The Day of Atonement: blood on the mercy seat and a goat for the wilderness

Leviticus is the third book of the Torah and gives instructions for worship and holy living to Israel at Sinai. It follows the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 35-40. Jewish and Christian tradition ascribes the Torah to Moses. Critical scholars assign most of Leviticus to the Priestly source, and many treat chapters 17-26 as a distinct collection, the Holiness Code. Some think that parts of the Day of Atonement regulations, especially verses 29-34, were added to an older ritual. The class takes the chapter as it stands and notes where the questions matter.

The occasion is given in the first verse: the death of Aaron's two sons Nadab and Abihu, who offered unauthorized fire before the LORD and died (Leviticus 10:1-2). Chapter 16 answers the question that follows from that event: how can a sinful priest enter the presence of a holy God and live? The date follows the date of the exodus and Sinai, which is debated between an early date near 1446 BC and a late date in the thirteenth century BC.

The first hearers were Israelites who lived around the tabernacle, and later around the temple. The Day of Atonement was the one day when the high priest entered the Most Holy Place, the inner room with the ark and the mercy seat. Ordinary Israelites never saw this. They saw the priest enter and leave, and they were told to rest and humble themselves. In the Jewish tradition this became Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.

Leviticus 16 is ritual law set in a narrative frame. It begins as a speech of the LORD to Moses after the death of Aaron's sons and ends with a statute for all generations. The rule for reading ritual law is to ask what each act does and what it says about God and the people. Ritual texts are precise because they are meant to be done, and the details carry meaning. In Leviticus the central pairs are holy and common, clean and unclean. Impurity is not the same as sin, but both damage the relationship with God, and the Day of Atonement addresses both.

The chapter is built around two movements.

• The first is inward: the priest enters the Most Holy Place with blood and incense (verses 11-19).
• The second is outward: the sins of the people are placed on a live goat and sent away (verses 20-22).
• The first cleanses the sanctuary and the second removes sin from the community, and together they form one rite. The chapter's closing section (verses 29-34) turns from the priest to the whole people, who must rest and humble themselves. This is traditionally understood as fasting.

The key method for a Christian reader is to read the chapter first as the first hearers would, as a priestly rite of the Old Covenant, and then see how Hebrews uses it. Hebrews does not argue that the rite was empty, but that it was a pointer. Its repetition each year is part of its meaning: sacrifices that must be repeated cannot finally remove sin (Hebrews 10:1-4).

Verses 1–5

The LORD tells Moses to warn Aaron not to come into the Most Holy Place at any time he chooses, or he will die, for the LORD appears in the cloud above the mercy seat. When Aaron does come, he must bring a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He is to wear the holy linen tunic, undergarments, sash and turban, after bathing. The garments are plain linen, not the gold-threaded glory of his regular vestments. On the day of atonement the high priest comes as a servant and not as a prince. From the congregation he receives two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

Verses 6–10

Aaron offers the bull for himself and his household first. A priest cannot cleanse others until he has been cleansed. He then casts lots over the two goats: one lot for the LORD and one for Azazel. The goat on which the lot for the LORD falls is a sin offering. The goat for Azazel is presented alive, to make atonement and to be sent away into the wilderness. Whatever the word Azazel means (see the key terms), all readings agree that this goat carries the people's sins out of the camp and away from the community.

Verses 11–19

Aaron slaughters the bull and takes a censer of burning coals from the altar and two handfuls of fine incense, and brings them behind the veil. The incense cloud covers the mercy seat, so that Aaron will not die. He sprinkles the bull's blood with his finger on the mercy seat and before it seven times. He then slaughters the goat for the people and does the same with its blood. The text gives the reason: this is to make atonement for the Holy Place because of the uncleanness of the Israelites and their transgressions and sins. The tent dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness. The sanctuary itself is stained by the people's sins and has to be cleansed so that God can continue to live among them. The altar is cleansed with blood in the same way.

Verses 20–22

Aaron lays both hands on the head of the live goat and confesses over it all the iniquities, transgressions and sins of the Israelites, and puts them on the goat's head. A man appointed for the task leads it away. The goat bears all their iniquities to a remote land, and the man releases it in the wilderness. The laying on of both hands is a distinctive act. In other offerings a worshiper lays on one hand. Here the whole sin of the nation is transferred.

Verses 23–28

Aaron enters the tent again, removes the linen garments, bathes, puts on his usual clothes and offers the burnt offerings for himself and the people. The bull and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought into the sanctuary, are taken outside the camp and burned. Those who burn them and the man who releases the goat must wash and bathe before returning.

Verses 29–34

This is to be a permanent statute. On the tenth day of the seventh month all must humble themselves and do no work, both native and foreigner. The text says that on this day atonement is made to cleanse them, so that they are clean from all their sins before the LORD. It is a Sabbath of complete rest. The priest who is anointed makes the atonement, and it is repeated once every year.

• The first doctrine is the holiness of God and the danger of approach. Chapter 10 and chapter 16 stand side by side: God dwells among Israel, but only on his terms.
• The second is atonement by blood. The central statement is in 17:11, where the LORD says that the life of the flesh is in the blood and he has given it on the altar to make atonement for souls. The blood is presented as God's own gift for atonement, not something people devise to win him over. How atonement works has been debated, as the tradition note says, but the Old Testament insists that it is God's provision.

• The third is that sin defiles. In Leviticus, sin pollutes even the sanctuary, and the sanctuary must be cleansed regularly. Impurity and wrongdoing build up, and without atonement God's presence cannot remain.
• The fourth is substitution and removal. The goat for the LORD dies, and the goat for Azazel carries away the sins confessed over it. The two together express both that sin costs a life and that sin is taken away. The day is also marked by the people's humility and rest, so atonement is not only a priest's work.

The chapter also looks beyond itself. The need to repeat the rite each year shows that it did not finally resolve the problem of sin, and the prophets look for a deeper cleansing. Isaiah 53:6 says that the LORD has laid on his servant the iniquity of us all, and Jeremiah 31:34 promises a covenant in which sins are remembered no more.

The New Testament makes this connection more fully than almost any other. Hebrews 9:7-12 reads the Day of Atonement as a picture of Jesus. The high priest entered once a year with blood for himself and for the people, and the Holy Spirit was showing that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been opened. Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, and entered once for all through the greater and more perfect tent, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. Unlike Aaron, he has no need to offer for himself (Hebrews 7:26-27). The argument ends in Hebrews 10:19-22 with the open way through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.

Hebrews 13:11-12 links the bodies of the sin offerings burned outside the camp (Leviticus 16:27) to Jesus, who suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. The live goat is best read as a type in which sins are carried away. It echoes Isaiah 53:6, and John the Baptist's words about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) may echo it. The New Testament does not say this directly, so the connection is offered with care.

Romans 3:25 uses the Greek word for the mercy seat (hilasterion) when it says God put Christ forward as a hilasterion by his blood. The Greek Old Testament uses the same word for the mercy seat in Leviticus 16, so Paul may be saying that Jesus is the place where God meets sinners and deals with their sin. The tearing of the temple veil at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:51) shows the same point from the Gospels. Acts 27:9 mentions the fast, which is generally taken to be the Day of Atonement, showing that the day still served as a calendar marker in the first century.