William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat, 1854-1856. Public domain.
Leviticus 16 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Day of Atonement
Leviticus 16 orders the day in eight stations, from the warning at the veil to the statute the people keep.
One man goes within the veil on one day of the year.
Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on the horns of the altar. Throughout your generations he shall make atonement on it annually with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. The altar is most holy to the LORD.”
- First taught
- Exodus 30:10 “Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on…”
- Fullest statement
- Leviticus 16:30 “because on this day atonement will…”
One man goes within the veil on one day of the year.
Summary
The high priest made atonement for the sanctuary, the priests and all the people of Israel (Leviticus 16:33).
- One goat dies and one carries the sins away: one offering, payment and removal together.
- Hebrews 9 and 10 are the canon's own commentary on the day.
- Once for all: the yearly repetition was the point, and its ending is the gospel.
One day of the year
Why the day was given, and where the law first names it.
The chapter opens on a funeral: the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron's sons, who died when they approached the presence of the LORD (Leviticus 16:1). The liturgy that follows is God’s answer to Nadab and Abihu, the terms on which a priest may come near and live.
Once a year Aaron shall make atonement on the horns of the altar. Throughout your generations he shall make atonement on it annually with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. The altar is most holy to the LORD.”This is the first text of the day, given with the altar of incense.
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to the LORD.Leviticus 23 places the day among the feasts of the year.
The chapter opens on a funeral: the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron's sons, who died when they approached the presence of the LORD (Leviticus 16:1). The liturgy that follows is God’s answer to Nadab and Abihu, the terms on which a priest may come near and live.
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to the LORD.Leviticus 23 places the day among the feasts of the year.
Shadow and body, row by row
Six parts of the rite stand beside the verses of Hebrews that answer them.
The two column names come from Hebrews 10:1, which calls the law a shadow, and Colossians 2:17, which says the body belongs to Christ.
| The shadow (Leviticus 16) | The body (Hebrews) |
|---|---|
| Once in the year, the high priest alone (Leviticus 16:2, 34) | He entered once for all by His own blood (Hebrews 9:12) |
| The blood of bulls and goats (Leviticus 16:14 to 15) | It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4) |
| The priest offers first for his own sin (Leviticus 16:6) | A high priest holy, innocent and undefiled, who needs no such offering (Hebrews 7:26 to 27) |
| Within the veil, behind which no man may live (Leviticus 16:2) | A new and living way through the curtain of His body (Hebrews 10:20) |
| The carcasses burned outside the camp (Leviticus 16:27) | Jesus also suffered outside the city gate (Hebrews 13:11 to 12) |
| The goat bears all their iniquities into a solitary place (Leviticus 16:22) | Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more (Hebrews 10:17) |
Eight stations of one day
The table gives the places of the day, and the eight stations give its acts.
Hebrews reads the tent as the lesson itself: the way into the Most Holy Place stood unopened while the first room stood (Hebrews 9:8).
| Place | Station |
|---|---|
| The court, gate on the east | Station 4 |
| Altar | Stations 3 and 5 |
| Laver | Station 2 |
| Holy place | Station 5 |
| The veil and the Holiest | Stations 1, 5 and 6 |
| Mercy seat | Station 6 |
| To the wilderness | Station 7 |
1. The threshold warningStation 1 of 8
And the LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.Access to God is the question this whole day answers, and the day opens with a door that is shut.
2. Plain linen garmentsStation 2 of 8
He is to wear the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments. He must tie a linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are holy garments, and he must bathe himself with water before he wears them.On this one day of the year the high priest dresses like a servant.
3. First, his own houseStation 3 of 8
Aaron is to present the bull for his sin offering and make atonement for himself and his household.4. The lots are castStation 4 of 8
Then he shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. After Aaron casts lots for the two goats, one for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat,The day turns here, and the section below follows each goat to its end.
5. The cloud within the veilStation 5 of 8
Then he must take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and take them inside the veil. He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the cloud of incense will cover the mercy seat above the Testimony, so that he will not die.Incense goes in before the blood: even the man who brings atonement comes near under cover.
6. Blood on the mercy seatStation 6 of 8
And he is to take some of the bull’s blood and sprinkle it with his finger on the east side of the mercy seat; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the mercy seat. Aaron shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and bring its blood behind the veil, and with its blood he must do as he did with the bull’s blood: He is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it.This is the innermost act of the year, and every other station leads to it or away from it.
So he shall make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the impurities and rebellious acts of the Israelites in regard to all their sins. He is to do the same for the Tent of Meeting which abides among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities.7. The sins walk awayStation 7 of 8
Then he is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and rebellious acts of the Israelites in regard to all their sins. He is to put them on the goat’s head and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their iniquities into a solitary place, and the man will release it into the wilderness.8. A statute for everStation 8 of 8
This is to be a permanent statute for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall humble yourselves and not do any work—whether the native or the foreigner who resides among you— because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD.The last station moves from the priest to the people, who keep the day themselves, and Acts 27:9 still calls it the Fast.
The two goats
Leviticus 16:9 and 16:10 set the two lots side by side.
And he shall take from the congregation of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering.Both goats are counted here as one sin offering.
he shall present the goat chosen by lot for the LORD and sacrifice it as a sin offering.This goat's blood goes within the veil at the sixth station.
But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement by sending it into the wilderness as the scapegoat.This goat's road leads out to the wilderness at the seventh station.
The day in the Second Temple
A historian and the Talmud record how the day was kept in the Temple of Jesus' day, and a painter of the late nineteenth century took the rite for his subject.
Alfred Edersheim on the high priest's weekThe Temple, 1874
Alfred Edersheim reconstructs the Second Temple observance from Mishnah Yoma. The high priest spent seven days of preparation in the Temple and bathed again and again on the day, and in the later Temple the lots were of gold. A scarlet tongue of wool was bound to the scapegoat’s horn, and the goat was led east by relays of stations into the wilderness.
The Talmud's forty yearsb. Yoma 39b
The Talmud records that for the forty years before the Temple’s destruction the lot for the LORD ceased to come up in the right hand. In those years, it says, the crimson strap ceased turning white.
James Tissot's two paintings1886 to 1901
James Tissot painted the live goat led away into the wilderness in Agnus-Dei: The Scapegoat (c. 1886 to 1894). In The Costume of the High Priest (1896 to 1901) he painted the golden garments, the ephod, the breastplate and the mitre, which the high priest set aside on this day.
What the text leaves unsaid
Leviticus 16 leaves four questions open, and Hebrews a fifth.
The chapter names Azazel and gives the word no definition. It sends the live goat into the wilderness and says nothing of where it went at the end or whether it died. It gives no count of the high priest's entries behind the veil, though verses 12 to 15 take him in with the incense and again with the blood. Hebrews reads the slain goat's blood in Christ and gives the second goat no name.
Once for all: Hebrews and the words of the day
Hebrews sums up the day, and three words, two Hebrew and one Greek, carry its doctrine.
But only the high priest entered the second room, and then only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.For Christ did not enter a man-made copy of the true sanctuary, but He entered heaven itself, now to appear on our behalf in the presence of God.This names the room that the cloud of station 5 and the mercy seat of station 6 stood for.
kaphar, make atonementH3722 · Leviticus 16:30
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.Kaphar is the chapter's verb. Its range, cover, purge and ransom, holds the whole doctrine of atonement in one root. The word stands 102 times in the tagged Hebrew text. Leviticus 17:11 gives Scripture's own reason for the blood.
kapporeth, the mercy seatH3727 · Leviticus 16:14
Kapporeth names the slab over the ark, where the blood goes at Leviticus 16:14. The word stands 27 times in the tagged Hebrew text.
hilastērion, mercy seat or propitiationG2435 · Romans 3:25
God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.The Septuagint's word for the mercy seat is the word Paul applies to Christ in Romans 3:25. The word stands twice in the tagged Greek text.
The voices
Five teachers from the third century to the eighteenth read the day in Christ.
died 220 · Tertullian
AGAINST MARCION 3.7.7
The quotation1 quotation
“May I offer, moreover, an interpretation of the two goats which were presented on ‘the great day of atonement’? Do they not also prefigure the two natures of Christ? They were of like size and very similar in appearance, owing to the Lord's identity of aspect. He is not to come in any other form. He had to be recognized by those by whom he was also wounded and pierced.”
Tertullian · Against Marcion 3.7.7 · on Leviticus 16:8Patristic
died 407 · John Chrysostom
Homily on Hebrews 17
The quotation1 quotation
“‘Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the High Priest entereth into the Holy place every year with blood of others.’ Seest Thou how many are the differences? The ‘often’ for the ‘once’; ‘the blood of others,’ for ‘His own.’ Great is the distance. He is Himself then both victim and Priest and sacrifice. For if it had not been so, and it had been necessary to offer many sacrifices, He must have been many times crucified. ‘For then,’ he says, ‘He must often have suffered since the foundation of the world.’”
John Chrysostom · Homily on Hebrews 17 · on Hebrews 9:25Patristic
1509 to 1564 · John Calvin
Commentaries
The quotation1 quotation
“The ordinary sprinkling of the altar was sufficient to testify the reconciliation; but this annual ceremony more greatly influenced the people's minds. Again, by this sacrifice, which they saw only once at the end of the year, the one and perpetual sacrifice offered by God's Son was more clearly represented.”
John Calvin · Commentaries · on Leviticus 16:2Reformed
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“The annual repetition of the sacrifices showed that there was in them only a faint and feeble effort towards making atonement; it could be done effectually only by the offering up of the body of Christ once for all, and that once was sufficient; that sacrifice needed not to be repeated. Let us see what there was of gospel in all this.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Leviticus 16:29 to 34Puritan
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
The quotation1 quotation
“For the Lord - For the Lord's use by way of sacrifice. Both this and the other goat typified Christ; this in his death and passion for us; that in his resurrection for our deliverance.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Leviticus 16:8Evangelical
John Calvin, Matthew Henry, John Wesley
What does azazel mean?
Three readings of the word, and the question the rabbis and Hebrews answer apart.
The word occurs four times in Scripture, every one in Leviticus 16:8, 10 and 26. Each reading below names its holders. The guardrail is in the text itself, and every side grants it. Both goats stand before the LORD (Leviticus 16:7), the lot alone assigns them, and the live goat carries the sin away into the wilderness. Every offering of the day is made to the LORD.
1 · An abstract noun, the escape goatthe Septuagint, the Vulgate, Tyndale, Adam Clarke
The ancient versions read the word functionally: the Septuagint renders it apopompaios (“the one carrying away”), the Vulgate caper emissarius (“the emissary goat”). From them came Tyndale’s coinage “(e)scape goat” (1530) and the KJV’s rendering “scapegoat.” Tyndale read the Hebrew as ʿēz ʾōzēl, “the goat that departs,” and BDB (1906) lists “entire removal” as an option. The Berean text prints scapegoat at Leviticus 16:8, where the ASV and Darby print Azazel. Its strength is that the name then fits the goat’s task in Leviticus 16:22. Its weakness: one lot for the LORD and the other for Azazel (Leviticus 16:8) reads most naturally as two names in parallel.
“To be the scape-goat - עזאזל azazel, from עז az, a goat, and אזל azal, to dismiss; the dismissed or sent away goat, to distinguish it from the goat that was to be offered in sacrifice. Most ancient nations had vicarious sacrifices, to which they transferred by certain rites and ceremonies the guilt of the community at large, in the same manner in which the scapegoat was used by the Jews.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Leviticus 16:10Evangelical
2 · A proper name, a wilderness demon or fallen angel1 Enoch, Albert Barnes, Jacob Milgrom
The parallelism of Leviticus 16:8 is this view’s engine, joined to Scripture’s own picture of the wilderness as the haunt of unclean spirits (Leviticus 17:7, Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14, Matthew 12:43). Second Temple tradition named Azazel chief among the fallen Watchers, and Jacob Milgrom, in Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible, 1991), follows the proper-name reading. Its weakness is the guardrail above: the goat is presented alive before the LORD (Leviticus 16:10). Albert Barnes, in his Notes on Leviticus 16:8, holds this reading: Azazel names an evil personal being set in opposition to the LORD.
“the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.”
1 Enoch 10:8 · tr. R. H. Charles, 1917, a Second Temple book outside the biblical canon
3 · A place, the jagged cliffMishnah Yoma, the Talmud
Rabbinic tradition took the word for the destination: a rough, rocky precipice to which the goat was led (Mishnah Yoma 6). The derivation is discussed at Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 67b. Its strength is that it matches attested Second Temple practice; its weakness is that the cliff belongs to later custom.
The question: does the day still atone?Mishnah Yoma 8; Hebrews 10
The rabbis teach that the Day of Atonement, joined to repentance, atones (Mishnah Yoma 8:8 to 9), and Israel has kept the day since the Temple fell in AD 70. Hebrews 10:14 gives the answer of the gospel.
because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.Books to Read Next
Three works carry the study of the day further.
The Temple: Its Ministry and Services as They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ
Alfred Edersheim · 1874
Its chapters cover every feast of the year, so the reader can set this day beside Passover and Tabernacles.
The New Park Street Pulpit, Sermon No. 95, The Day of Atonement
Charles Spurgeon · 1856
Spurgeon preached the whole chapter as a type of the cross.
Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible)
Jacob Milgrom · 1991
Milgrom reads the sin offering as a purging of the sanctuary.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Once at the end of the ages
Hebrews 10:1 to 3 hears in the yearly sacrifices a reminder of sins. Hebrews 9:26 answers it with one appearance of Christ, at the end of the ages.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.This is what the day asks of the reader now.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Leviticus 16, 17:11 and 23:26 to 32; Numbers 29:7 to 11; Exodus 30:10; Hebrews 9, 10 and 13:11 to 12, Berean Standard Bible.
- Septuagint and Vulgate at Leviticus 16:8, public domain; KJV (1611); ASV (1901, transliterating Azazel)
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services (1874), public domain.
- Mishnah Yoma; Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b, 67b (Rodkinson tr., 1903), public domain, attributed tradition.
- 1 Enoch 8 to 10 (R. H. Charles tr., 1917), public domain, a Second Temple book outside the biblical canon.
- Gesenius (Tregelles tr.); Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906), public domain, lexical options on H5799.
- Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible, 1991), in copyright, cited only.
- Tertullian, Chrysostom, Calvin, Matthew Henry, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke, public domain.
- James Tissot, Agnus-Dei: The Scapegoat (c. 1886 to 1894) and The Costume of the High Priest (1896 to 1901), public domain.
Keep Studying
Read it4
Studies9
Places1
Symbols11
Doctrines24
- Once for All: the full case
- The Sacrificial System
- Cut Off from Among His People
- The Fall Feasts
- The Hebrew Feasts
- The High-Priestly Line
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