What is the meaning of Azazel / the scapegoat?

Q. — Lev. 16:10. No one can be surprised at the uncertainty of such as trust either the ancient fathers or the modern Germans. But one does wonder at the dilemma of the late Archdeacon Hardwick in "Christ and other Masters" (Procter's Ed. 1874, p. 504): "How … could the goat as mentioned in ver. 10 be sent to or for Azazel, if Azazel were the goat itself?" Pray explain this. X.

A. — The answer is simple enough. Azazel does not mean the goat simply, but the goat of dismissal. It is all a mistake that the phrase leads directly to the notion of either a person or a place. As the first goat was that on which Jehovah's lot fell for sacrifice, the second was allotted to signify in a striking light the people's sins sent away into oblivion. The foundation was laid in the goat sacrificed to Jehovah. The goat on which the lot fell for Azazel (i.e. for this specific sign of dismissal) was set alive before Jehovah, to make atonement with or on it (i.e. in conjunction with the one slain), to send it away as Azazel into the wilderness, or as said in ver. 22 to a land apart. This was the place; and it is wholly unfounded to conceive Satan or a demon, or any other being. Jehovah forbade every thing of the sort in the next chapter (Lev. 17:7), and is as far as possible from sanctioning such wicked folly here or anywhere else. It is sad to think of a pious man like Hengstenberg carried away by a notion so gratuitous, to say nothing of its impiety. The true and only sense is as evident as it is satisfactory, adding substitution to propitiation, and thus completing atonement, as far as the type could.

The meaning of Azazel is the scapegoat; it is the goat that carries away. There is no limit here.

A za’zel - Goat of departure

Az a zi’ah Strengthened of Jehovah

As regards Azazel - the word is pretty plain I think, I have heretofore noticed it; Ez, the goat - Azal (to depart) in whom the sins fail and disappear - and this is practically, I suppose, the force of eretz g'zerah (a land of separation), to fail, to be removed, perish, excluded. The sins disappeared wholly - they were sent off, and so gone to the land where no man was - they were lost. The use of the two words, only thus used here, is remarkable, for the total disappearance of sins, never to be found - there was no one there to seek for or find them. Just as in the Jewish idea, death removed man from this world, and then there was no remembrance, it was a non est as to this world - so the sins, they were gone, and were not, not to be found, like Rachel's children though not longed for.

Lots are cast as to the two goats, as to their destination: the one is said to be "for Jehovah;" the other "for the scape-goat." In the last place, the Revised Version, with many critical authorities now, substitutes "for Azazel," with an alternative in the margin, "or dismissal," which would bring it back nearly to the old translation. Azazel is mere adoption of the Hebrew word, as to the meaning and application of which there have been so many different thoughts, that some are content to leave it as an insoluble enigma. And yet it is certain that the first two letters of the word are those for "goat," and that it is a goat on which the lot falls; while the rest of the word is one which signifies to go away," "depart," and this is exactly what the goat does: why then should there be any difficulty as to the meaning?

It is generally known that the Hebrew word so translated in the Authorised Version, but left by the Revisers untranslated, has been the occasion of keen debate among men of learning, Jews as well as Christians, though chiefly rationalists. Symmachus gives ἀπερχόμενος, and Aquila ἀπολυόμενος (or, as Montfaucon reads, ἀπολελυμένος); and the Vulgate follows, as did Luther in his day. Theodoret in his comment on the passage seems to have had no question but that the seventy meant ἀποπομπαῖος as ἀποπεμπόμενος. But the learned S. Bochart (Hieroz. II. 54.) objected that their rendering is by a term in classical authors appropriated to the active sense of averting or turning away evils, answering to the Latin averruncus, though he for his part suggests quite a different version of the Hebrew. One of his arguments repeated by moderns, that "ez" is a she goat, not a male, Gesenius confesses it not so certain. Indeed the remark in the Thesaurus, as anyone may verify from Hebrew usage, is "prius caprum quam capram significasse videtur." It is really an epicene, and so capable of application to either sex. Besides, Azazel is a compound, for which the more general designation sufficed with another word to define. This allowed, the natural formation of the word is obvious: Azazel means goat of departure. Nor is there real difficulty in identifying the people's lot with it: as the slain goat was for Jehovah, so the living one for a scapegoat. This is the express distinction of scripture in each case.

People are easily stumbled who for such reasons abandon the intrinsically simple, suitable, and holy sense, for alternatives of the most equivocal nature, if not absurd and profane. Thus not a few suggest that it is the name of a place, of which nobody ever heard; whereas the context supposes a meaning which all could understand at once. This is true only of the ancient and commonly held view. The advocates for a place cannot settle among themselves whether Azazel signifies a precipitous mountain, to which the goat is supposed to be led, or a lonely valley which Deut. 21 probably suggested, though the case was wholly different. Besides, we have the place of consignment already and distinctly specified in ver. 10, which puts this sense of Azazel out of court as intolerable tautology; so Gesenius rightly argues on the latter supposition. "To a desert place, into the desert," cannot stand; any more than the former supposition of casting the goat down a precipice, instead of letting him go free, as ver. 22 requires. Tholuck, Winer, etc., contended for such a strange manipulation of Azazel as would mean "for a complete removal." which Gesenius condemned very properly, both for its frigid character and for its incoherence with ver. 8; and therefore he preferred with many others the abominable sense of a demon or Satan! Hence the Septuagint has been cited as if ὁ ἀποπομπαῖος must mean some such evil genies of the wilderness, who had to be propitiated by the sacrifice of the dismissed goat! One can understand the apostate emperor Julian so sneering at scripture; but Cyril of Alex. found no difficulty in understanding the Greek translation, as the plain English reader does the A.V.

The best exposition we have seen on this view is by Kurtz: "The blood of the first goat was carried by him into the holiest of all, on this day (on which alone he was permitted to enter) and sprinkled on the mercy-seat. The sins for which atonement was thus made, were put upon the head of the second goat, which was sent away alive into the wilderness of Azazel (the evil demon, represented as dwelling in the wilderness), in order that the latter might ascertain all that had been done, and know that he no longer retained power over Israel. This whole transaction expressed the thought that the atonement made on this day was so complete, and so plain and undeniable, that even Satan the Accuser (job 1 and 2; Zech. 3; Rev 12:10, 11) was compelled to acknowledge it. In the sacrifice of this day, consequently, the sacrifice of Christ is shadowed and typified more clearly than in any other, even as we read in Heb. 9:12: "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

There is no need for all these speculations. "Azazel" is not at all an evil being or Satan. The Hebrew word signifies "dismissal"--"to depart." It is translated in the Septuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament) with eis teen _apopompeen, which means "to let him go for the dismissal." Both goats are for sin offering. The first goat represents Christ dying for the sins of His people. The second goat laden with those sins which were atoned for by the blood of the first goat, represents the blessed effect of the work of Christ, that the sins of His people are forever out of sight. It is a blessed harmony with the two birds used in connection with the cleansing of the leper.

And here the dispensational aspects come in. Before the transgressions of Israel could be confessed over the scapegoat and before the goat could be sent forever away with its burden, never to return, the high priest had to come out of the Holiest. As long as he remained alone in the tabernacle the scapegoat could not carry off the sins of the people. When the Lord appears the second time, when He comes forth out of Heaven's glory as the King-Priest, then the blessed effect of His death for that nation (John 11:51) will be realized and their sins and transgressions will forever be put away. Then their sins will be cast into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19) and they shall no more be remembered (Is. 43:25). That this is the true meaning of the scapegoat taking the sins of the people into the wilderness and therefore forever out of sight, we shall learn also in the twenty-third chapter. The feasts and holy seasons mentioned there are: Passover (redemption by blood); firstfruits (resurrection); feast of weeks (Pentecost); feast of trumpets (the regathering of Israel); the day of atonement (when Israel repents and is forgiven); the feast of tabernacles (millennial times). Israel therefore is unconsciously waiting for Christ's return as their forefathers waited outside, till Aaron came back to put their sins on the scapegoat.

Keil contends, however, that "the words, one lot for Jehovah and one for Azazel, require unconditionally that Azazel should be regarded as a personal being in opposition to Jehovah;" but this is his affirmation only: no one that had no theory to support would see any such necessity. But a long line of commentators, Jewish and Christian both, declare Azazel to be a name for Satan, and with this Keil agrees, and that the goat is to be sent away to Satan, for what purpose they cannot decide, for the simple reason that Scripture says nothing about it. The two goats are one sin-offering (v. 5) and of course a double representation of Christ, and the great point is, that the sins for which the first goat dies are taken away from the people on the head of the second "into a land cut off" — where therefore they cannot be found. All is as simple as can be, and needs no such weird invention to introduce confusion into it.

The fact that the two goats are one sin-offering meets another difficulty which has been found in the words as to the second goat, "to make atonement for him, to let him go as a scape-goat into the wilderness." The common version escapes it by rendering "to make atonement with him," but this cannot be maintained. Others would translate, "to make atonement over him," but this is neither the force of the word, nor has it any plain significance that one can discern. The words mean regularly "to make atonement for him," and the meaning is simple when we consider that, the two being one sin-offering, the atonement is made entirely by the first goat, which therefore makes it for the other: this solution of the matter, simple as it is, seems to have escaped the commentators. Its importance is, that what is done with it is defined not to be "atonement," and inconsistent with the thought of its really making it; for atonement is made for it, to let it go. It shows also that the being let go is a real freedom, the result of atonement made, and that the "land cut off" is not death or its equivalent, as I once thought. It is as the consequence of atonement that the sins are borne away, and their being on the head of the goat does not mean penalty for it, but freedom for the people — a freedom which involves their sins being no more found.

Thus too the meaning of "Jehovah's lot" becomes plain. The first goat is that, because it is the real sacrifice, while the other is "let go." It is not a question of two parts or aspects of atonement; for the first alone really makes the atonement, while the other expresses the result for the people.

For Israel, in consequence of their rejection of the blessing when it was offered, the putting away of sins, as in the scapegoat, is separated by a gap of time from the work which actually puts them away. This is exactly what is pictured in the two goats. When their sins are put upon the scapegoat, there is no actual sacrifice, no real atonement made at all. The goat is a scapegoat, that is, a goat that gets away, not that is offered. There is positively no offering of this goat, a thing from which, through not understanding it, much confusion has arisen. Atonement is not made "with it," as in our common version, but "for it" (Lev. 16:10), as the words (kapper al) elsewhere and constantly are rightly taken to mean (Ex. 29:36; Ex. 30:12, 15, 16; Lev. 1:4; Lev. 4:20, 26, 31, 35, etc.).

The difficulty, of course, is obvious. How can propitiation be made, or why does it need to be made, for the goat? But the answer is not far to seek. It is indeed because the two goats are for one sin-offering, while in fact only one is offered (Lev. 16:5). The Lord's lot falls on the one to be offered, the other escapes. The atonement which ideally he was to make, is, in fact, made for him by the former one.

The application is simple in view of Israel's history. The first goat is offered and its blood carried into the holiest of all when the high priest enters it. Not till he comes out again are Israel's sins put upon the scapegoat and carried away. The Day of Atonement is thus made to extend back through the whole Christian period. We have the link of the future with the past. The atonement, all of it, was made once for all, before Christ as High Priest entered the heavens. When Israel's sins are put away He will have come out again; but then, of course, no fresh sacrifice can be offered. The scapegoat is, therefore, not a fresh sacrifice. It points simply to a former time in which the actual one took place, and the two goats are necessary to preserve the connection, and point out the delay of blessing which the national unbelief occasions.

Charged with all that weight of sin - all, let the reader again remark, all the iniquities of the children of Israel, with all their transgressions in all their sins, the substitute for the people was led away by the person appointed for the purpose. All their iniquities had been laid upon it, not some, not the great ones, the gross ones, not those that weighed heaviest on their consciences, but all - all were placed on that goat, who bore them all away. Propitiation and substitution were now accomplished facts. The two goats, really but one sin-offering (Lev. 16:5), typifying two important parts of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, were both needed, the former to meet the claims of God's holiness, the latter to free the guilty ones from the burden, the weight of their sins.

Charged with the people's sins, that goat went away into a land not inhabited, or separated, never to return. And as it took its departure, all might see it going away, might watch its gradual disappearing from sight till lost to view. With what interest doubtless some regarded it, Jehovah's provision for a guilty people. Sent away by the high priest under the charge of the man selected for the purpose, that goat wended its way into the wilderness. That man could ensure its going thither; but who could keep it from coming back? It went with all the sins of the people on its head, and it was of the utmost importance that it should never come back. Full provision was made for its departure, but nothing was said of its return. The man took it away. The Lord provided that it never should come back.