The Scapegoat: Christ’s Sacrifice — Leviticus 16

On the Day of Atonement, one of two goats is offered to God, while the other bears all the sins of Israel and is sent out into the wilderness. This scapegoat symbolizes the complete removal of sin, and foreshadows Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in our place on the cross.

The Scapegoat: Christ’s Sacrifice — Leviticus 16

The ‘scapegoat’ refers to the goat that carries the sins and transgressions of Israel and departs into the desolate wilderness (Lev 16:8,10). That is, two goats are chosen for the Day of Atonement ritual, and one of them is selected by lot to be sent into the wilderness — this is the ‘Azazel’ goat.

The Azazel (Azazel, scapegoat) Goat

The Hebrew reading of ‘Azazel’ is ‘Azazel,’ and the basic meaning of this word is ‘complete removal.’ From this, it came to be used in the sense of ‘the goat sent away (bearing iniquity).’ In other words, it is the goat sent far away while carrying sin (sent for the complete removal of iniquity) — a term that appears only in Leviticus, referring to the male goat sent into the wilderness bearing the sins of the people of Israel on the Day of Atonement.

In Israel, once a year on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar — the Day of Atonement — the people observed a holy day of fasting and repentance from sin. The priest prepared two male goats and cast lots: one was chosen as the offering presented to God, and the other was chosen as the Azazel goat. The Azazel goat was led by a man into the wilderness, where it wandered until it was torn apart by wild animals or fell from a cliff to its death. Thus, the Azazel goat symbolized the extinguishing of Israel’s sins by carrying those sins far away and dying. This foreshadowed the atoning work of Jesus Christ in the New Testament era, who bore the sins of humanity and extinguished them by dying on the cross outside the city gate.

Sources: Naver Dictionary, Dictionary of Biblical Cultural Backgrounds

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