'And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the
two sons of Aaron when they offered before the Lord,
and died; 2. And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto
Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into
the holy place within the vail before the mercy-seat,
which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear
in the cloud upon the mercy-seat. 3. Thus shall Aaron
come into the holy place; with a young bullock for a sin
offering, and a ram for a burnt offering. 4. He shall
put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen
breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen
girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired:
these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his
flesh in water, and so put them on. 5. 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. 6. And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the
sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement
for himself, and for his house. 7. And he shall take the
two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation. 8. And Aaron
shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the
Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. 9. And Aaron
shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and
offer him for a sin offering: 10. 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.
11. And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering
which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for
himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock
of the sin offering which is for himself. 12. And he
shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from
off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of
sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:
13. And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the
Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the
mercy-seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:
14. And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and
sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy-seat eastward;
and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood
with his finger seven times. 15. Then shall he kill the
goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and
bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood
as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it
upon the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat. 16. 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.
17. And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the
congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in
the holy place, until he come out, and have made an
atonement for himself, and for his household, and for
all the congregation of Israel. 18. And he shall go out
unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an
atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the
bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon
the horns of the altar round about. 19. And he shall
sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven
times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness
of the children of Israel.'--LEV. xvi. 1-19.
The Talmudical treatise on the ritual of the day of atonement is
entitled 'Yoma,' _the_ day, which sufficiently expresses its importance
in the series of sacrificial observances. It was the confession of the
incompleteness of them all, a ceremonial proclamation that ceremonies
do not avail to take away sin; and it was also a declaration that the
true end of worship is not reached till the worshipper has free access
to the holy place of the Most High. Thus the prophetic element is the
very life-breath of this supreme institution of the old covenant, which
therein acknowledges its own defects, and feeds the hopes of a future
better thing. We do not here consider the singular part of the ritual
of the Day of Atonement which is concerned with the treatment of the
so-called 'scapegoat' but confine ourselves to the consideration of
that part of it which was observed in the Tabernacle and was intended
to expiate the sins of the priesthood and of the people. The chapter
connects the rites of the Day of Atonement with the tragic death of the
sons of Aaron, which witnessed to the sanctity of the inner shrine, as
not to be trodden but with the appointed offerings by the appointed
priest; and so makes the whole a divinely given instruction as to the
means by which, and the objects for which, Aaron may enter within the
veil.
I. In verses 3-10 we have the preliminaries of the sacrifices and a
summary of the rites. First, Aaron was to bathe, and then to robe
himself in pure white. The dress is in singular contrast to the
splendour of his usual official costume, in which he stood before men
as representing God, and evidently signifies the purity which alone
fits for entrance into the awful presence. Thus vested, he brings the
whole of the animals to be sacrificed to the altar,--namely, for
himself and his order, a bullock and a ram; for the people, two goats
and a ram. The goats are then taken by him to the door of the
tent,--and it is to be observed that they are spoken of as both
constituting one sin offering (v. 5). They therefore both belong to the
Lord, and are, in some important sense, one, as was recognised by the
later Rabbinical prescription that they should be alike in colour,
size, and value. The appeal to the lot was an appeal to God to decide
the parts they were respectively to sustain in a transaction which, in
both parts, was really one. The consideration of the meaning of the
ritual for the one which was led away may be postponed for the present.
The preliminaries end with the casting of the lots, and in later times,
with tying the ominous red fillet on the head of the dumb creature for
which so weird a fate was in store.
II. The first part of the ritual proper (vs. 11-14) is the expiation
for the sins of Aaron and the priesthood, and his entrance into the
most holy place. The bullock was slain in the usual manner of the sin
offering, but its blood was destined for a more solemn use. The
white-robed priest took a censer of burning embers from the altar
before the tent-door, and two hands full of incense, and, thus laden,
passed into the Tabernacle. How the silent crowd in the outer court
would watch the last flutter of the white robe as it was lost in the
gloom within! He passed through the holy place, which, on every day but
this, was the limit of his approach; but, on this one day, he lifted
the curtain, and entered the dark chamber, where the glory flashed from
the golden walls and rested above the ark. Would not his heart beat
faster as he laid his hand on the heavy veil, and caught the first
gleam of the calm light from the Shechinah? As soon as he entered, he
was to cast the incense into the censer, that the fragrant cloud might
cover the mercy-seat. Incense is the symbol of prayer, and that curling
cloud is a picture of the truth that the purest of men, even the
anointed priest, robed in white, who has offered sacrifices daily all
the year round, and today has anxiously obeyed all the commands of
ceremonial cleanliness, can yet only draw near to God as a suppliant,
not entering there as having a right of access, but beseeching entrance
as undeserved mercy. The incense did not cover 'the glory' that Aaron
might not gaze upon it, but it covered him that Jehovah might not look
on his sin. It would appear that, between verse 13 and verse 14,
Aaron's leaving the most holy place to bring the blood of the sacrifice
must be understood. If so, we can fancy the long-drawn sigh of relief
with which the waiting worshippers saw him return, and carry back into
the shrine the expiating blood. The 'most holy place' would still be
filled and its atmosphere thick with the incense fumes when he returned
to perform the solemn expiation for himself and the whole priestly
order. Once the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat, and seven times,
apparently, on the ground in front of it. The former act was intended,
as seems probable, to make atonement for the sins of the priesthood;
the latter, to cleanse the sanctuary from the ideal defilements arising
from their defective and sinful ministrations.
This completed the part of the ceremonial which belonged immediately to
Aaron and the priests. It carries important lessons. Could there be a
more striking exhibition of their imperfect realisation of the idea of
the priestly office? Observe the anomaly inherent in the very necessity
of the case. Aaron was dressed in the white robes emblematic of purity;
he had partaken in the benefit of, and had himself offered, sacrifices
all the year round. So far as ritual could go, he was pure, and yet so
stained with sin that he dared not enter into the divine presence
without that double safeguard of the incense and the blood. The priest
who cleanses others is himself unclean, and he and his fellows have
tainted the sanctuary by the very services which were meant to atone
and to purify. That solemn ritual is intended to teach priest and
people alike, that every priest 'taken from among men' fails in his
office, and pollutes the temple instead of purifying the worshipper.
But the office was God's appointment, and therefore would not always be
filled by men too small and sinful for its requirements. There must
somewhere and somewhen be a priest who will be one indeed, fulfilling
the divine ideal of the functions, and answering the deep human
longings which have expressed themselves in all lands, for one, pure
with no ceremonial but a real purity, to bring us to God and God to us,
to offer sacrifice which shall need no after atonement to expiate its
defects, and to stand without incense or blood of sprinkling for
himself in the presence of God for us. The imperfections of the human
holders of the Old Testament offices, whether priest, prophet, or king,
were no less prophecies than their positive qualifications were.
Therefore, when we see Aaron passing into the holy place, we see the
dim shadow of Christ, who 'needeth not to make atonement' for His own
sins, and is our priest 'for ever.'
III. The ritual for the atonement of the sins of the people follows.
The two goats had been, during all this time, standing at the door of
the Tabernacle. We have already pointed out that they are to be
considered as one sacrifice. There are two of them, for the same
reason, as has been often remarked, as there were two birds in the
ritual of cleansing the leper; namely, because one animal could not
represent the two parts of the one whole truth which they are meant to
set forth. The one was sacrificed as a sin offering, and the other led
away into a solitary land. Here we consider the meaning of the former
only, which presents no difficulty. It is a sin offering for the
people, exactly corresponding to that just offered for the priests. The
same use is made of the blood, which is once sprinkled by Aaron on the
mercy-seat and seven times on the ground before it, as in the former
case. It is not, however, all employed there, but part of it is carried
out into the other divisions of the Tabernacle; and first, the holy
place, which the priests daily entered and which is called in verse 16
'the tent of meeting,' and next, the altar of burnt offering in the
outer court, are in like manner sprinkled seven times with the blood,
to 'hallow' them 'from the uncleanness of the children of Israel'
(verse 19). The teaching of this rite, in its bearing upon the people,
is similar to that of the previous priestly expiation. The
insufficiency of sacrificial cleansing is set forth by this annual
atonement for sins which had all been already atoned for. The defects
of a ritual worship are proclaimed by the ritual which cleanses the
holy places from the uncleanness contracted by them from the
worshippers. If the altar, the seat of expiation, itself needed
expiation, how imperfect its worth must be! If the cleansing fountain
is foul, how shall it be cleansed, or how shall it cleanse the
offerers? The bearing of the blood of expiation into the most holy
place, where no Israelite ever entered, save the high priest, taught
that the true expiation could only be effected by one who should pass
into the presence of God, and leave the door wide open for all to
enter. For surely the distance between the worshippers and the
mercy-seat was a confession of imperfection; and the entrance there of
the representative of the sinful people was the holding out of a dim
hope that in some fashion, yet unknown, the veil would be rent, and
true communion be possible for the humble soul. The Epistle to the
Hebrews tells us where we are to look for the realities of which these
ceremonies were the foreshadowings. The veil was rent at the
crucifixion. Christ has gone into 'the secret place of the Most High,'
and if we love Him, our hearts have gone with Him, and our lives are
'hid with Him, in God.'
'THE SCAPEGOAT'
'And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities
unto a land not inhabited....'-LEV. xvi. 22.
The import of the remarkable treatment of this goat does not depend on
the interpretation of the obscure phrase rendered in the Authorised
Version 'for the scapegoat.' Leaving that out of sight for the moment,
we observe that the two animals were one sacrifice, and that the
transaction with the living one was the completion of that with the
slain. The sins of the congregation, which had been already expiated by
the sacrifice, were laid by the high priest on the head of the goat,
which was then sent away into the wilderness that he might 'bear upon
him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited' (v. 22). Nothing
depends on the fate of the goat, though, in after times, it was forced
over a precipice and so killed. The carrying away of expiated sin, and
not the destruction of unexpiated sinners, is the meaning of the
impressive rite, and, had it been possible, the same goat that was
sacrificed would have been sent into the desert. As that could not be
done, an ideal unity was established between the two: the one
sacrificed represented the fact of expiation, the one driven away
represented the consequences of expiation in the complete removal of
sin. The expiation was made 'within the veil'; but a visible token of
its completeness was given to help feeble faith, in the blessed mystery
of the unseen propitiation. What was divided in the symbol between the
twin goats is all done by the one Sacrifice, who has entered into the
holiest of all, at once Priest and Sacrifice, and with His own blood
made expiation for sin, and has likewise carried away the sin of the
world into a land of forgetfulness, whence it never can return.
The clear meaning of the rite is thus obtained, whatever be the force
of the difficult phrase already referred to. 'Scapegoat' is certainly
wrong. But it may be questioned whether the Revised Version is right in
retaining the Hebrew word untranslated, and, by putting a capital
letter to it, marking it as a proper name ('for Azazel'). The word
occurs only here, so that we have no help from other passages. It seems
to come from a root meaning 'to drive away,' and those who take it to
be a proper name, generally suppose it to refer to some malignant
spirit, or to Satan, and interpret it as meaning 'a fiend whom one
drives away,' or, sometimes, 'who drives away.' The vindication of such
an interpretation is supposed to lie in the necessity of finding a
complete antithesis in the phrase to the 'for Jehovah' of the previous
clause in verse 8. But it is surely sacrificing a good deal to
rhetorical propriety to drag in an idea so foreign to the Pentateuch,
and so opposed to the plain fact, that both goats were one sin offering
(v. 5), in order to get a pedantically correct antithesis. In the
absence of any guidance from usage, certainty as to the meaning of the
word is unattainable. But there seems no reason, other than that of the
said antithesis, against taking it to mean removal or dismissal, rather
than 'a remover.' The Septuagint translates it in both ways: as a
person in verse 8, and as 'sending away' in verse 10. If the latter
meaning be adopted, then the word just defines the same purpose as is
given more at length in verse 22, namely, the carrying away of the sins
of the congregation. The logical imperfection of the opposition in
verse 8 would then be simply enough solved by the fact that while both
goats were 'for the Lord,' one was destined to be actually offered in
sacrifice, and the other to be 'for dismissal.' The incomplete contrast
testifies to the substantial unity of the two, and needs no
introduction, into the most sacred rite of the old covenant, of a
ceremony which looks liker demon-worship than a parable of the great
expiation for a world's sins.
The question for us is, What spiritual ideas are contained in this
Levitical symbolism? There is signified, surely, the condition of
approach to God. Remember how the Israelites had impressed on their
minds the awful sanctity of 'within the veil.' The inmost shrine was
trodden once a year only by the high priest, and only after anxious
lustrations and when clothed in pure garments, he entered 'with
sacrifice and incense lest he die.' This ritual was for a gross and
untutored age, but the men of that age were essentially like ourselves,
and we have the same sins and spiritual necessities as they had.
The two goats are regarded as _one_ sacrifice. They are a 'sin
offering.' Hence, to show how unimportant and non-essential is the
distinction between them, the 'lot' is employed; also, while the one is
being slain, the other stands before the 'door of the Tabernacle.' This
shows that both are parts of one whole, and it is only from the
impossibility of presenting both halves of the truth to be symbolised
in one that two are taken. The one which is slain represents the
sacrifice for sin. The other represents the effects of that sacrifice.
It is never heard of more. 'The Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the
world.' 'As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed
our transgressions from us.'