One day a year, one man behind the veil with blood, two goats with two fates, and the letter that says the priest went in once and did not come back out to do it again
The Day of Atonement
Everything else in Israel’s worship was daily or seasonal. One day was different. On it the high priest went alone into the room no one else ever entered, carrying blood, and sprinkled it on the lid of the ark; and a second animal, with the nation’s sins confessed onto its head, was led out into the desert and never seen again. Leviticus 16 is the most solemn chapter in the law, and the letter to the Hebrews is a commentary on it.
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Lesson 5 of 12 · The veil
Once a year, on the tenth day of the seventh month, Israel did nothing. The people fasted and kept still, and one man did everything. The high priest killed a bull for himself and a goat for the people, carried their blood through the veil into the Most Holy Place, where the ark stood, and sprinkled it on the ark’s golden lid; then he laid both hands on a second, living goat, confessed over it every sin of the nation, and sent it into the wilderness by the hand of a man who was waiting. Two goats, because sin needs two things done to it: a death that covers it, and a removal that carries it out of sight. On this day, the law says, atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you. The letter to the Hebrews reads the day as the pattern of what Christ did, with one difference in every clause: not with the blood of goats but his own, not into a tent but into heaven itself, not every year but once, at the end of the ages, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. What the people did on the day was wait outside for the priest to come back. That is still what the day asks.
Two goats and a lot
The people brought two goats to the door of the tent, and which was which was decided by lot.
He shall take the two goats, and set them before Yahweh at the door of the Tent of Meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for Yahweh, and the other lot for the scapegoat. Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell for the scapegoat shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement for him, to send him away as the scapegoat into the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:7–10 · WEB
Read the comment on The Two Goats
He shall take the two goats, and set them before Yahweh at the door of the Tent of Meeting; Aaron shall cast lots, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for the scapegoat. The goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh is offered as a sin offering; the goat on which the lot fell for the scapegoat is presented alive, to make atonement for him, and sent away. Two animals, identical, and the lot decides which dies at the altar and which walks into the desert. The chapter treats them as one offering in two halves, and the second half is the one nobody else in the ancient world had.
עֲזָאזֵל ʻăzâʼzêl H5799
from עֵז and אָזַל; goat of departure; the scapegoat; scapegoat.
Goat of departure, by the oldest derivation, and so the scapegoat — the English word William Tyndale made in 1530 for this verse and nowhere else. The Hebrew is azazel, and it is contested. Some read it as what the goat is, the goat that goes away; some as where it goes, a rugged or cut-off place; some as a name, a desert spirit to whom the goat is sent, which is how the Jewish apocalypses of the last centuries before Christ took it. The text does not decide, and this lesson does not; what it does say is that the live goat is not offered to anyone. It is sent, and it carries.
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Within the veil
The first goat’s blood goes where no blood went on any other day.
“Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with his blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins; and so he shall do for the Tent of Meeting that dwells with them in the middle of their uncleanness. — Leviticus 16:15–16 · WEB
Read the comment on Within the Veil
He shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring its blood within the veil, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat; he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins. The mercy seat is the golden lid of the ark, with the cherubim on it, the place God had said he would meet Moses and speak from. On this day it is sprinkled with blood. And notice what the atonement is for: the Holy Place itself, the tent that dwells among them in the middle of their uncleanness. Sin in Leviticus is not only a debt a person owes; it is a pollution that reaches the place where God lives, and the day cleanses the house as well as the household. The ninth lesson will find the mercy seat again in Romans, under a Greek name, where Paul says God set Christ forth as the place where the blood goes.
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Carried away
The second goat is not killed. It is loaded.
Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them on the head of the goat, and shall send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is ready. The goat shall carry all their iniquities on himself to a solitary land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:21–22 · WEB
Read the comment on Within the Veil
Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; he shall put them on the head of the goat, and send him away into the wilderness. The goat shall carry all their iniquities on himself to a solitary land. Both hands, where the sin offering took one; every sin, spoken aloud; and then a walk into the desert with a man appointed to make sure the goat did not wander back. The first goat answered the question of what sin costs. The second answered where it goes, and the answer was: away, out of the camp, to a place no one returns from. The psalm that says God removes our transgressions as far as the east is from the west is describing this goat.
“for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you. You shall be clean from all your sins before Yahweh.” Leviticus 16:30 · WEB
On this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; you shall be clean from all your sins before Yahweh: the day’s own summary, and the word is clean, not merely forgiven.
“but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.” Hebrews 9:7 · WEB
Into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people: the letter’s description of the day, as the setting for its argument.
“For Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own, or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Hebrews 9:24–26 · WEB
Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor that he should offer himself often; but now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself: every clause of the day, with its opposite.
“Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a great priest over God’s house, let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our body washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:19–22 · WEB
Having boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way through the veil, that is, his flesh: the room one man entered once a year, opened to everyone.
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Once for all
Hebrews states the contrast in one sentence, and the sentence is the hinge of the letter.
But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. — Hebrews 9:11–12 · WEB
Read the comment on Through His Own Blood
Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. The priest went in with blood that was not his and came out to do it again the next year; this priest went in with his own and obtained something the letter calls eternal. Mark records that when Jesus died the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the reader who knows Leviticus 16 knows which veil, and what was behind it. The readings diverge from here, and should be marked. Most Protestant readers hold that Hebrews describes the Day of Atonement as fulfilled and finished at the cross and the ascension. Adventist readers hold that the day’s pattern also names a work Christ carries on as high priest in the sanctuary above before he returns, a cleansing and a judgment, read from Daniel’s vision of the sanctuary cleansed. The two readings agree on everything in this lesson: the priest went in with blood, he went in for the people, and the people waited.
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What the day asks
It asks the reader to do what Israel did on the tenth of the seventh month, which was nothing. No one was allowed in the tent while the priest was inside (Leviticus 16:17); the nation stood outside, fasting, while one man did the whole of it in a room they would never see, and then came out. The Day of Atonement is the plainest picture in the law of a salvation accomplished by someone else, on the people’s behalf, out of their sight, and received by waiting for him. Hebrews turns that picture into an invitation: the veil is open, come in. But it was a picture first, and the people outside are where the reader stands.
Read Leviticus 16:1-22 and Hebrews 9:1-14. Write down everything the high priest did on the day, and then everything the people did. Then write one sentence on what Hebrews says changed, and one on what it says did not.
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