And when he hath ended making atonement for the sanctuary, and the tent of meeting, and the altar, he shall present the living goat;
The Day of Atonement runs in a fixed order, and this verse is the turning point: the blood work inside is done, and only now does the live goat come forward. Where the ESV says "atoning", older translations read "made an end of reconciling" — which raises two questions: why did the sanctuary itself need cleansing, and why must the people's goat wait?
One Hebrew verb lies behind both "atoning" here and "reconciling" in older versions.
Except in 1 Samuel 29:4 and 2 Chronicles 29:24, the Hebrew word is kaphar. It is translated "to make an atonement" more than sixty times. That same translation fits well enough in the places where older versions read "reconciliation" — Leviticus 6:30; Leviticus 8:15; Leviticus 16:20; Ezekiel 45:15, 17, 20; Daniel 9:24.
The holy place, the tent and the altar were objects, not sinners. They needed blood because God had chosen to live among a sinful people.
In this picture we have what the letter to the Hebrews calls the "purification of the heavenly things" (Hebrews 9:23). The blood of atonement is what makes it right for the tabernacle, and so for God's presence, to stay in the middle of a sinful people. And so straight after, the altar is also purified, so that it may remain among them to make their gifts holy.
Nothing is done with the people's goat until the work toward God is complete. One writer traces that order back to God Himself.
God begins with His throne in the great work of atonement and reconciliation. His way is from Himself in His holiness to man in his sinfulness... God made peace through the blood of the cross of Christ, and He reconciles all things in heaven and on earth to Himself (Colossians 1:20). But first, the peace on which He reconciles had to be made... On the Great Day of Atonement this was assured and established, before the part of the sin offering that was the people's lot was dealt with. Only "when the high priest had made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar," was he to "bring the live goat."
Our hearts read the cross the other way round, starting with ourselves.
If the death of Christ forms the foundation of the glory of God, it also forms the foundation of the perfect forgiveness of sins to all who put their trust in it. This second thing, blessed be God, is only a secondary, lesser application of the atonement. Yet our foolish hearts love to treat it as the very highest view of the cross — to see in it what puts away all our sins. This is a mistake. God's glory is the first thing; our salvation is the second.
Being second in order does not make forgiveness second-rate.
We may ask, Where are our sins? Put away. By what? By that act of Christ on the cross in which God has been eternally glorified... The two goats, on the day of atonement, give the double aspect of the one act. In the one, we see God's glory maintained; in the other, sins put away. The one is as perfect as the other. We are as perfectly forgiven as God is perfectly glorified, by the death of Christ.
Commentators differ on how to describe the pairing. One writer sets the two goats side by side, with the second depending entirely on the first:
Jehovah's goat was killed — the people's goat was "let go." The blood of the goat killed for sin was taken inside the sanctuary. The live goat was sent away with sins confessed on it. Jehovah's goat accomplished atonement and reconciliation. The people's goat brought about the forgetting of the sins that had been transferred to it. The atonement the first goat accomplished caused everything the second produced.
Another writer presses the distinction further. He refuses to call the live goat an aspect of atonement at all:
The first goat is Jehovah's lot, because it is the real sacrifice, while the other is "let go." It is not a question of two parts or aspects of atonement. The first goat alone makes the atonement. The other expresses the result for the people.
- Word. "Atoning" here translates kaphar, the standard word for making atonement. Older versions sometimes render it "reconciling."
- Place. God chose to live in the middle of an unclean people. Blood on the sanctuary, tent and altar is what made that dwelling possible.
- Order. The live goat is brought only after that work is finished — God's side is settled before the people's burden is touched.
- Priority. God's glory comes first, our salvation second. The second loses nothing by it: forgiveness is as complete as the glory.
- Pairing. Commentators differ on wording. Some see two sides of one act; others see one real sacrifice, with the second goat showing its result. Both agree the sending away rests wholly on the blood already offered.
and Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the living goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, and he shall put them on the head of the goat, and shall send him away to the wilderness by the hand of a man standing ready;
On the Day of Atonement the high priest first carried the blood in to the mercy seat; then he turned to the living goat and spoke. Two questions follow: why the second goat is not killed, and how far this transfer of guilt reaches.
The chapter uses two goats because the death of Christ meets two needs. The blood inside meets God — that side is called propitiation; the live goat carries away the people's actual sins.
That is the other part of the sin offering, and it is plain substitution. Just as the blood on the mercy seat met God in His nature and character, so in the scapegoat you have substitution for transgressions. Substitution does not include everything. It does not include the full glorifying of God. It means our sins borne by Christ.
Hands pressed on the head mean the offerer and the victim count as one. The words spoken over it move the guilt across.
Aaron laid his hands on its head, and in that position confessed over it all the iniquities of Israel. Laying his hands on its head expressed identification with the goat. Through confession it also transferred the transgressions and sins of the people to the goat. The goat then bore away their sins into the wilderness. Only believers are identified with the sacrifice of Christ.
Until now the priest had worked in silence. Now he speaks — and he does not ask for anything.
This was the first time in the whole service of that day that Aaron had to speak, after he had killed the sin offering.… He was not there to plead for the people. He was there as their representative, to confess all their iniquities, and all their transgressions in all their sins. Confession, not prayer, was in season then. Once Aaron had confessed it all over the head of the scapegoat, with both his hands resting on it, the iniquities and sins of the people were no longer on them… The people had not shifted their burden to the live goat. They had no active part in doing it.
No sinner could ever make a confession this complete. The picture points to someone who knows the sins better than the sinner does.
He was also the responsible man. He knew every secret thing of every man. He told out all the sins and iniquities of every believer to God, with the same perfection with which He suffered as the sacrifice. He became man so that there might be an adequate representative for our sins — sins laid out, felt and hated before God… This is not priestly work inside the holy place. It is the Holy One, our substitute, confessing with complete integrity, pictured here by the high priest.
The verse piles up words: iniquities, transgressions, sins. The size of the list is the point. So is the destination — "a land not inhabited" in older translations, "a remote area" in the ESV.
How many of the sins of Israel did the scapegoat carry away? "All." Precious word! Not one left behind. And where did he carry them? "Into a land not inhabited" — a land where they could never be found, because there was no one there to look for them.
The confession in the type was over Israel's sins, not the world's. Writers draw a careful line from that.
Suppose the Lord Jesus bore the sins of all men in this way. Suppose all the sins of all men were laid on Him and carried away, to be remembered no more. Then it is clear that all men would be saved. But Scripture never says so. In the type, the substitute who bore sins away carried the sins of the children of Israel only. In the same way, the true substitution of Jesus is limited to those who believe and are saved… Yet the death of Christ, as the propitiation, is for the whole world.
Some read the surviving goat as a figure of resurrection. Commentators differ here, and Kelly argues the details rule it out.
When Christ rose from the dead, He rose with a view to going to heaven. But the live goat here is sent into the wilderness. But the wilderness cannot represent a scene of glory: heaven is anything but a land that is not inhabited. No, resurrection has no place at all in this type. Here God is only giving a vivid picture: the sins that were confessed are sent away, where they could never be found again.
- All confessed. The priest names iniquities, transgressions and sins. He leaves nothing off the list.
- All transferred. Both hands on the head mean identification. The guilt moves from the people to the victim, and the people do nothing to move it.
- All borne by One. Christ is the One competent to tell out every secret sin to God, and to carry it.
- All reaching believers. Propitiation faces the whole world; sin-bearing is for those identified with the sacrifice.
- All gone. The sins go to a land with no inhabitant — no one there to look for them, and nothing left behind.
that the goat may bear upon him all their iniquities to a land apart [from men]; and he shall send away the goat into the wilderness.
Leviticus 16:22 ends the day of atonement: the high priest confesses the nation's sins over a live goat, and the goat carries them away into empty land and goes free. Two goats, one sacrifice — so why a second animal, and what does it settle that blood on the mercy seat did not?
One goat died, and the high priest carried its blood inside. The other stayed alive and walked away.
There is no sign that anyone put the scapegoat to death. Aaron offered the goat on which the Lord's lot fell as a sin offering. He presented the other alive before the Lord, as we know... Both were needed to give anything like an adequate picture of Christ's atonement. The first shows Christ toward God, glorifying Him up to and in death. By the blood sprinkled on and before the mercy seat, it enabled God, so to speak, to act in a way worthy of Himself. The second presents Christ as the substitute of those whose sins He bore, and bore away, so that they should never be found again.
The ESV calls the goat's destination "a remote area." Older translations read "a land not inhabited," and that is the wording these writers quote. Either way, the place is named by what it lacks: nobody lives there.
Sending the goat to a land not inhabited means out of sight, out of remembrance, out of everything.
The whole camp could watch the animal go, and they had a name for it. No one there could guarantee it would stay gone.
Loaded with the people's sins, that goat went away into a land not inhabited, never to return. Everyone could see it going, and could watch it slowly disappear until it was lost from view... That man could make sure it went there; but who could keep it from coming back? There was full provision for its departure, but no word about its return. The man took it away. The Lord made sure it never came back... The goat led away was azazel, "the goat of departure," going away with all their sins on its head into the wilderness.
The live goat is never offered. Its release is the point — and that release rests on the death of the other goat.
The words normally mean "to make atonement for him." The sense is simple once we see that the two goats are one sin offering. The first goat makes the whole atonement, and so makes it for the other... What happens to the second goat is not called "atonement." Atonement is made for that goat, so that it may be let go. Being let go is real freedom, the result of atonement already made. And the "land cut off" is not death or anything like it, as I once thought. The sins are carried away as the result of atonement. Sins on the goat's head do not mean penalty for the goat. They mean freedom for the people — a freedom in which their sins are found no more.
The confession named a specific people. That limit in the picture carries over into what it represents.
The sins of the people pass over to the goat. All the iniquities of the children of Israel are laid on him, and the goat carries them away, to be remembered no more. Now suppose the Lord Jesus bore the sins of all people in this way. Suppose all the sins of all people were laid on Him and carried away, to be remembered no more. Then all people would be saved. But Scripture never says so. In the picture, the substitute who carried sins away was only for the children of Israel. In the same way, the true substitution of Jesus is only for those who believe and are saved... while the death of Christ, as the propitiation, is for the whole world.
The two goats stand apart in the ceremony, and for the nation they stand apart in time as well.
Israel rejected the blessing when it was offered. So for them, the putting away of sins, pictured in the scapegoat, is separated by a gap of time from the work that actually puts them away. This is exactly what is pictured in the two goats.
Knowing your sins are gone is not the end of it. There is more that belongs to a believer now.
I trust that no believer will be content just to see that his or her sins are gone forever, which is what the scapegoat pictured — Christ as the substitute for His people. I trust each one will also grasp, by faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, what is theirs now: access to God in the unclouded light of His own presence.
- Two, one. Two goats, one sin offering: blood on the mercy seat for God, sins carried away from the people. One atonement, shown twice.
- Carried. Confession lays the sins on another head. The transfer is real, and afterwards the sins are found no more.
- Away. "A land not inhabited" means out of sight, out of remembrance, out of everything — the man led it away, the Lord kept it from returning.
- Free. The live goat is released, not killed; its freedom is the fruit of the atonement made by the goat that died.
- Limited, yet full. As propitiation, Christ's death reaches the whole world. As substitution, it is for those who believe — and it brings them both cleared sin and access to God.