Choosing the Scape-goat
The first part of the expiatory service—that for the priesthood—had taken place close to
the Holy Place, between the porch and the altar. The next was performed close to the
worshipping people. In the eastern part of the Court of Priests, that is, close to the
worshippers, and on the north side of it, stood an urn, called Calpi, in which were two
lots of the same shape, size, and material—in the second Temple they were of gold; the
one bearing the inscription 'la-JEHOVAH,' for Jehovah, the other 'la-Azazel,' for Azazel,
leaving the expression (Lev 16:8,10,26) (rendered 'scape-goat' in the Authorised Version)
for the present untranslated. These two goats had been placed with their backs to the
people and their faces towards the sanctuary (westwards). The high-priest now faced
the people, as, standing between his substitute (at his right hand) and the head of the
at the same time drew the two lots, laying one on the head of each goat. Popularly it was
deemed of good augury if the right-hand lot had fallen 'for Jehovah.' The two goats,
however, must be altogether alike in look, size, and value; indeed, so earnestly was it
sought to carry out the idea that these two formed parts of one and the same sacrifice,
that it was arranged they should, if possible, even be purchased at the same time. The
importance of this view will afterwards be explained.
The Goat Shown to the People
The lot having designated each of the two goats, the high-priest tied a tongue-shaped
piece of scarlet cloth to the horn of the goat for Azazel—the so-called 'scape-goat'—and
another round the throat of the goat for Jehovah, which was to be slain. The goat that
was to be sent forth was now turned round towards the people, and stood facing them,
waiting, as it were, till their sins should be laid on him, and he would carry them forth
into 'a land not inhabited.' Assuredly a more marked type of Christ could not be
conceived, as He was brought forth by Pilate and stood before the people, just as He
was about to be led forth, bearing the iniquity of the people. And, as if to add to the
significance of the rite, tradition has it that when the sacrifice was fully accepted the
scarlet mark which the scape-goat had borne became white, to symbolise the gracious
promise in Isaiah 1:18; but it adds that this miracle did not take place for forty years
before the destruction of the Temple!
The Confession of Sin and the Sacrifice
With this presentation of the scape-goat before the people commenced the third and
most solemn part of the expiatory services of the day. The high-priest now once more
returned towards the sanctuary, and a second time laid his two hands on the bullock,
which still stood between the porch and the altar, to confess over him, not only as
before, his own and his household's sins, but also those of the priesthood. The formula
used was precisely the same as before, with the addition of the words, 'the seed of
Aaron, Thy holy people,' both in the confession and in the petition for atonement. Then
the high-priest killed the bullock, caught up his blood in a vessel, and gave it to an
attendant to keep it stirring, lest it should coagulate. Advancing to the altar of burntoffering,
he next filled the censer with burning coals, and then ranged a handful of
frankincense in the dish destined to hold it. Ordinarily, everything brought in actual
ministry unto God mu st be carried in the right hand—hence the incense in the right and
the censer in the left. But on this occasion, as the censer for the Day of Atonement was
larger and heavier than usual, the high-priest was allowed to reverse the common order.
Every eye was strained towards the sanctuary as, slowly bearing the censer and the
incense, the figure of the white-robed high-priest was seen to disappear within the Holy
Place. After that nothing further could be seen of his movements.
The Mercy-seat
The curtain of the Most Holy Place was folded back, and the high-priest stood alone
and separated from all the people in the awful gloom of the Holiest of All, only lit up by
the red glow of the coals in the priest's censer. In the first Temple the ark of God had
stood there with the 'mercy-seat' over-shadowing it; above it, the visible presence of
Jehovah in the cloud of the Shechinah, and on either side the outspread wings of the
cherubim; and the high-priest had placed the censer between the staves of the ark. But
in the Temple of Herod there was neither Shechinah nor ark—all was empty; and the
high-priest rested his censer on a large stone, called the 'foundation-stone.' He now
most carefully emptied the incense into his hand, and threw it on the coals of the censer,
as far from himself as possible, and so waited till the smoke had filled the Most Holy
course on ministry (on his left hand), he shook the urn, thrust his two hands into it, and
Place. Then, retreating backwards, he prayed outside the veil as follows:164 'May it
please Thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, that neither this day nor
during this year any captivity come upon us. Yet, if captivity befall us this day or this
year, let it be to a place where the law is cultivated. May it please Thee, O Lord our God,
and the God of our fathers, that want come not upon us, either this day or this year. But
if want visit us this day or this year, let it be due to the liberality of our charitable deeds.
May it please Thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, that this year may be a
year of cheapness, of fulness, of intercourse and trade; a year with abundance of rain, of
sunshine, and of dew; one in which Thy people Israel shall not require assistance one
from another. And listen not to the prayers of those who are about to set out on a
journey.165 And as to Thy people Israel, may no enemy exalt himself against them. May
it please Thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, that the houses of the men
of Saron may not become their graves.'166 The high-priest was not to prolong this prayer,
lest his protracted absence might fill the people with fears for his safety.
The Sprinkling of the Blood
While the incense was offering in the Most Holy Place the people withdrew from
proximity to it, and worshipped in silence. At last the people saw the high-priest
emerging from the sanctuary, and they knew that the service had been accepted.
Rapidly he took from the attendant, who had kept it stirring, the blood of the bullock.
Once more he entered into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkled with his finger once
upwards, towards where the mercy-seat had been, and seven times downwards,
counting as he did so : 'Once' (upwards), 'once and once' (downwards), 'once and twice'
and so on to 'once and seven times,' always repeating the word 'once,' which referred to
the upwards sprinkling, so as to prevent any mistake. Coming out from the Most Holy
Place, the high-priest now deposited the bowl with the blood before the veil. Then he
killed the goat set apart for Jehovah, and, entering the Most Holy Place a third time,
sprinkled as before, once upwards and seven times downwards, and again deposited the
bowl with the blood of the goat on a second golden stand before the veil. Taking up the
bowl with the bullock's blood, he next sprinkled once upwards and seven times
downwards towards the veil, outside the Most Holy Place, and then did the same with
the blood of the goat. Finally, pouring the blood of the bullock into the bowl which
contained that of the goat, and again the mixture of the two into that which had held the
blood of the bullock, so as thoroughly to commingle the two, he sprinkled each of the
horns of the altar of incense, and then, making a clear place on the altar, seven times the
top of the altar of incense. Thus he had sprinkled forty-three times with the expiatory
blood, taking care that his own dress should never be spotted with the sin-laden blood.
What was left of the blood the high-priest poured out on the west side of the base of
the altar of burnt-offering.
The Cleansing Completed
By these expiatory sprinklings the high-priest had cleansed the sanctuary in all its parts
from the defilement of the priesthood and the worshippers. The Most Holy Place, the
veil, the Holy Place, the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt-offering were now clean
alike, so far as the priesthood and as the people were concerned; and in their
relationship to the sanctuary both priests and worshippers were atoned for. So far as the
law could give it, there was now again free access for all; or, to put it otherwise, the
continuance of typical sacrificial communion with God was once more restored and
secured. Had it not been for these services, it would have become impossible for priests
and people to offer sacrifices, and so to obtain the forgiveness of sins, or to have
fellowship with God. But the consciences were not yet free from a sense of personal
guilt and sin. That remained to be done through the 'scape-goat.' All this seems clearly
implied in the distinctions made in Leviticus 16:33: 'And he shall make an atonement for
the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the
congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for
all the people of the congregation.'
The Scape-goat
Most solemn as the services had hitherto been, the worshippers would chiefly think
with awe of the high-priest going into the immediate presence of God, coming out
thence alive, and securing for them by the blood the continuance of the Old Testament
privileges of sacrifices and of access unto God through them. What now took place
concerned them, if possible, even more nearly. Their own personal guilt and sins were
now to be removed from them, and that in a symbolical rite, at one and the same time the
most mysterious and the most significant of all. All this while the 'scape-goat,' with the
'scarlet-tongue,' telling of the guilt it was to bear, had stood looking eastwards,
confronting the people, and waiting for the terrible load which it was to carry away 'unto
a land not inhabited.' Laying both his hands on the head of this goat, the high-priest
now confessed and pleaded: 'Ah, JEHOVAH! they have committed iniquity; they have
transgressed; they have sinned—Thy people, the house of Israel. Oh, then, JEHOVAH!
cover over (atone for), I entreat Thee, upon their iniquities, their transgressions, and
their sins, which they have wickedly committed, transgressed, and sinned before
Thee—Thy people, the house of Israel. As it is written in the law of Moses, Thy
servant, saying: "For on that day shall it be covered over (atoned) for you, to make you
clean from all your sins before JEHOVAH ye shall be cleansed."' And while the prostrate
multitude worshipped at the name of Jehovah, the high-priest turned his face towards
them as he uttered the last words, 'Ye shall be cleansed!' as if to declare to them the
absolution and remission of their sins.
The Goat Sent into the Wilderness
Then a strange scene would be witnessed. The priests led the sin-burdened goat out
through 'Solomon's Porch,' and, as tradition has it, through the eastern gate, which
opened upon the Mount of Olives.167
Here an arched bridge spanned the intervening valley, and over it they brought the goat
to the Mount of Olives, where one, specially appointed for the purpose, took him in
charge. Tradition enjoins that he should be a stranger, a non-Israelite, as if to make still
more striking the type of Him who was delivered over by Israel unto the Gentiles!
Scripture tells us no more of the destiny of the goat that bore upon him all the iniquities
of the children of Israel, than that they 'shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into
the wilderness,' and that 'he shall let go the goat in the wilderness' (Lev 16:22). But
tradition supplements this information. The distance between Jerusalem and the
beginning of 'the wilderness' is computed at ninety stadia, making precisely ten
intervals, each half a Sabbath-day's journey from the other. At the end of each of these
intervals there was a station, occupied by one or more persons, detailed for the purpose,
who offered refreshment to the man leading the goat, and then accompanied him to the
next station. By this arrangement two results were secured: some trusted persons
accompanied the goat all along his journey, and yet none of them walked more than a
Sabbath-day's journey—that is, half a journey going and the other half returning. At last
they reached the edge of the wilderness. Here they halted, viewing afar off, while the
man led forward the goat, tore off half the 'scarlet-tongue,' and stuck it on a projecting
cliff; then, leading the animal backwards, he pushed it over the projecting ledge of rock.
There was a moment's pause, and the man, now defiled by contact with the sin-bearer,
retraced his steps to the last of the ten stations, where he spent the rest of the day and
the night. But the arrival of the goat in the wilderness was immediately telegraphed, by
the waving of flags, from station to station, till, a few minutes after its occurrence, it was
known in the Temple, and whispered from ear to ear, that 'the goat had borne upon him
all their iniquities into a land not inhabited.'
The Meaning of the Rite
What then was the meaning of a rite on which such momentous issue depended?
Everything about it seems strange and mysterious—the lot that designated it, and that
'to Azazel'; the fact, that though the highest of all sin-offerings, it was neither sacrificed
nor its blood sprinkled in the Temple; and the circumstance that it really was only part of
a sacrifice—the two goats together forming one sacrifice, one of them being killed, and
the other 'let go,' there being no other analogous case of the kind except at the
purification of a leper, when one bird was killed and the other dipped in its blood, and let
go free. Thus these two sacrifices—one in the removal of what symbolically represented
indwelling sin, the other contracted guilt—agreed in requiring two animals, of whom one
was killed, the other 'let go.' This is not the place to discuss the various views
entertained of the import of the scape-goat. But it is destructive of one and all of the
received interpretations, that the sins of the people were confessed not on the goat
which was killed, but on that which was 'let go in the wilderness,' and that it was this
goat—not the other—which 'bore upon him all the iniquities' of the people. So far as the
conscience was concerned, this goat was the real and the only sin-offering 'for all the
iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins,' for upon it
the high-priest laid the sins of the people, after he had by the blood of the bullock and
of the other goat 'made an end of reconciling the Holy Place, and the tabernacle of the
congregation, and the altar' (Lev 16:20). The blood sprinkled had effected this; but it had
done no more, and it could do no more, for it 'could not make him that did the service
perfect, as pertaining to the conscience' (Heb 9:9). The symbolical representation of this
perfecting was by the live goat, which, laden with the confessed sins of the people,
carried them away into 'the wilderness' to 'a land not inhabited.' The only meaning of
which this seems really capable, is that though confessed guilt was removed from the
people to the head of the goat, as the symbolical substitute, yet as the goat was not
killed, only sent far away, into 'a land not inhabited,' so, under the Old Covenant, sin
was not really blotted out, only put away from the people, and put aside till Christ came,
not only to take upon Himself the burden of transgression, but to blot it out and to
purge it away.
