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HOUSMAIL HM103
15
March 2003 A GOAT FOR AZAZEL "(Aaron)
shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the
goats for a sin offering, ..... And he shall take the two goats and present
them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And
Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the LORD, and the other
lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall
bring the goat upon which the LORD'S lot fell and offer him for a sin offering.
But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat,
shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and
to let him go for a scapegoat
into the wilderness ...... Then shall he
kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his
blood within the vail ..... and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before
the mercy seat: And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of
the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their
transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of
the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness
..... And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the
tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and
confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their
transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and
shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: 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." (Leviticus 16:5-22 - KJV) THE YEAR THE GOAT CAME HOME! Leviticus says only that the Goat was to be “let go” in the
wilderness. (Leviticus 16:22) In later years the ritual was “redefined” by the religious
leaders, to ensure that the scapegoat was killed, by hurling it backwards off
a cliff. The distance to the edge of the wilderness was formalised -- TEN
half sabbath day journeys -- about 11 kilometres. It took a “relay team” of
ten men to get it there -- each of them leading the goat on a “half sabbath
leg” to deliver it to the next man in the chain, and then walking another
half sabbath day’s journey to return home.[1] There doesn’t seem to be any historical record of when
and why they decided to do it that way. However, it might be
reasonable to SPECULATE that,
sooner or later, the scapegoat for a particular year must have found its way
home! There is of course, no Biblical record that this ever happened.
However it would provide a compelling “religious reason” for this addition to
the ritual spelled out in Leviticus. Think about it. Can you imagine the “Church business meetings”
the Jews would have held about THAT? What embarrassment! What consternation!
What PANIC! The coming home of the goat would have been interpreted as God’s
rejection of their “Atonement” for that year! Who would they blame? The
people? Unthinkable! And VERY
“politically incorrect” and unpopular! The high Priest? Equally unthinkable!
He might find himself out of work! So instead they simply changed the ritual
to ensure that -- without regard to the state of their hearts before God --
it could never happen again. Of course all that is SPECULATION about WHY the ritual was changed. What is NOT speculative, is the
far better answer they could have had, if the whole nation had been willing
to make a REAL individual heartfelt repentance -- before the ritual was
undertaken!. That would have ensured, far more effectively, that no scapegoat
could ever come back -- NOT EVER! God would have taken care of that! And how
much more satisfying that would have been for those who wanted complete God
guaranteed assurance of their forgiveness! Instead all they had was a man
made ritual “add on”, which left them for ever uncertain about what might
really have happened if the goat had been let go alive -- just as God said it
should be! How very sad that men should so far lose their trust in the power
of God and take matters into their own hands. There is of course a VERY important lesson in that for us. We may not invent theories of “grace” which require nothing from
us! We may not change the “ritual” to suit our personal preferences. Nor may
we claim to be forgiven when we are not! In order to have the complete
assurance that our “scapegoat” (Jesus) has truly born our iniquities away
beyond all possibility of return, we must meet the Scriptural conditions on
which forgiveness and pardon from the penalty of our sins is offered. THE MEANING OF SCAPEGOAT The Hebrew for “scapegoat” is AZAZEL. It appears only THREE
times in the Old Testament, (all of them in this passage in Leviticus) and is
of uncertain meaning. According to the Thayers Hebrew Lexicon in the On-Line
Bible, its literal meaning is “entire removal”. According to Alfred
Edersheim, it comes from a Jewish root word which means “wholly to put
aside”, or “wholly to go away”.[1] The English word "scapegoat" seems to have been
“coined” by Tyndal in his1530 translation, to render the Latin Vulgate’s “caper
emissaries”, or "emissary goat". Tyndale’s
"(e)scape goat", is probably not an adequate rendering of the
Hebrew, but it was certainly descriptive of what was actually achieved by the
ritual. This translation was later
appropriated in the King James Version of the Bible. A PROPER NAME? It is unfortunate that some modern translations have obscured
the meaning of this beautiful “Day of Atonement ritual”, by choosing to
simply transliterate “Azazel” as a proper name. From there commentators with
over fertile imaginations have SPECULATED
that it refers to:
However all of those are mere SPECULATION. Indeed from a
Biblical view, the first three are completely UNTENABLE speculation! And the
fourth, whilst being a “possible speculation”, has no supporting Scripture.
The “scholars” don’t help”. There is a wide diversity of opinion, far beyond
the reach of the layman, for which they don’t seem to be able to offer
reliable sources to support their “opinions”. WHAT DOES A SCAPEGOAT DO? We all know what a scapegoat is. He is an innocent party who is
made to take the blame for wrongdoings or mistakes of others. And as long as
we don’t try to push that to mean more than it actually does, it describes
beautifully what Jesus has done for us! He has “carried away our sins”
into a “wilderness place” where they are gone forever. He has
completely removed from the records kept in heaven, all mention of the guilt
and penalty of our truly repented sins! “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us
all.” (Isaiah 53:6) “As far as the east is from the west, so far
does he remove our transgressions from us”. (Psalm 103:12) “None of the
sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him”. (Ezekiel 33:16) Allon 1. “The Temple - Its Ministry and Services”,
Alfred Edersheim, Chap. 16 |