Azazel, its meaning (Eadie, A Biblical cyclopædia, 13th ed., 1872)

Text: "And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt 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 [Azazel]." Leviticus 16:5,7,8

Quote:



   SCAPE-GOAT (Lev. xvi. 8-10). On the great day of annual atonement the following peculiar ceremony was performed:—Two goats were brought and presented before the Lord; lots were cast for the goats, as to which of them should be sacrificed, and which should be the scape-goat. The one doomed to be a sin offering was slain; and after the high priest came out of the holy of holies, he laid his hands on the head of the live goat, and confessed over it the sins of the people. The sin-laden animal was then sent 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" (Lev. xvi. 22). The meaning of this impressive and picturesque ceremonial has been disputed; but its general truth is very apparent. It pictured in vivid emblem the pardon and final out-blotting of sin. But how did the ceremonial represent this? A common opinion is, that the one goat which was slain represented Christ dying and dead for sin of man, and that the other goat, which lived and was dismissed, symbolized Christ risen and pleading our cause. But it might be objected to such a view, that the sins of the Hebrew nation were laid on the live goat after its fellow had been sacrificed—an arrangement which does not harmonize with the actual atonement of the Son of God; for our sins were laid, not upon the risen Saviour, but upon Him before he died, and in his death. We incline to the oldest view of this subject—a view common in the Church till the period of Julian the apostate, by whom it was abused and caricatured.

   The language in the original is precise and peculiar. It reads, "And Aaron shall cast lots on the two goats—one for Jehovah, one for Azazel." What we are to understand by Azazel has been much disputed. The language appears to us to imply the personality of Azazel—"one for Jehovah, one for Azazel." By Azazel we are inclined to understand Satan, as do almost all the ancient versions, which leave the word, as they do the names of other persons, untranslated. Satan is not here, as some allege against this opinion, put on an equality with God; for the two goats were both brought "to Jehovah," and were his; while the very casting of lots, which was in itself a solemn appeal to God, shows that Jehovah claimed the power of disposal. Neither can it be objected that this was in any sense a sacrifice to Satan, for the animal was not slain to him; it was only sent to him in disgrace. Bearing upon it sins which God had already forgiven, it was sent to Azazel in the wilderness.

   The phrase "scape-goat," by which the strange term Azazel is rendered in our version, came from the "hircus emissarius" of the Vulgate. The term Azazel may mean the "apostate one"—a name which Satan merits, and which he seems to have borne among the Jews. It was Satan that brought sin into the world; and this seduction of man adds to his guilt, and consequently to his punishment. Sin is now pardoned in God's mercy. The one goat was sacrificed as a sin offering; its blood was carried into the holy place, and the mercy-seat was sprinkled with it. Guilt was therefore cancelled; by this shedding of blood there was remission. But sin, though pardoned, is yet hateful to God, and it cannot dwell in his sight: it is removed away to a "land not inhabited"—severed from God's people, and sent away to man's first seducer. The sins of a believing world are taken off them, and rolled back on Satan, their prime author and instigator. Though the penalty is remitted to believers, it is not remitted to him who brought them into apostasy and ruin. The tempted are restored, but the whole punishment is seen to fall on the arch-tempter. Hell is "prepared for the devil and his angels."

Eadie, John, A Biblical cyclopædia; or, Dictionary of eastern antiquities, geography, natural history, sacred annals and biography, theology, and Biblical literature, illustrative of the Old and New Testaments; with maps and pictorial illustrations drawn from the most authentic sources, 13th ed., rev. thr. & enlrgd., London: Charles Griffin & Company, 1872, pp. 576-577.

Online Source: archive.org/details/biblicalcyclopea00eadiuoft

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