, that if any evil was to befall either themselves that sacrificed, or all Egypt, it might be turned upon that head. And on account of this custom, which obtained among all the Egyptians, no one among them would ever taste the head of any animal; which Plutarch m also affirms, who says, that having made an execration upon the head of the sacrifice, and cut it off, formerly they cast it into the river, but now they give it to strangers. And a like custom obtained among other nations, as the Massilians and Grecians n.
k Yoma, c. 6. sect. 4, 5, 6, 8. l Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 39. m De Iside & Osir. n Vid. Outram. de Sacrificiis, l. 1. c. 22. sect. 14.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(22) Unto a land not inhabited.Literally, unto a land cut off, that is, a place the ground of which is separated from all around it, hence a summit, a peak standing out by itself, a precipice.
In the wilderness.Where no human beings dwell, but which is the abode of evil spirits. It will be seen that the directions here are simply to conduct the goat into the wilderness, where it is apparently to be let loose to pursue its own course. During the second Temple, however, the authorities decreed that the animal must be destroyed. Accordingly one of the priests who was appointed to execute this mission led the goat to a rock called Zuck, in the wilderness, situate about twelve miles, or ninety furlongs, from Jerusalem. Between the holy city and this steep rock, ten booths were erected at intervals of one mile, and persons were located in every booth to accompany the messenger to the next tent, which was distant a Sabbath days journey. From the last booth to the rock, which was double this distance, the messenger had no companion, but he was carefully watched by the occupants of the last booth to see that he performed the ritual according to the prescribed order. On his arrival at the mountain he divided the crimson thread, which was the badge of the goat, into two; one half he fastened to the rock, and the other he tied between the two horns of the victim, and then pushed the animal down the projecting ledge of the rock, when it was dashed to pieces before it reached the bottom. Hereupon the persons stationed at the last booth to watch the proceedings waved linen cloths or white flags, thus signalling from station to station to the priests in the court of the Temple the arrival of the goat at its proper destination.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
22. Shall bear See extended note, Lev 10:17; Num 9:13.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lev 16:22. The goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities See Isaiah 53. 1Pe 2:24. Many learned writers, and among the rest Dr. Jackson on the Creed, maintain, that our blessed Saviour entered on this great day of atonement on his office of Mediator: for on this day, they assert, he was baptized: and as being then declared by a voice from heaven to be the Son of God, and immediately driven by the spirit into the wilderness, John the Baptist could not but look upon him as the Redeemer typified by the scapegoat: and as he went into the wilderness on the day of atonement, immediately after the people had confessed their sins, John could not but acknowledge that Christ was sent to take upon him the sins of the world, and do them away, by being in a proper season slain as a sacrifice for them. We learn the nature of Christ’s sacrifice very fully from these and the like ceremonies: see Outram de Sacrificiis.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lev 16:22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
Ver. 22. Shall let go the goat. ] The Hebrews say, that he was to throw it down the rock, and so it died. The Grecians had a like custom a in their solemn expiations of their cities. They tumbled the persons devoted from some rock into the sea; sacrificing them to Neptune, saying, Be thou a propitiation for us. b
a Aemulus Dei diabolus.
b Suidas.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Leviticus
‘THE SCAPEGOAT’
Lev 16:22
The import of the remarkable treatment of this goat does not depend on the interpretation of the obscure phrase rendered in the Authorised Version ‘for the scapegoat.’ Leaving that out of sight for the moment, we observe that the two animals were one sacrifice, and that the transaction with the living one was the completion of that with the slain. The sins of the congregation, which had been already expiated by the sacrifice, were laid by the high priest on the head of the goat, which was then sent away into the wilderness that he might ‘bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited’ Lev 16:22. Nothing depends on the fate of the goat, though, in after times, it was forced over a precipice and so killed. The carrying away of expiated sin, and not the destruction of unexpiated sinners, is the meaning of the impressive rite, and, had it been possible, the same goat that was sacrificed would have been sent into the desert. As that could not be done, an ideal unity was established between the two: the one sacrificed represented the fact of expiation, the one driven away represented the consequences of expiation in the complete removal of sin. The expiation was made ‘within the veil’; but a visible token of its completeness was given to help feeble faith, in the blessed mystery of the unseen propitiation. What was divided in the symbol between the twin goats is all done by the one Sacrifice, who has entered into the holiest of all, at once Priest and Sacrifice, and with His own blood made expiation for sin, and has likewise carried away the sin of the world into a land of forgetfulness, whence it never can return.
The clear meaning of the rite is thus obtained, whatever be the force of the difficult phrase already referred to. ‘Scapegoat’ is certainly wrong. But it may be questioned whether the Revised Version is right in retaining the Hebrew word untranslated, and, by putting a capital letter to it, marking it as a proper name ‘for Azazel’. The word occurs only here, so that we have no help from other passages. It seems to come from a root meaning ‘to drive away,’ and those who take it to be a proper name, generally suppose it to refer to some malignant spirit, or to Satan, and interpret it as meaning ‘a fiend whom one drives away,’ or, sometimes, ‘who drives away.’ The vindication of such an interpretation is supposed to lie in the necessity of finding a complete antithesis in the phrase to the ‘for Jehovah’ of the previous clause in Lev 16:8 . But it is surely sacrificing a good deal to rhetorical propriety to drag in an idea so foreign to the Pentateuch, and so opposed to the plain fact, that both goats were one sin offering Lev 16:5, in order to get a pedantically correct antithesis. In the absence of any guidance from usage, certainty as to the meaning of the word is unattainable. But there seems no reason, other than that of the said antithesis, against taking it to mean removal or dismissal, rather than ‘a remover.’ The Septuagint translates it in both ways: as a person in Lev 16:8 , and as ‘sending away’ in Lev 16:10 . If the latter meaning be adopted, then the word just defines the same purpose as is given more at length in Lev 16:22 , namely, the carrying away of the sins of the congregation. The logical imperfection of the opposition in Lev 16:8 would then be simply enough solved by the fact that while both goats were ‘for the Lord,’ one was destined to be actually offered in sacrifice, and the other to be ‘for dismissal.’ The incomplete contrast testifies to the substantial unity of the two, and needs no introduction, into the most sacred rite of the old covenant, of a ceremony which looks liker demon-worship than a parable of the great expiation for a world’s sins.
The question for us is, What spiritual ideas are contained in this Levitical symbolism? There is signified, surely, the condition of approach to God. Remember how the Israelites had impressed on their minds the awful sanctity of ‘within the veil.’ The inmost shrine was trodden once a year only by the high priest, and only after anxious lustrations and when clothed in pure garments, he entered ‘with sacrifice and incense lest he die.’ This ritual was for a gross and untutored age, but the men of that age were essentially like ourselves, and we have the same sins and spiritual necessities as they had.
The two goats are regarded as one sacrifice. They are a ‘sin offering.’ Hence, to show how unimportant and non-essential is the distinction between them, the ‘lot’ is employed; also, while the one is being slain, the other stands before the ‘door of the Tabernacle.’ This shows that both are parts of one whole, and it is only from the impossibility of presenting both halves of the truth to be symbolised in one that two are taken. The one which is slain represents the sacrifice for sin. The other represents the effects of that sacrifice. It is never heard of more. ‘The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world.’ ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.’
I. The perfect removal of all sin is thus symbolised.
Was it exaggerated or right?
The same consciousness is part of all of us, but how overlaid! how stifled!
That consciousness once awakened has in it these elements-a bitter sense of sin as mine, involving guilt; despair as to whether I can ever overcome it; and fearful thoughts of my relation to God which conscience itself brings.
2 The futility of all attempts to remove these fears.
False religions have next to nothing to say about forgiveness. Sacrifices and lustrations they have, but no assurance of absolution. Systems of philosophy and morals have nothing to say but that the universe goes crashing on, and if you have broken its laws you must suffer. That is all, or only the poor cheer of ‘Well! you have fallen, get up and go on again!’ So men often drug themselves into forgetfulness. They turn away from the unwelcome subject, and forget it at the price of all moral earnestness and often of all happiness; a lethargic sleep or a gaiety, as little real as that of the Girondins singing in their prison the night before being led out to the guillotine.
It is only God’s authoritative revelation that can ensure the cure, only He can assure us of pardon, and of the removal of all barriers between ourselves and His love. Only His word can ensure, and His power can effect, the removal of the consequences of our sins. Only His word can ensure, and His power effect, the removal of the power of evil on our characters.
3 Still the question, Can guilt ever be cancelled? often assumes a fearful significance. Doubtless much seems to say that it cannot be.
a The irrevocableness of the past.
b The rigid law of consequences in this world.
c The indissoluble unity of an individual life and moral nature, confirmed by the experience of failure in all attempts at reformation of self.
d The consciousness of disturbed relations with God, and the prophecy of judgment. All this that ancient symbol suggested. The picture of the goat going away, and away, and away, a lessening speck on the horizon, and never heard of more is the divine symbol of the great fact that there is full, free, everlasting forgiveness, and on God’s part, utter forgetfulness. ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.’ ‘I will remember them no more at all for ever.’
II. The bearing away of sin is indissolubly connected with sacrifice.
Two goats were provided, of which one was offered for a sin offering, indicating that sacrifice came first; then the removal of sin was symbolised by the sending away of the second goat. There is an evident reference to this sequence in the words ‘without shedding of blood there is no remission.’ The two goats represent Christ’s work; the one in its essence, the other in its effect.
The one teaches that sacrifice is a necessary condition of pardon. Forgiveness was not given because the offerer confessed his guilt or because ‘God was merciful,’ but because the goat had been slain as a sin offering. There is deep spiritual truth for us in this symbolism. We do not need to enter on the philosophy of atonement, but simply to rest on the fact-that the only authority on which we can be sure of forgiveness at all indissolubly associates the two things, sacrifice and pardon. We have no reason to believe in forgiveness except from the Bible record and assurance.
Was the Mosaic ritual a divinely appointed thing? If so, its testimony is conclusive. But even if it were only the embodiment of human aspirations and wants, it would be a strong evidence of the necessity of some such thing as forgiveness.
The shallow dream that God’s forgiveness can be extended without a sacrifice having been offered does not exalt but detracts from the divine character. It invariably leads to an emasculated abhorrence of evil, and detracts from the holiness of God, as well as introduces low thoughts of the greatness of forgiveness and of the infinite love of God.
III. The bearing away of sin is associated with man’s laying of his sins on the sacrifice appointed by God.
Then the method by which that possibility is realised is the laying hands on the scapegoat and confessing the sins upon it. The sins which are actually forgiven, by virtue of the atonement made for all sins, are those which it bears away to the wilderness.
This answers, point for point, to repentance and faith. By these the possibility is turned into an actuality for as many as believe on Christ.
Christ has died for sin. Christ has made atonement by which all sin may be forgiven; whether any shall actually be forgiven depends on something else. It is conceivable that though Christ died, no sin might be pardoned, if no man believed. His blood would not, even then, have been shed in vain, for the purpose of it would have been fully effected in providing a way by which any and all sin could be forgiven. So that the whole question whether any man’s sin is pardoned turns on this, Has he laid his hand on Christ? Faith is only a condition of forgiveness, not a cause, or in itself a power. There was no healing in the mere laying of the hand on the head of the goat.
It was not faith which was the reason for forgiveness, but God’s love which had provided the sacrifice.
God’s will is not a bare will to pardon, nor a bare will to pardon for Christ’s sake, but for Christ’s sake to pardon them who believe. ‘Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.’ ‘Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’ ‘Through this Man is preached the remission of sins.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
shall bear = shall bear away, as Isa 53:4.
land not inhabited. Hebrew “a land cut off”.
let go. This is the point of the type. The live goat was sent away, not in judgment or atonement, but in peace and at liberty. “All” had already been atoned for in the death of the other goat (Lev 16:10). Now he was free to go into the land of forgetfulness, where their “sins and iniquities are remembered no more” (Isa 43:25. Jer 31:34). The scapegoat goes forth to ‘Azazel, all enemies thus personified (Heb 2:14), proclaiming, “Who is he that condemneth? “(Rom 8:33, Rom 8:34). Not in fear of death, but saying, “Who dares to kill me? “It is the lesson, over again, of the “two birds” in Ch. Lev 14:51-53, applied to the whole nation. It is a type of those who are “risen with Christ” (Col 3:1), i.e. made alive again in His resurrection life. Tradition treats this second goat as loaded with sin and sent out to destruction; whereas “all” is “atoned” for and is therefore “forgiven” and liberty enjoyed before it was sent away.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The Scapegoat
The goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land.Lev 16:22.
I
The Day of Atonement
This is part of the ritual of the Day of Atonement. Now the Day of Atonement represents the culminating institution of the Levitical system. Not only, from a merely formal point of view, does Leviticus 16 form the climax of the sacrificial and purificatory ordinances contained in Leviticus 1-15, but the ceremonial itself is of a peculiarly comprehensive and representative character. It was a yearly atonement for the nation as a whole (including the priests); and not only for the nation, but also for the sanctuary, in its various parts, in so far as this had been defined during the past year by the sins of the people in whose midst it stood.
In Rabbinical literature the Day of Atonement becomes practically the great Day of Repentance, the culmination of the Ten Days of Repentance. It brings with itself purification, the Father in Heaven making white the sin committed by the son, by His forgiveness and pardon. It is the Day of the Lord, great and very terrible, inasmuch as it becomes a day of judgment, but also the Day of Salvation. Israel is steeped in sin through the Evil Yezer in their body, but they do repentance and the Lord forgives their sins every year, and renews their heart to fear Him. On the Day of Atonement I will create you a new creation. It is thus a penitential day in the full and in the best sense of the word.1 [Note: S. Schechter.]
The Talmudical treatise on the ritual of the Day of Atonement is entitled Yoma, the day, which sufficiently expresses its importance in the series of sacrificial observances. It was the confession of the incompleteness of them all, a ceremonial proclamation that ceremonies do not avail to take away sin; and it was also a declaration that the true end of worship is not reached till the worshipper has free access to the holy place of the Most High. Thus the prophetic element is the very life-breath of this supreme institution of the old covenant, which therein acknowledges its own defects, and feeds the hopes of a future better thing.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
II
The Two Goats
1. On this day the Congregation of Israel brought two goats for the purpose of atonement. For these, lots were cast at the door of the sanctuary, one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for Azazel. The one on which the lot of Jehovah fell was then slain as a sin-offering. The other was brought before God to make atonement over it, to send it away for Azazel into the wilderness. Then, after the sins of the congregation had been confessed, this animal was made the bearer of all the sins of the now reconciled Israel, and was led away into the wilderness and there let loose in a solitary land.
Most solemn as the services had hitherto been, the worshippers would chiefly think with awe of the high-priest going into the immediate presence of God, coming out thence alive, and securing for them by the blood the continuance of the Old Testament privileges of sacrifices and of access unto God through them. What now took place concerned them, if possible, even more nearly. Their own personal guilt and sins were now to be removed from them, and that in a symbolical rite, at one and the same time the most mysterious and the most significant of all. All this while the scapegoat, with the scarlet-tongue, telling of the guilt it was to bear, had stood looking eastwards, confronting the people, and waiting for the terrible load which it was to carry away unto a land not inhabited. Laying both his hands on the head of this goat, the high-priest now confessed and pleaded: Ah, Jehovah! they have committed iniquity; they have transgressed; they have sinnedThy people, the house of Israel. Oh, then, Jehovah! cover over (atone for), I intreat Thee, upon their iniquities, their transgressions, and their sins, which they have wickedly committed, transgressed, and sinned before TheeThy people, the house of Israel. As it is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, saying: For on that day shall it be covered over (atoned) for you, to make you clean; from all your sins before Jehovah, ye shall be cleansed. And while the prostrate multitude worshipped at the name of Jehovah, the high-priest turned his face towards them as he uttered the last words, Ye shall be cleansed! as if to declare to them the absolution and remission of their sins. Then a strange scene would be witnessed. The priests led the sin-burdened goat out through Solomons Porch, and, as tradition has it, through the eastern gate, which opened upon the Mount of Olives. Here an arched bridge spanned the intervening valley, and over it they brought the goat to the Mount of Olives, where one, specially appointed for the purpose, took him in charge. Tradition enjoins that he should be a stranger, a non-Israelite, as if to make still more striking the type of Him who was delivered over by Israel unto the Gentiles. Scripture tells us no more of the destiny of the goat that bore upon him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, than that they shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, and that he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. But tradition supplements this information. The distance between Jerusalem and the beginning of the wilderness is computed at ninety stadia, making precisely ten intervals, each half a Sabbath-days journey from the other. At the end of each of these intervals there was a station, occupied by one or more persons, detailed for the purpose, who offered refreshment to the man leading the goat, and then accompanied him to the next station. By this arrangement two results were secured: some trusted persons accompanied the goat all along his journey, and yet none of them walked more than a Sabbath-days journeythat is, half a journey going and the other half returning. At last they reached the edge of the wilderness. Here they halted, viewing afar off, while the man led forth the goat, tore off half the scarlet-tongue, and stuck it on a projecting cliff; then, leading the animal backwards, he pushed it over the projecting ledge of rock. There was a moments pause, and the man, now defiled by contact with the sin-bearer, retraced his steps to the last of the ten stations, where he spent the rest of the day and the night. But the arrival of the goat in the wilderness was immediately telegraphed, by the waving of flags, from station to station, till, a few minutes after its occurrence, it was known in the Temple, and whispered from ear to ear, that the goat had borne upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited.1 [Note: Edersheim, The Temple, 317.]
2. What, then, was the meaning of a rite on which such momentous issues depended? Everything about it seems strange and mysteriousthe lot that designated it, and that to Azazel, the fact that, though the highest of all sin-offerings, it was neither sacrificed nor its blood sprinkled in the Temple; and the circumstance that it really was only part of a sacrificethe two goats together forming one sacrifice, one of them being killed, and the other let go, there being no other analogous case of the kind except at the purification of a leper, when one bird was killed, and the other dipped in its blood, and let go free. For the common worshipper, then, the broad impression of this Day of Atonement was that the sins of the people were not only atoned for by the death of a victim, but separated from them and banished to forgetfulness through the same offering in another phase. While in the typical sacrifice this could be effected only by means of two victims, in the eternal reality to which it pointed the one Saviour who died and rose again becomes at once the atoning Sacrifice and the risen Sanctifier by whom our sin is removed.
These two goats were not for Aaron, but for the people. We must regard them as if they were but one offering, for it needed both of them to set forth the divine plan by which sin is put away; one was to die, and the other was typically to bear away the sins of the people. One goat was to show how sin is put away in reference to God by sacrifice, and the other goat was to show how it is put away in reference to us, Gods people, by being carried into oblivion.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
Man hath not done anything on the day of sacrifice more pleasing to God than spilling blood; for verily the animal sacrificed will come on the day of resurrection with its horns, its hair, its hoofs, and will make the scale of his good actions heavy: and verily its blood reacheth the acceptance of God, before it falleth upon the ground: therefore be joyful in it.2 [Note: Saying of Muhammad.]
III
For Azazel
1. Of the two goats it is stated (Exo 16:8) that the one was for Jehovah, the other for Azazel (R.V.; the A.V. uses here the word scapegoat). Azazel is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, and its meaning is much disputed. In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Azazel is a spirit, the leader of the evil angels who formed unholy alliances with the daughters of men (Gen 6:2; Gen 6:4). But whatever the precise attributes with which Azazel was invested at the time when the ritual of Leviticus 16 was framed, there can be little doubt that the ceremonial was intended as a symbolical declaration that the land and people are now purged from guilt, their sins being handed over to the evil spirit to whom they are held to belong, and whose home is in the desolate wilderness, remote from human habitations (Exo 16:22, into a land cut off). No doubt the rite is a survival from an older stage of popular belief, engrafted on, and accommodated to, the sacrificial system of the Hebrews. For the expulsion of evils, whether maladies or sins, from a community, by their being laid symbolically upon a material medium, there are many analogies in other countries. The belief in goblins, or demons (Jinn), haunting the wilderness and vexing the traveller, is particularly common in Arabia: in the Old Testament it is found in Lev 17:7; Isa 13:21; Isa 34:14 (satyrs, lit. he-goats, and Lilith, the night-monster). Azazel must have been such a spirit, sufficiently distinguished from the rest, in popular imagination, to receive a special name, and no doubt invested with attributes which, though unknown to us, were perfectly familiar to those for whom the ceremonial of Leviticus 16 was first designed.
The rendering of the A.V., scapegoat, inherited from the Great Bible of 1539, may be traced back through Seb. Mnster (caper abiturus), Coverdale (the free goat), Luther (der ledige Bock), and Jerome (caper emissarius) to the Greek translation of Symmachus; but it implies a derivation opposed to the genius of the Hebrew language, besides being inconsistent with the marked antithesis between for Azazel and for Jehovah, which does not leave it open to doubt that the former is conceived as a personal being, to whom (cf. Exo 16:26) the goat is sent. All the principal modern authorities agree in explaining Azazel as a personal name. Scapegoat is, however, a felicitous expression; it has become classical in English; and there is no reason why it should not be retained as a term descriptive of the goat sent into the wilderness, provided it be clearly understood that it is in no way a rendering of the Hebrew.1 [Note: S. R. Driver.]
2. The Jewish rite presents marks of strong kinship with similar rites which are still observed in every part of the world. It was originally a rite of exorcism, and was modified into an object-parable of those great ethical lessons which God wished to impress upon the conscience of the chosen people, and in due time upon the human race. On the four great continents, and in many islands of the sea, it is carried out, with the variation due to local conditions, at fixed seasons of the year, or in times of epidemic. In some form or other it must have been in vogue before the dispersion of the primitive races, or at least have been suggested by ideas common to mankind in the cradle-lands of the prehistoric dawn. It was practised amongst unlettered and classical races alike, and in some parts of Europe variant types of the ceremony have survived the spread of the Christian faith.
In some of the islands of South-Eastern Asia the ceremony is found in one of its most elementary forms. The custom has, of course, adapted itself to conditions where domestic animals are unknown and the inland areas present no deserts into which a scape-victim bearing the ills of the people could be dismissed. A ship is prepared on board which rice, eggs, and tobacco are placed, whilst a priest cries out: All ye sicknesses, measles, agues, depart! The ship is carried down to the shore, launched when a breeze begins to blow from off the land, and left to drift out to sea. The priest then cries out, All the sicknesses are gone! and the people who had shut themselves up in their homes through fear come forth again with a sense of relief. In the inland parts of the island the priests brush the people with branches of trees which are supposed to gather up all the evil influences that cleave to their bodies, and then throw the infected branches into the river to be carried out to sea.
A tribe of American Indians make white dogs their scape-victims, and drive them off into the prairie, whilst another tribe paint a man black to represent a demon and at last chase him from the village. A similar custom prevails amongst the aborigines of the Chinese Highlands. In times of epidemic a man is chosen for the victim, his face is smeared with paint, and with curses and tomtoms he is then driven forth from the hamlet and forbidden to return.1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]
3. The Jewish religion took hold upon a truth in this crude observance common to all races, and taught the multitude to look for release from sin by one who should be made sin for them. In the prefigurative ceremony the burden of the assemblys sin was transferred to a pair of victims, one of which was slain at the altar where its life was offered to an offended God, whilst the other was driven forth into the wilderness, carrying into inaccessible places the burden placed upon it. The principle needed fine definitions and careful safeguards in the after-ages, but it expressed a rough and enduring truth without which social and religious life are alike impossible. The vicarious principle is not ordained to compromise or destroy responsibility, but the denial of its presence and working, within divinely appointed limits, involves the denial of that providential order under which mankind is placed.
But how is the modern world to be taught the vicarious principle when it has so little knowledge of the meaning of sin? No doubt ignorance of the nature of sin is largely due to ignorance of the Bible. Holman Hunt tells us his experience of this double ignorance when he returned from Palestine with his great picture, The Scapegoat.
Mr. Gambart, the picture-dealer, was ever shrewd and entertaining. He came in his turn to my studio, and I led him to The Scapegoat.
What do you call that?
The Scapegoat.
Yes; but what is it doing?
You will understand by the title, Le bouc errant.
But why errant? he asked.
Well, there is a book called the Bible, which gives au account of the animal. You will remember.
No, he replied; I never heard of it.
Ah, I forgot, the book is not known in France, but English people read it more or less, I said, and they would all understand the story of the beast being driven into the wilderness.
You are mistaken. No one would know anything about it, and if I bought the picture it would be left on my hands. Now, we will see, replied the dealer. My wife is an English lady; there is a friend of hers, an English girl, in the carriage with her. We will ask them up; you shall tell them the title; we will see. Do not say more.
The ladies were conducted into the room.
Oh, how pretty! what is it? they asked.
It is The Scapegoat, I said.
There was a pause. Oh yes, they commented to one another, it is a peculiar goat; you can see by the ears, they droop so.
The dealer then, nodding with a smile towards me, said to them, It is in the wilderness.
The ladies: Is that the wilderness now? Are you intending to introduce any others of the flock? And so the dealer was proved to be right, and I had over-counted on the pictures intelligibility.1 [Note: W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, ii. 107.]
4. This rite also provided a form of absolution which comforted the conscience-stricken Israelite, and gave fresh courage to his soul. It addressed itself to the imagination, and accomplished this specific end in a more vivid and impressive way than the common sacrifices of the tabernacle. This action-parable, in which perhaps there was much of condescension to the superstition of the age, helped men to feel that the load of guilt was gone, that clouds of gathering wrath had been dispersed, and that the sky from which God looked down was fair and smiling once more. In many places where similar rites were observed, the people crouched with fear in their houses, and some trace of this feature of the custom appears in the Book of Leviticus, which forbade the people entering into the tabernacle whilst the goat for sacrifice was being offered. When the rite had been accomplished, men and women breathed freely once more, as though the world were no longer a place of penalty and a prison-house. The sense of fear was dispelled from the heart as the dim figure of the man leading the scapegoat disappeared over the tops of the hills, and no news of the year was received with greater gladness than the word signalled back to the city that the victim with its burden had passed into the waste wilderness. The rite was obviously adopted to keep alive the expectation of a time when evil should be cast forth into the desolate spaces of the Universe, and the last trace of sin and its curse should be taken away from the city and the people of God. The ceremony was surely a prophecy in symbol of the true Day of Atonement, when the Man of Gods choice should carry the burdens of the race into the land of forgetfulness and gracious oblivion.
No sins are reckoned against us by God; on His side they are all put awayin relation to Him they have no existence. Hence our Lord says (Mat 9:2): Son, be of good cheer, thy sins have been done away. Sonfor He is speaking to him as to a child of God, and tells him, without any solicitation on his part, an eternal fact, viz.that his sins have no existence as in the mind or eye of God. The same truth is expressed in the parable of the prodigal sonthere is no reckoning of sin against the prodigal on the fathers side.1 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 71.]
Rest, weary heart!
The penalty is borne, the ransom paid,
For all thy sins full satisfaction made!
Strive not to do thyself what Christ has done,
Claim the free gift, and make the joy thine own;
No more by pangs of guilt and fear distrest,
Rest! calmly rest!
IV
Sacrifice and Separation
Once a year the sins of the people were thus solemnly atoned for, and the nations lost holiness was restored (Exo 16:30, to cleanse you: from all your sins shall ye be clean before Jehovah). The slain goat made atonement for the peoples sins, and restored their peace and fellowship with God; the goat over which the peoples sins were confessed, and which was afterwards sent away to Azazel in the wilderness, symbolized visibly their complete removal from the nations midst (Psa 103:12; Mic 7:19): a life was given up for the altar, and yet a living being survived to carry away all sin and uncleanness: the entire ceremonial thus symbolized as completely as possible both the atonement for sin and the entire removal of the cause of Gods alienation.
1. Sacrifice.No specific mention is made of this rite in the subsequent books of the Bible, but it probably coloured the language of the prophet as he portrayed the Suffering Servant of Jehovah, who was despised and rejected, and from whom men hid their faces. The iniquity of the erring flock laid by a Divine hand upon His sacred person suggests the picture of the high priest transferring the common sin to the scape-victim by words of confession and the laying on of his hands. When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews asserts that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sin, he perhaps has in view at the moment the offerings of the great Day of Atonement. This rite of course is included without express mention in the statement that the meaning of all sacrifice is consummated and fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ. Our Lord gathers up into His ministry and death the peculiar lines of thought indicated in this ceremony. In setting Himself to deal with the problem of suffering by first of all attacking the problem of sin, Jesus was bringing home to the multitude the fundamental lesson of this ancient ritual.
2. Separation.We can almost see the figure of the scape-victim, looming through the shadows of the night, as Matthew describes the great healer casting out devils when the sick were brought to His feet in the Sabbath twilight. The evangelist seems to see the sicknesses He healed transferred to His weary form, and weighting His sympathetic soul, and sums up the picture in the memorable words of the prophet, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. In Jesus Christ the rite comes back into some kind of external likeness to the primitive form, but with an unutterable difference, a difference consisting in an overwhelming contrast rather than a comparison. The scape-victim is the Man of Sorrows, chosen not by lot, but by the decree of the Most High, proclaimed through signs and wonders which God did by Him in the midst of the people. He is selected, if we may use the contrast without irreverence, not like the victim of primitive societies, who was singled out for the office by a degradation which seemed openly to challenge the wrath of the gods, but because of His transcendent dignity and holiness. It is no slave or war-captive who is dragged to this pathetic and ignominious ministry, but the Lord of heaven and the Prince of the kings of the earth, drawn by His own free compassions for the guilty and burdened race, made a curse to redeem us from the curse which cleaves to all offenders against God.
Unto a solitary land. The solitude of the Sin-bearer is something altogether distinct from the solitude of the Holy One. In His human life, our blessed Lord was, in a certain sense, solitary for this simple reason that He moved on a higher platform than others. He did not find Himself able to educate His own most intimate followers into sympathy with His own real aspirations, or to bring them under the law of life, under which He moved and acted. They remained of the earth, earthy, while He was above it, breathing a purer atmosphere, and living by a higher law. This solitude of holiness separated Him from sinners: but that very separation which, from time to time, made Him lead, in His humanity, a strange lonesome life, yet brought Him into such full contact with all the glorious beings and the realities of the spirit-world, that such a solitude could hardly be looked upon with any considerable regret, or be the source of any actual pain. But it was otherwise now. We are speaking, not of the solitude of the Representative of holiness and purity, but of the solitude of the Sin-bearer, because He was the sin-bearer.1 [Note: W. H. M. H. Aitken.]
It was a weary journey that the scapegoat took. It left the fertile fields, and the babbling brooks of Israel, far behind: the distant heights of Carmel disappeared on the far-off horizon; before it, there opened up a boundless waste of desert sand, while the fit man trudged on relentlessly, farther, and farther, many a weary mile, and still the scapegoat followed him, bearing the sins of the people. The grassy plains have disappeared; the last palm tree is lost in the distance; the sound of running waters has long since died upon the ear; and all around there is the barren waste of desert sand; and still the man trudges on, and still the scapegoat follows him. All alone in the desolate wilds, all alone in a blighted land, and not inhabited. And then the fit man disappears. He had led the goat into the solitude, and lo, it is left aloneall alone. Wistfully it gazes round on the dreary scene. Oh, for one blade of grass! oh, for one drop of water! Its eyes are strained, its nostrils dilated, if by chance it may catch a breath of something like fertility borne in the gale from the distance: but no. In solitude and weariness it still goes wandering on, and every step it takes, brings it farther, and farther still, into the silent desolate desert: the scapegoat is all alone. The weary day drags out its long hours: the dark and mournful night closes in; the morning sun rises up with blistering heat; its lips are parched, its limbs are trembling: it sinks amidst the desert sand, and dies. For it must be remembered that it was a late custom that threw it over the rock; at the first it was simply left to die.
And so the scapegoat bore the sins of the people into the land of separation. Leave it there, and come to Calvary.
We seem to see the Scapegoat of the human family led by the hand of the fit man. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God. That same Spirit of God that led Him alone into the wilderness, not that He might find comfort, but that He might meet with temptation, has led Him right up to Jerusalem. He set His face like a flint to go; but still the Spirit led, and still He pursued His leading, until He finds Himself in Gethsemane. The terrible darkness is beginning to gather round Him, and the agony to oppress His soul; but the Spirit of God leads on, and the Scapegoat continues to follow. He finds Himself all alone in the judgment hall, separated from those who were dearest to Him, and not one friendly voice raised up on behalf of the dying Son of God: but the Spirit still leads on, and the Scapegoat must still follow. He finds Himself nailed to the cross, and His lips are parched with thirst, and His body quails in agony. Will He not now pause and call for the ten legions of angels? Might He not raise those languid, dying eyes, and demand a draught of the sparkling waters of life from His Fathers hand? But the Spirit still leads on; and the Scapegoat must follow. Deeper and deeper, into the darkness; down into the solitude of sorrow, down into the desolate land not inhabited; and, by and by, from the breaking heart, there rings throughout Gods universe the cry of the Forsaken, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me? The Scapegoat has found the land of separation at last, all alone in the darkness. The isolating influences of sin have done their work. He is shut out from the light of His Fathers eye, or to Himself He seems to be: the joy, the delight of His Life is gone: the blessed fellowship seems broken: there is a horrible sense of loneliness within His heart, and a terrible desolation within His guiltless soul. So He sinks, He staggers, He dies: Jesus, the Forsaken.
And so He bore our sins into the land not inhabited. No witnessing spirit can find them there; no denizen of those dreary regions can rediscover them. They are left amid the wastes of desolation; they are sunk like a stone into the depths of the vast ocean of infinite love. They are lost sight of by man; the very devils of hell cannot rediscover them; the angels find them obliterated from their view, and God Himself has turned His back upon them, and left them in the land of separation.1 [Note: W. H. M. H. Aitken.]
Now have I won a marvel and a Truth;
So spake the soul and trembled, dread and ruth
Together mixed, a sweet and bitter core
Closed in one rind; for I did sin of yore,
But this (so said I oft) was long ago;
So put it from me far away, but, lo!
With Thee is neither After nor Before,
O Lord, and clear within the noon-light set
Of one illimitable Present, yet
Thou lookest on my fault as it were now.
So will I mourn and humble me; yet Thou
Art not as man that oft forgives a wrong
Because he half forgets it, Time being strong
To wear the crimson of guilts stain away;
For Thou, forgiving, dost so in the Day
That shows it clearest, in the boundless Sea
Of Mercy and Atonement, utterly
Casting our pardoned trespasses behind,
No more remembered, or to come in mind;
Set wide from us as East from West away:
So now this bitter turns to solace kind;
And I will comfort me that once of old
A deadly sorrow struck me, and its cold
Runs through me still; but this was long ago.
My grief is dull through age, and friends outworn,
And wearied comforters have long forborne
To sit and weep beside me: Lord, yet Thou
Dost look upon my pang as it were now!1 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]
Literature
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, iii. 267.
Driver (S. R.), in the Dictionary of the Bible, i. 207.
Edersheim (A.), The Temple, 302.
Frazer (J. G.), The Golden Bough, iii. 93.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, 254.
Nestle (Eb.), in the Encyclopdia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 282.
Schechter (S.), Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, 301.
Selby (T. G.), The God of the Patriarchs, 221.
Thomas (N. W.), in Folk-lore, xvii. 258.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
bear upon: Isa 53:11, Isa 53:12, Joh 1:29, Gal 3:13, Heb 9:28, 1Pe 2:24
not inhabited: Heb. of separation, Psa 103:10, Psa 103:12, Eze 18:22, Mic 7:19
Reciprocal: Lev 3:2 – lay Lev 10:17 – to bear Lev 14:7 – let Lev 16:10 – the scapegoat Lev 16:26 – he that Eze 4:4 – thou shalt bear Eze 18:20 – bear Joh 19:17 – went Heb 9:26 – he appeared Heb 10:3 – a remembrance
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
ATONEMENT AND PEACE
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness (margin a land of separation).
Lev 16:22
I. The solitude of the sin-bearer is something altogether distinct from the solitude of the Holy One. The solitude of holiness separated Him from sinners; but that separation, which made Him lead in His humanity a strange, lonesome life, yet brought Him into such full contact with all the glorious beings and the realities of the spirit-world, that such a solitude could hardly be looked upon with any considerable regret, or be the source of actual pain. The solitude of the sin-bearer is different from that of the Representative of holiness and purity.
II. Consider the causes of this solitude.(1) Wherever sin exists, it is an isolating principle. Its tendency is to induce seclusion and separation, to shut the person who is possessed of it from all connection with that which is outside itself. (2) The scape-goat was to bear upon its head all the confessed iniquity of the children of Israel, and to bear it into a land of separation. Christ was the scape-goat of the human family. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read that He, by the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself to God. The scape-goat finds the land of separation at last, all alone in the darkness. He bore our sins into the land not inhabited. No witnessing spirit can find them there; no denizen of those dreary regions can rediscover them. They are lost sight of by man; the angels find them obliterated from their view; and God Himself has turned His back upon them, and left them in the land of separation.
Canon Hay Aitken.
Illustration
(1) The story of the Great Day of Atonement is significant in every verse. The entrance once a year; the changing of the splendid garments of the High Priests dress for the raiment of linen (type of humility and purity); the mingled offerings, sin and burnt, by which Aaron first made an atonement for himself and for his house because they were not what Jesus waspure and harmless and undefiled; and the entrance within the veil with the blood of sprinkling, in utter lonelinesshow full of teaching are all these of the work of Jesus, not for Himself, but for us who comprise His house.
(2) How many books have been written, and how many sermons have been preached, to show how God could be just, and yet justify a sinner; how He had a right to do it, and what were the relations of forgiving mercy to law? These questions are not immaterial, but the spirit of atonement is far more important than its method. The secret tuth is this: crowned suffering, love bearing the penalty away from the transgressor, and securing his recreation. Love bearing love, love teaching love, love inspiring love, love recreating lovethis is the atonement. It is the opening up of elements which bear in them cleansing power, inspiration, aspiration, salvation, immortality. It is the interior working force of atonement that we are most concerned in, though we are apt the feast to concern ourselves with it.
(3) Jesus Christ is the Reality of which both these goats were the shadows. He is the Victim slain for me, the Sacrifice offered once in the end of the world and never needing to be offered again. Moreover, He carries into the wilderness all my iniquitiescarries them far and for ever away from me.
Why should I fear? It is a full salvation I have in Him.
SECOND OUTLINE
In considering the meaning of the particular rites of the day three points appear to be of a very distinctive character
I. The white garments of the high priest.
II. His entrance into the Holy of Holies.
III. The two goats.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us how to apply the first two particulars. The high priest himself, with his person cleansed and dressed in white garments, was the best outward type which a living man could present in his own person of that pure and holy One who was to purify His people and cleanse them from their sins. The two goats at least clearly teach that no single material object could in its nature embrace the whole of the truth which was to be expressed. Hence the slain goat represents the act of sacrifice in which our Redeemer gave up His own life for others to Jehovah, in accordance with the requirements of the Divine law. The goat which carried off its load of sin for complete removal (such is the meaning some assign to Azazel) represents the cleansing influence of faith in that sacrifice. Thus in his degree the devout Israelite might have felt the truth of the Psalmists words, As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. To the devout mind there can be no doubt that the whole spiritual truth has been revealed in historical fact, in the life, death, and resurrection of Him who was made sin for us, who died for us, and who rose again for our justification. This Mediator, it was necessary, should, in some unspeakable manner, unite death and life.
Illustration
(1) It had been a wondrous day from the very first dawn to the last streak of the setting sun. At the third hour of the morning (nine oclock) every street or way of the camp had been trodden by a people going up to peculiar serviceeach moving along, serious and awe-struck. As many as the courts could contain enterspecially aged men and fathers of Israel; the rest stand in thousands near, or sit in groups under green bushes and on little eminences that overlook the enclosing curtains. Some are in the attitude of prayer; some are pondering the book of the law; some, like Hannah, move their lips, though no word is heard; all are ever and again glancing at the altar, and the array of the courts. Even children sit in wonder, and whisper their inquiries to their parents. The morning sacrifice is offered; the priests bullock and ram standing by, and other victims besides. They wait in expectation of what is to follow when the smoke of the morning lamb has melted into the clouds. They see the lots cast on the two goats, the priest enter the sanctuary with his own offering, and return amid the tremblings of Israel, who all feel that they are concerned in his acceptance. They see one goat slain and its blood carried in. The scape-goat is then led down their trembling ranks, out of the camp; and at length Aaron re-appears to their joy. The murmur of delight now spreads along, like the pleasant ruffling of the waters surface in the breeze of summers evenings. The silver trumpets soundthe evening lamb is offered; Israel feels the favour of their God, and returns home to rest under His shadow. O Lord, thou wast angry with me, but Thine anger is turned away and Thou comfortest me.
How intensely interesting to have seen this day kept in later times in Jerusalem! The night before, you would have seen the city become silent and still, as the sun set. No lingerers in the marketno tradersno voice of business. The watchmen that go about the city sing the penitential psalms, reminding themselves of their own and the citys secret sins, seen through the darkness by an all-seeing God: and the Levites from the temple responsively sing as they walk round the courts. As the sun rises over the Mount of Olives, none is seen in the streetsno smoke rises from any dwellingno hum of busy noise; for no work is done on a holy convocation day. The melody of joy and health ascends from the tabernacles of the righteous. But at the hour of morning sacrifice, the city pours out its thousands, who move solemnly towards the Temple, or repair to the heights of Zions towers, or the grassy slopes of Olivet, that they may witness as well as join in all the days devotion. They see the service proceedthey see the scape-goat led awaythey see the priest come out of the holy place; and at this comforting sight every head in the vast, vast multitude is bowed in solemn thankfulness, and every heart moves the lips to a burst of joy. The trumpet for the evening sacrifice sounds; Olivet re-echoes; the people on its bosom see the city and the altar, and weep for very gladness; all know it is the hour for the evening blessing. When the sun set, an angel might have said to his fellow, Look upon Zion, the city of solemnities! behold Jerusalem, a quiet habitation!
(2) Having completed the directions respecting the priest, the writer proceeds with that part of the service which refers to the whole congregation. The two goats (Jewish tradition says they were similar in appearance, size, and value) provided for out of the public treasury, were first of all formally presented before the Lord before the door of the tent of meeting. Lots were cast upon them. In later times the lots were of gold, originally they were of wood. One was engraved for Jehovah, the other for Azazel (compare verse 8, Revised Version). They were put into a little box or urn. Into it the high priest put both his hands and took out a lot in each, while the two goats stood before him, one at the right side and the other on the left. The lot in each hand belonged to the goat in the corresponding position. When the lot for Azazel happened to be in the right hand it was regarded as a good omen. The other lot for the scape-goat. The word in the original, Azazel, is found only in this chapter, and is adopted by the Revised Version. No better meaning has yet been found for it than scape or escape. The twofold teaching under these most suggestive symbols only finds fulfilment in the completed work of the Lord Jesus. The slain goat signified that by His death He suffered the penalty due for sin; by the scape-goat set free, it is signified, that He bore away our sin. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Lev 16:22. Unto a land not inhabited erets gezra, a land cut off separated, remote from intercourse with men. The Seventy render it , untrod, unpassable, a land through which none travelled. The sending away into this desert land the goat, over which the sins of the people had been humbly and penitently confessed, and to which they were figuratively transferred, was certainly a fine and most expressive emblem that, on condition of the repentance of mankind, and their faith in him who was represented by this goat, and was in due time to take away the sins of the world, God would remember their sins and iniquities no more.