Day of Atonement
Day of Atonement
The 19th day of the 7th Jewish month, Tishri (September – October), a day of solemn fast, when, in ancient times, two buck goats were brought to the high priest, who sacrificed one of them for sin, while the other, the scapegoat, was thereafter led forth into the wilderness to carry away all the iniquities of the people.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Day of Atonement
(Hebrew Yom Hakkippurim. Vulgate, Dies Expiationum, and Dies Propitiationis — Leviticus 23:27-28)
The rites to be observed on the Day of Atonement are fully set forth in the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus (cf. Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 23:27-31, 25:9; Numbers 29:7-11). It was a most solemn fast, on which no food could be taken throughout the whole the day, and servile works were forbidden. It was kept on nineteenth day of Tischri, which falls in September/October. The sacrifices included a calf, a ram, and seven lambs (Numbers 29:8-11). But the distinctive ceremony of the day was the offering of the two goats.
He (Aaron) shall make the two buck-goats to stand before Lord, in the door of the tabernacle of the testimony: and casting lots upon them both, one to be offered to the Lord and the other to be the emissary-goat: That whose lot fell to be offered to the Lord, he shall offer for sin: But that whose lot was to be the emissary goat he shall present alive before the Lord, that he may pour out prayers upon him, and let him go into the wilderness . . . After he hath cleansed the sanctuary, and the tabernacle, and the altar, let him offer the living goat: And putting both hands upon his head, let him confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their offences and sins, and praying that they may light on his head, he shall turn him out by a man ready for it, into the desert. And when the goat hath carried all their iniquities into an uninhabited land, and shall be let go into the desert, Aaron shall return into the tabernacle of the testimony. (Leviticus 16:7-10, 20-23). The general meaning of the ceremony is sufficiently shown in the text. But the details present some difficulty. The Vulgate caper emissarius, “emissary goat”, represents the obscure Hebrew word Azazel, which occurs nowhere else in the Bible. Various attempts have been made to interpret its meaning. Some have taken it for the name of a place where the man who took the goat away used to throw it over a precipice, since its return was thought to forbode evil. Others, with better reason, take it for the name of an evil spirit; and in fact a spirit of this name is mentioned in the Apocryphal Book of Henoch, and later in Jewish literature. On this interpretation—which, though by no means new, finds favour with modern critics—the idea of the ceremony would seem to be that the sins were sent back to the evil spirit to whose influence they owed their origin. It has been noted that somewhat similar rites of expiation have prevailed among heathen nations. And modern critics, who refer the above passages to the Priestly Code, and to a post-Exilic date, are disposed to regard the sending of the goat to Azazel as an adaptation of a pre-existing ceremonial.
The significant ceremony observed on this solemn Day of Atonement does but give a greater prominence to that need of satisfaction and expiation which was present in all the ordinary sin-offerings. All these sacrifices for sin, as we learn from the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, were figures of the great Sacrifice to come. In like manner these Jewish rites of atonement speak to us of the Cross of Christ, and of the propitiatory Sacrifice which is daily renewed in a bloodless manner on the Eucharistic Altar. For this reason it may be of interest to note, with Provost Maltzew, that the Jewish prayers used on the Day of Atonement foreshadow the common commemoration of the saints and the faithful departed in our liturgies (Die Liturgien der orthodox-katholischen Kirche des Morgenlandes, 252).
———————————–
W.H. KENT Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Day Of Atonement
SEE ATONEMENT, DAY OF.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
DAY OF ATONEMENT
Only one person, the Israelite high priest, could enter the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle, and he could do so only once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:2; Heb 9:7). This was a day that the Israelites observed as a national day of cleansing from sin. It fell on the tenth day of the seventh month, a few days before the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 16:29-34; Lev 23:27-34; see FEASTS).
Rituals of the day
Throughout the Israelite year, regular sacrificial rituals dealt with sin in various ways. But even the best of these did not enable the offerer, nor even the priests, to come into the sacred presence of God in the Most Holy Place. Therefore, on this one day of the year, when entrance into Gods presence was available, the high priest brought all the peoples sins to God for his forgiveness.
Before offering a sacrifice on behalf of others, the high priest had to offer a sacrifice for himself and his fellow priests. He offered the priests sin offering at the altar in the tabernacle courtyard, after which he took fire from the altar, along with blood from the sacrifice, into the tabernacle-tent. First he used the fire to burn incense in the Holy Place. Then, as he opened the curtain to enter the Most Holy Place, incense floated in and covered the mercy seat (lid of the ark, or covenant box), the symbolic throne of God. The high priest then sprinkled the blood of the slaughtered animal on and in front of the mercy seat (Lev 16:11-14).
On returning to the open courtyard, the high priest repeated the ritual, this time offering the peoples sin offering (Lev 16:15-19). The sprinkling of the blood on the mercy seat reminded Israelites that even at the climax of their highest religious exercise, they could still not demand forgiveness. They could only cast themselves upon the mercy of God.
A second animal was then used in the peoples cleansing ritual, but it was not killed. The high priest laid his hands on the animals head, confessed over it the sins of the people, and sent it far away into the wilderness so that it could never return. This was a further picture to the people that their sins had been removed, though again at the expense of an innocent victim (Lev 16:8-10; Lev 16:20-22).
When the sin-cleansing ritual was finished, the high priest washed himself thoroughly with water. He then offered burnt offerings of consecration, first for the priests and then for the people. At the end of the days activities, any others who had been in contact with the sin offering had also to wash themselves (Lev 16:23-28). (Concerning the different kinds of offerings in the Israelite sacrificial system see SACRIFICE.)
Atonement through Christ
The New Testament emphasizes that, although the Old Testament rituals were of benefit in showing people the seriousness of sin, they could not in themselves remove sin. They were only a temporary arrangement. Now that Christ has come, they are of no further use (Heb 9:6-10).
Jesus Christ, the great high priest, offered not an animal as a sacrifice; he offered himself. Through his sacrificial blood he has entered the presence of God, obtained eternal salvation, and cleansed the repentant sinners conscience (Heb 9:11-14). His one sacrifice has done what all the Israelite sacrifices could not do (Heb 10:11-12). Entrance into the presence of God, which was restricted under the Old Testament system, is now available to all Gods people through their high priest, Jesus Christ (Heb 10:19-22; cf. Heb 9:8).
When the Israelite high priest had completed the sin-cleansing rituals in the tabernacle-tent, he reappeared to the people. Likewise Jesus Christ, having dealt with sin fully and having obtained eternal forgiveness for sins, will reappear to bring his peoples salvation to its glorious climax (Heb 9:12; Heb 9:28; see also BLOOD).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Day Of Atonement
DAY OF ATONEMENT ([ ] [] ).The chief OT passages bearing on it are Leviticus 16; Lev 23:26-32, but some further details are given in Exo 30:10, Lev 25:9, Num 29:7-11. An earlier and simpler form of the ceremony is prescribed in Eze 45:18-20. The day is not mentioned in the Gospels, but it is referred to as in Act 27:9 (also Ep. Barn. 7:3, 4, Josephus Ant. xvii. vi. 4).
1. It is not necessary in the present article to describe fully the ritual and worship of the day; only the salient features are here touched upon which offer some analogy with the Christian Atonement. The more important parts of the ceremony were, briefly, as follows:
(a) The high priest procured and brought before the Tent a bullock as a sin-offering for himself, and two goats upon which lots were cast, one being destined as a sin-offering for the people, and the other to be for Azazel. He sacrificed the bullock, and carried its blood into the Holy of Holies, where, after enveloping the mercy-seat with a cloud of burning incense, he sprinkled the blood before it. He then came out and sacrificed the goat for the people, and, re-entering the Holy of Holies, sprinkled its blood before the mercy-seat. He next sprinkled the blood of each animal on the altar of incense in the Holy Place; and, lastly, he sprinkled the mingled blood of bullock and goat on the brazen altar in the outer court. Thus the blood (the life) of the animals, representing the life of priest and people, was offered before God; and they, and the three parts of the Tent polluted by their presence during the preceding year, were cleansed, and atonement was made for them.
(b) The goat for Azazel was then brought near. The sins of the people were confessed over it, and it was led into the wilderness. The two goats were intended figuratively to represent one and the same being, who, though sacrificed, was yet living, and able to carry away the sins of the people. In the Mishna (Ym vi. 1, cf. Ep. Barn. 7:6) this thought was afterwards emphasized by the regulation that the goats must resemble each other as closely as possible.
(c) The high priest offered two rams as a burnt-offering for himself and the people, signifying the complete offering up of the worshippers lives and persons to God.
(d) The skin, flesh, and dung of the bullock and the goat, whose blood had made atonement, were burnt outside the camp.
2. The great spiritual truths typified by this ceremony are to a certain extent drawn out in Heb 9:7-14; Heb 9:21-28; Heb 10:19-22.
(a) The high priest entered into the second [part of the Tent] once a year ( , i.e. on one day in the year), Heb 9:7. But Christ entered into the Holies once for all (, Heb 9:12); and see Heb 9:24 f., Heb 10:11 f. Thus His bloodi.e. His life freed for eternal uses by deathis perpetually presented before God.
(b) The earthly holies are made with hands, types corresponding to the real ones ( ). But Christ entered into heaven itself, Heb 9:24.
(c) The high priest entered in the blood of another (Heb 9:25)with the accompaniment of [by means of, ] the blood of goats and calves: Christ, with His own blood, Heb 9:12. And the Tent, the copies () of the things in the heavens, must be purified with the former: but the heavenly things with better sacrifices than these, Heb 9:23. With regard to the meaning of this, Westcott says: It may be said that even heavenly things, so far as they embody the conditions of mans future life, contracted by the Fall something which required cleansing. Man is, according to the revelation in Scripture, so bound up with the whole finite order, that the consequences of his actions extend through creation in some way which we are unable to define.
(d) The sacrifices of the Day of Atonement (and other sacrificesthe ashes of an heifer, see Numbers 19) can effect only the purifying of the flesh; i.e. outward ceremonial cleansing. But if they can effect that, a fortiori the blood of Christ can purify our consciences from the defiling contact of dead works, Heb 9:13 f.
(e) The high priest entered alone; which fact signified that while the first Tent continued to have a standing among men ( ), the way for all men into the Holies was not yet manifested, Heb 9:7 f. But now we have confidence which leads us to enter into the Holies in the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us, through the veil, that is to say [the way] of His flesh, Heb 10:19 f.
The main truths, then, at which the writer of the Epistle arrives by direct reference to the Day of Atonement are: that Christ is both Priest and Victim; that His sacrifice is eternally efficacious, and that it is being eternally presented by Him in Heaven; that its effects are not ceremonial but spiritual; and that we now have free access to the Father.
3. But other points of analogy and contrast suggest themselves, some of which are partially supplied by the Ep. to the Hebrews.
(a) The high priest offered a bullock for the atonement of his own sins. The law appoints as high priests men possessed of weakness, Heb 7:28; Heb 5:1-3. But the Son was such an high priest as was fitting for us, holy, guileless, undefiled, Heb 7:26. And the sinfulness of the high priest appears to have been the reason of his causing a cloud of burning incense to hide the mercy-seat from his sight. He was unfit, until atonement had been made for his sins, to look upon the place of Gods Presence. But now that Christ has procured eternal salvation for us, not only our High Priest but we ourselves may come boldly unto the throne of grace.
(b) An obvious contrast between the Jewish and Christian Atonement is afforded by the fact that the former was possible only in the case of unwitting offences (, Heb 9:7), sins committed in ignorance (Lev 4:2; Lev 4:13; Lev 4:22; Lev 4:27, Num 15:24-29, contrast Num 15:30 f.). If Christs Atonement were thus limited, our faith were vain, we should be yet in our sins.
(c) It is important to notice that the Jewish sacrifice was very different from those of the heathen. Its purpose was not to appeaseto buy the goodwill ofa cruel and capricious deity. The offerings did not originate with men; they are represented as commanded and appointed by God Himself. They were due to His own loving initiative; He showed the way by which men, who were hostile by reason of their sins, might be reconciled to Him. So likewise God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son (Joh 3:16). Nay more; Christ the Victim voluntarily offered Himself (Joh 10:17, Mat 20:28 || Mar 10:45). Scripture nowhere speaks of God being reconciled to man; see Rom 5:10; Rom 11:15, 2Co 5:18-20. God is not hostile to us, although by His very nature He must be angry with sin and punish it; but we are hostile to God (Luk 19:27, Php 3:18, Col 1:21, Jam 4:4).
(d) The ceremonies performed by the high priest were not a mere opus operatum, the magic of a medicine man. The whole congregation had morally to take an active part. The Day of Atonement was to be a day of cessation from work, like a Sabbath, and a day when every man must afflict () his soul.e. render his soul contrite and penitent by means of fasting, self-humiliation, and confession of sins. It is true that Isa 58:4-7 denounces the outward expressions of this affliction of the soul when they are unaccompanied by the necessary moral fruits, as Christ Himself does (Mat 6:16); but Lev 23:26-32, Num 29:7-11 clearly imply that real penitence is necessary for atonement. The Mishna also recognizes that, while the ceremonies of the day are effectual for Israel as a whole, individuals must appropriate the results by repentance. If a man says, I will sin and (then) repent, I will sin and (then) repent, Heaven does not give him the means of practising repentance; and if he says, I will sin, and the Day of Atonement will bring atonement, the Day of Atonement will bring no atonement (m viii. 8, 9). And similarly a Christians faith in the atoning death of Christ is not merely an intellectual acceptance of the fact that He died for each and all. Faith, as the NT teaches it, involves a conscious co-operation with Christs work. That work was not accomplished to free us from the necessity of doing anything. The atoning work of the God-Man is in living union with the longings and strivings of men for atonement, and thereby makes them effectual. But if a man does not repent,does not wish to be free from sin,for him the Atonement brings no atonement. The results of Christs death are a power of God, leading to salvation (Rom 1:16); but the energy remains potential and useless until the human will renders it kinetic by deliberate appropriation.
(e) And this truth was foreshadowed in the Jewish atonement not only by the fasting of the people, but in the ceremony which formed the centre and kernel of it all. The killing of an animal and the shedding of its blood contained a meaning which far transcended that of mere death. The body is the expression of life in terms of its environment; the blood represents the life set free from its limiting environment for higher uses (Lev 17:11). When Christ, therefore, entered heaven with his own blood (Heb 9:12), to appear in the presence of God for us (Heb 9:24), He began the died. But we reckon that one died on behalf of all; in that case all died (2Co 5:14); and as the high priest offered the blood of the which symbolized the life of the whole people, so the life that died is our life, in complete union with Chists (Heb 10:19). The same truth is expressed in another form in Heb 10:1-10. Christs voluntary self-offering consisted in absolute obedience to the Fathers will, an obedience having its seat in a body prepared for Him. In which will we have been sanctified through the body of Jesus Christ once for all. But that is rendered possible only because of His living union with us which makes us part of His body. The Church is the extension of the Incarnation. And this vital union is strengthened and perpetuated by the faithful appropriation of it in the Sacrament of His body and blood.
(f) It has been said above that the goat for Azazel (Authorized Version scape-goat) was considered figuratively to be the same animal as the goat that was sacrificed. Its blood was shed for the atonement of the people, and, at the same time, it took upon itself the burden of their sins in order to carry it away. There is no distinct reference to the scape-goat in Hebrews, but a possible allusion occurs in Heb 9:28, where the writer quotes Isa 53:12 (6). Christ was once offered to bear () the sins of many. The verb seems to contain the double thought of offering up and taking up upon oneself as a burden; cf. Joh 1:29.
(g) After the atonement was completed and the sins carried away, there followed the sacrifice of the rams as a burnt-offering. It is peculiarly significant that in Lev 16:24 the high priest is bidden to offer his burnt-offering and the burnt-offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself and for the people. The great atonement in the sanctuary, though complete, was only an initial act which needed the continued burnt-offering to render its effects permanent. This symbolizes the sequel and corollary of the truth which formed the subject of (d) and (e). Our own life having been offered upon Calvary in union with Christs, we died with him, and we are alive unto God through Him. That being so, we are bound to make an active appropriation of our part in His eternal presentation of the offering in heaven; we are bound to render permanent the effects of the great Atonement by yielding up our whole spirit and soul and body as a perpetual burnt-offering. See Rom 12:1; 1Pe 2:5, Heb 13:15.
4. The above suggestions are those dealing with the more fundamental points, but they are, of course, far from being exhaustive of the analogies which may be drawn. The isolation of the high priest when he entered the sanctuary suggests a comparison of Heb 9:7 () with Heb 7:26 (). His double entrance, first for himself and then for the people, seems to foreshadow the two entrances of Christ into the Unseen, once when He entered it at death, from which He returned victorious, and again when He entered it by His resurrection and ascension to appear before the face of God on our behalf (Heb 9:24). Again, the return of the high priest to the people in the outer court at the close of the ceremony recalls the words of Heb 9:28, a second time without sin shall he appear to them that wait for him. And, finally, the burning of the sacrifice outside the gate is used as yet another type of Christ (Heb 13:11 f.).
Literature.1. On the ceremonies of the day; Comm. on Leviticus 16, esp. Dillmann; Mishna, Ym (ed. Surenhusius, with Lat. translation and notes, 1699); Maimonides account of the ceremonies (translation by Delitzsch at the end of his Com. on Hebrews); Josephus Ant. iii. x. 3; art. in Hasting DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , vol. i. p. 199 ff.
2. On the significance of the ceremonies: Sheringham Ym2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , to which is added (p. 150 ff.) an elaborate comparison by Rhenferd of the work of the high priest with that of Christ; Comm. on Hebrews, esp. Westcott, with the Add. Notes on chs. 810; Milligan, Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood.
3. On the doctrine of the Atonement: MLeod Campbell, On the Nature of the Atonement; R. W. Dale, The Doctrine of the Atonement; H. N. Oxenham, The Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement; F. D. Maurice, The Doctrine of Sacrifice; B. F. Westcott, The Victory of the Cross; Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine; esp. iv. 1124. Intimately connected with the subject are treatises on the Incarnation.
A. H. MNeile.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Day Of Atonement
DAY OF ATONEMENT.See Atonement [Day of].
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Day of Atonement
See ATONEMENT, DAY OF.