Leviticus16chapter 16

Leviticus 16:1-2

The chapter is dated by a funeral. Two priests came near in a way they were not told to and died in chapter 10, and the instruction that follows opens by naming them. Aaron may not come inside the vail at all times, and the reason the verse gives for the limit is that he die not.

Leviticus 16:3-4

He goes in wearing plain linen, and the golden garments of Exodus 28 with the breastplate and the stones stay outside. The high priest enters on the one day of the year dressed like the lowest of the priests, and he washes his flesh before he puts the linen on. He changes back into the golden garments at verse 24, once the work inside is finished.

Leviticus 16:5-6

The people supply two goats and the priest supplies his own bullock, and the order of use is fixed. Aaron makes atonement for himself and for his house before he touches anything belonging to the congregation. Hebrews 7:27 turns on that exact order, saying the high priests offered first for their own sins and then for the people's, and that Christ did it once when he offered up himself.

Leviticus 16:7-8

he shall take the two goats: Both goats stand alive at the door and a lot decides which one dies. The word rendered scapegoat occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and the Hebrew behind it is azazel, which has been read as a goat that goes away, as a place, and as a name. The King James translators chose one of those readings, the alternatives are held by named scholars, and a reader should know the word is argued.

Leviticus 16:9-10

One goat is killed and one is kept alive, and verse 10 says the live one is presented before the LORD to make an atonement with him. The text treats the pair as one offering rather than as two, so the death and the carrying away are halves of a single act. The cleansing of a leper at Leviticus 14:4-7 uses two birds the same way, one killed and one let loose alive over running water.

Leviticus 16:11-13

Coals from the altar and incense beaten small go in before any blood does. The cloud of the incense is to cover the mercy seat, and the stated purpose is again that he die not, which is the second time in thirteen verses. The place the high priest is walking into is described as lethal, and the chapter says so twice before he arrives.

Leviticus 16:14-15

The blood goes on the mercy seat and before it, seven times, applied with a finger. What is sprinkled is the lid of the box that holds the law, so the covering over the commandments is the thing that receives the blood. He then does for the people's goat exactly what he did for his own bullock, and the text repeats the whole procedure rather than summarising it.

Leviticus 16:16-17

The atonement is made for the building as well as for the people, because the tabernacle stands in the midst of their uncleanness and takes it up. Verse 17 empties the tent of everyone else while the high priest is inside, so a whole nation waits on one man in a room nobody can see into. Hebrews 9:7 describes this verse, that into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood.

Leviticus 16:18-19

The altar itself is cleansed and hallowed with the blood of both animals. The instrument of atonement needs atonement, and the chapter states that without explaining it. Seven sprinklings again, as on the mercy seat.

Leviticus 16:20-22

Aaron lays both hands on the living goat and confesses over it all the iniquities, all the transgressions and all their sins, and the verse names all three. The sins are put on the head of the animal by hands and by words together, and then a man leads it out. It bears them unto a land not inhabited, so what happens to them is a distance rather than a destruction, and Isaiah 53:6 reaches for the same picture when it says the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Leviticus 16:23-25

The linen is taken off and left in the holy place, worn once and not carried out. He washes again, puts the golden garments back on, and comes out to offer the burnt offerings where the people can see. The day has two halves and the clothes mark the change between them.

Leviticus 16:26-28

Two men are made unclean by handling what carried the uncleanness away, the one who led the goat out and the one who burned the carcases. The bullock and the goat whose blood went inside are taken out of the camp and burned there rather than on the altar. Hebrews 13:11-13 describes this arrangement, says that Jesus suffered without the gate for the same reason, and then tells its readers to go out to him.

Leviticus 16:29-31

The date is fixed, the tenth day of the seventh month, and Leviticus 23:27 lists it among the appointed times. The people do nothing all day except afflict their souls, so the one day the nation is cleansed is the one day it is given no work to do. The rule binds the stranger that sojourneth among them on the same terms as one of their own country.

Leviticus 16:32-34

The office outlives the man, since the son who succeeds does the same thing in his father's stead. The phrase everlasting statute occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and it is fastened to a rite that has to be done again every year. Hebrews 10:3 reads that repetition as a remembrance made of sins every year, and Hebrews 9:12 sets against it a high priest who entered in once.