You guys know I’m a big fan of Alfred Edersheim, especially his magnificent work On the Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Yesterday, to better understand Hebrews 9, I was digging into his description of the Day of Atonement in his The Temple- Its Ministry and Services. It is so great, I thought I would share the chapter will you all.
Thanks to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making all this stuff available.
Here’s a little video of me talking through some of these things.
The Day of Atonement
‘But into the second (tabernacle) went the high-priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people . . . But Christ being
Weakness of the Law
It may sound strange, and yet it is true, that the clearest testimony to ‘the weakness and unprofitableness’ ‘of the commandment’ is that given by ‘the commandment’ itself. The Levitical arrangements for the removal of sin bear on their forefront, as it were, this inscription: ‘The law made nothing perfect’—having neither a perfect mediatorship in the priesthood, nor a perfect ‘atonement’ in the sacrifices, nor yet
The Day of Atonement
As might have been expected, this ‘weakness and unprofitableness of the commandment’ became most apparent in the services of the day in which the Old Testament provision for pardon and acceptance attained, so to speak, its climax. On the Day of Atonement, not ordinary priests, but the high-priest alone officiated, and that not in his ordinary dress, nor yet in that of the ordinary priesthood, but in one peculiar to the day, and peculiarly expressive of purity. The worshippers also appeared in circumstances different from those on any other occasion, since they were to fast and to ‘afflict their souls’; the day itself was to be ‘a Sabbath of Sabbatism’ (rendered ‘Sabbath of rest’ in Authorised Version), while its central services consisted of a series of grand expiatory sacrifices, unique in their character, purpose, and results, as described in these words: ‘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’ (Lev 16:33). But even the need of such a Day of Atonement, after the daily offerings, the various festive sacrifices, and the private and public sin-offerings all the year round, showed the insufficiency of all such sacrifices, while the very offerings of the Day of Atonement proclaimed themselves to be only temporary and provisional, ‘imposed until the time of reformation.’ We specially allude here to the mysterious appearance of the so-called ‘scape-goat,’ of which we shall, in the sequel, have to give an account differing from that of previous writers.
Its Names
The names ‘Day of Atonement,’ or in the Talmud, which devotes to it a special tractate, simply ‘the day’ (perhaps also in Hebrews 7:27159), and in the Book of Acts ‘the fast’ (Acts 27:9), sufficiently designate its general object.
It took place on the tenth day of the seventh month (Tishri), that is, symbolically, when the sacred or Sabbath of months had just attained its completeness. Nor must we overlook the position of that day
The Teaching of Scripture about the Day
In briefly reviewing the Divine ordinances about this day (Lev 16; 23:26-32; Num 29:11), we find that only on that one day in every year the high-priest was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place, and then arrayed in a peculiar white dress, which differed from that of the ordinary priests, in that its girdle also was white, and not of the Temple
Numbers 29:7-11
From Numbers 29:7-11 it appears that the offerings on the Day of Atonement were really of a threefold kind—’the continual burnt-offering,’ that is, the daily morning and evening sacrifices, with their meat- and drink-offerings; the festive sacrifices of the day, consisting for the high-priest and the priesthood, of ‘a ram for a burnt-offering’ (Lev 16:3), and for the people of one young bullock, one ram, and seven lambs of the first year (with their meat-offerings) for a burnt-sacrifice, and one kid of the goats for a sin-offering; and, thirdly, and chiefly, the peculiar expiatory sacrifices of the day, which were a young bullock as a sin-offering for the high-priest, his house, and the sons of Aaron, and another sin-offering for the people, consisting of two goats, one of which was to be killed and its blood sprinkled, as directed, while the other was to be sent away into the wilderness, bearing ‘all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins’ which had been confessed ‘over him,’ and laid upon him by the high-priest. Before proceeding further, we note the following as the order of these sacrifices—first, the ordinary morning sacrifice; next the expiatory sacrifices for the high-priest, the priesthood, and the people (one bullock, and one of the two goats, the other being the so-called scape-goat); then the festive burnt-offerings of the priests and the people (Num 29:7-11), and with them another sin-offering; and, lastly, the ordinary evening sacrifice, being, as Maimonides observes, in all fifteen sacrificial animals. According to Jewish tradition, the whole of the services of that day were performed by the high-priest himself, of course with the assistance of others, for which purpose more than 500 priests were said to have been employed. Of course, if the Day of Atonement fell on a Sabbath, besides all these, the ordinary Sabbath sacrifices were also offered. On a principle previously explained, the high-priest purchased from his own funds the sacrifices brought for himself and his house, the priesthood, however, contributing, in order to make them sharers in the offering, while the public sacrifices for the whole people were paid for from the Temple treasury. Only while officiating in the distinctly expiatory services of the day did the high-priest wear his ‘linen garments’; in all the others he was arrayed in his ‘golden vestments.’ This necessitated a frequent change of dress, and before each he bathed his whole body. All this will be best understood by a more detailed account of the order of service, as given in the Scriptures and by tradition.
The Duties of the High-priest
Seven days before the Day of Atonement the high-priest left his own house in
During the whole of that week, also, he had to
The evening meal of the high-priest before the great day was to be scanty. All night long he was to be hearing and expounding the Holy Scriptures, or otherwise kept
The Morning Service
The services of the day began with the first streak of morning light. Already the people had been admitted into the sanctuary. So jealous were they of any innovation or alteration, that only a linen cloth excluded the high-priest from public view, when, each time before changing his garments, he bathed—not in the ordinary place of the priests, but in one specially set apart for his use. Altogether he changed his raiments and washed his whole body five times on that day, and his hands and feet ten times.
When the first dawn of morning was announced in the usual manner, the high-priest put off his ordinary (layman’s) dress, bathed, put on his golden vestments, washed his hands and feet, and proceeded to perform all the principal parts of the ordinary morning service. Tradition has it, that immediately after that, he offered certain parts of the burnt-sacrifices for the day, viz. the bullock and the seven lambs, reserving his own ram and that of the people, as well as the sin-offering of a kid of the goats (Num 29:8-11), till after the special expiatory sacrifices of the day had been brought. But the text of Leviticus 16:24 is entirely against this
The Sin-offering
The morning service finished, the high-priest washed his hands and feet, put off his golden vestments, bathed, put on his ‘linen garments,’ again washed his hands and feet, and proceeded to the
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 course on ministry (on his left hand), he shook the urn, thrust his two hands into it, and 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 burnt-offering, 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 must 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
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.
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
The Teaching of Scripture
Thus viewed, not only the text of Leviticus
‘And for
This is not the place for following the argument further. Once understood, many passages will recur which manifest how the Old Testament removal of sin was shown in the law itself to have been complete indeed, so far as the individual was concerned, but not really and in reference to God, till He came to Whom as the reality these types pointed, and Who ‘now once at the end of the world hath been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Heb 9:26). And thus did the types themselves prove their own inadequacy and insufficiency, showing that they had only ‘a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things themselves’ (Heb 10:1). With this also agree the terms by which in the Old Testament atonement is designated as a ‘covering up’ by a substitute, and the mercy-seat as ‘the place of covering over.’
The Term ‘la-Azazel’
After this it is comparatively of secondary importance to discuss, so far as we can in these pages, the question of the meaning of the term ‘la-Azazel’ (Lev 16:8, 10, 26). Both the interpretation which makes it a designation of the goat itself (as ‘scape-goat’ in our Authorised Version), and that which would refer it to a certain locality in the wilderness, being, on many grounds, wholly untenable, two other views remain, one of which regards Azazel as a person, and denoting Satan; while the other would render the term by ‘complete removal.’ The insurmountable difficulties connected with the first of these notions lie on the surface. In reference to the second, it may be said that it not only does violence to Hebrew grammar, but implies that the goat which was to be for ‘complete removal’ was not even to be sacrificed, but actually ‘let go!’ Besides, what in that case could be the object of the first goat which was killed, and whose blood was sprinkled in the Most Holy Place? We may here at once state, that the later Jewish practice of pushing the goat over a rocky precipice was undoubtedly on innovation, in no wise sanctioned by the law of Moses, and not even introduced at the time the Septuagint translation was made, as its rendering of Leviticus 16:26 shows. The law simply ordained that the goat, once arrived in ‘the land not inhabited,’ was to be ‘let go’ free, and the Jewish ordinance of having it pushed over the rocks is signally characteristic of the Rabbinical perversion of its spiritual type. The word Azazel, which only occurs in Leviticus 16, is by universal consent derived from a root which means ‘wholly to put aside,’ or, ‘wholly to go away.’ Whether, therefore, we render ‘la-Azazel’ by ‘for him who is wholly put aside,’ that is, the sin-bearing Christ, or ‘for being wholly separated,’ or ‘put wholly aside or away,’ the truth is still the same, as pointing through the temporary and provisional removal of sin by the goat ‘let go’ in ‘the land not inhabited,’ to the final, real, and complete removal of sin by the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read it in Isaiah 53:6: ‘Jehovah hath made the iniquities of us all to meet on Him.’
The Carcasses Burnt ‘Outside the City’
While the scape-goat was being led into the wilderness, the high-priest proceeded to cut up the bullock and the goat with whose blood he had previously ‘made atonement,’ put the ‘inwards’ in a vessel which he committed to an attendant, and sent the carcasses to be burnt ‘outside the city,’ in the place where the Temple ashes were usually deposited. Then, according to tradition, the high-priest, still wearing the linen garments, went into the ‘Court of the Women,’ and read the passages of Scripture bearing on the Day of Atonement, viz. Leviticus 16; 23:27-32; also repeating by heart Numbers 29:7-11.
A series of prayers accompanied this reading of the Scriptures. The most interesting of these supplications may be thus summed up:—Confession of sin with prayer for forgiveness, closing with the words, ‘Praise be to Thee, O Lord, Who in Thy mercy forgivest the sins of Thy people Israel‘; prayer for the permanence of the Temple, and that the Divine Majesty might shine in it, closing with—’Praise be to Thee, O Lord, Who inhabitest Zion‘; prayer for the establishment and safety of Israel, and the continuance of a king among them, closing—’Thanks be to Thee, O Lord, Who hast chosen Israel‘; prayer for the priesthood, that all their doings, but especially their sacred services, might be acceptable unto God, and He be gracious unto them, closing with—’Thanks be to Thee, O Lord, Who hast sanctified the priesthood‘; and, finally (in the language of Maimonides), prayers, entreaties, hymns, and petitions of the high-priest’s own, closing with the words: ‘Give help, O Lord, to Thy people Israel, for Thy people needeth help; thanks be unto Thee, O Lord, Who hearest prayer.’
The High-priest in Golden Garments
These prayers ended, the high-priest washed his hands and feet, put off his ‘linen,’ and put on his ‘golden vestments,’ and once more washed hands and feet before proceeding to the next ministry. He now appeared again before the people as the Lord’s anointed in the golden garments of the bride-chamber. Before he offered the festive burnt-offerings of the day, he sacrificed ‘one kid of the goats for a sin-offering’ (Num 29:16), probably with special reference to these festive services, which, like everything else, required atoning blood for their acceptance. The flesh of this sin-offering was eaten at night by the priests within the sanctuary. Next, he sacrificed the burnt-offerings for the people and that for himself (one ram, Lev 16:3), and finally burned the ‘inwards’ of the expiatory offerings, whose blood had formerly been sprinkled in the Most Holy Place. This, properly speaking, finished the services of the day. But the high-priest had yet to offer the ordinary evening sacrifice, after which he washed his hands and his feet, once more put off his ‘golden’ and put on his ‘linen garments,’ and again washed his hands and feet. This before entering the Most Holy Place a fourth time on that day, to fetch from it the censer and incense-dish which he had left there.
On his return he washed once more hands and feet, put off his linen garments, which were never to be used again, put on his golden vestments, washed hands and feet, burnt the evening incense on the golden altar, lit the lamps on the candlestick for the night, washed his hands and feet, put on his ordinary layman’s dress, and was escorted by the people in procession to his own house in Jerusalem. The evening closed with a feast.
The Mishnah
If this ending of the Day of Atonement seems incongruous, the Mishnah records (Taan. iv. 8) something yet more strange in connection with the day itself. It is said that on the afternoon of the 15th of Ab, when the collection of wood for the sanctuary was completed, and on that of the Day of Atonement, the maidens of Jerusalem went in white garments, specially lent them for the purpose, so that rich and poor might be on an equality, into the vineyards close to the city, where they danced and sung. The following fragment of one of their songs has been preserved:
‘Around in circle gay, the Hebrew maidens see;
From them our happy youths their partners choose.
Remember! Beauty soon its charm must lose—
And seek to win a maid of fair degree.
When fading grace and beauty low are laid,
Then praise shall her who fears the Lord await;
God does bless her handiwork—and, in the gate,
“Her works do follow her, ” it shall be said.’
The Day of Atonement in the Modern Synagogue
We will not here undertake the melancholy task of describing what the modern synagogue has made the Day of Atonement, nor how it observes the occasion—chiefly in view of their gloomy thoughts, that on that day man’s fate for the year, if not his life or death, is finally fixed. But even the Mishnah already contains similar perverted notions of how the day should be kept, and what may be expected from its right observance (Mish. Yoma, viii). Rigorous rest and rigorous fasting are enjoined from sundown of one day to the appearance of the first stars on the next. Neither food nor drink of any kind may be tasted; a man may not even wash, nor anoint himself, nor put on his sandals.
The sole exception made is in
In return for all this ‘
Yet annually anew, and each time confessedly only provisionally, not really and finally, till the gracious promise (Jer 31:34) should be fulfilled: ‘I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.’ Accordingly it is very marked, how in the prophetic, or it may be symbolical, description of Ezekiel’s Temple (Eze 40-46) all mention of the Day of Atonement is omitted; for Christ has come ‘an high-priest of good things to come,’ and ‘entered in once into the Holy Place,’ ‘to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Heb 9:11, 12, 26).