The Sanctuary Is Cleansed, and the Sins Are Carried Away

When they offered is beqorvatam, literally when they drew near. The whole chapter answers the question their deaths raised in 10:1–2: how does anyone draw near and live? Chapters 11 to 15 intervene, but the Book of Leviticus picks the thread up here as if no time had passed.

At all times means at any time he chooses. The mercy seat is the kapporeth, the gold lid of the ark, from the same root as kipper, to atone. Tyndale coined mercy seat in 1530 after Luther’s Gnadenstuhl, and Hebrews 9:5 calls it by its Greek name, hilastērion.

Thus is bezo’th, with this: Aaron may come, but only with these animals in hand. A young bullock is the costliest sin offering in the book, the one required in 4:3 when the anointed priest himself has sinned.

Four pieces of plain linen, bad in Hebrew, replace the eight garments of gold, blue and purple in Exodus 28. The heavenly figures of Ezekiel 9:2 and Daniel 10:5 are clothed in linen too. He must bathe his whole body, not only hands and feet as on an ordinary day (Exodus 30:19).

Kids of the goats is se‘irei ‘izzim, literally hairy ones of the goats, from sa‘ir, hairy, the word for Esau in Genesis 27:11. The people supply the goats and a ram; Aaron supplies his own bullock and ram. Each party brings its own offering to the one service.

His house means his family and, with them, the priesthood descended from him. Aaron cannot act for Israel until his own case is dealt with. Hebrews 7:27 and 9:7 build on exactly this order: the high priest offered first for his own sins and then for the people’s.

Present them is again he’emid, to make them stand. The two goats stand side by side at the door, identical, chosen from the congregation’s flock. Nothing about them yet says which will die and which will live.

Scapegoat renders la‘aza’zel, for Azazel. Tyndale read it as ‘ez ’ozel, the goat that goes away, and coined escape goat. Others take Azazel as a place, a rugged cliff in rabbinic reading, or as the name of a wilderness demon, as in 1 Enoch. The parallel for the LORD suggests a name.

Fell is literally went up, ‘alah, as a lot is drawn up from a vessel. The Mishnah (Yoma 4:1) describes two lots of gold in an urn, drawn one in each hand. The goat for the LORD becomes the sin offering for the people.

To make an atonement with him says that the living goat, too, makes atonement, though it is never killed. It is the only animal in Leviticus said to atone while remaining alive, and its part in the day begins with being presented before the LORD, like its partner.

Aaron kills the bullock, but its blood is not used at once. The incense of verses 12 and 13 must go in first, and only afterwards the blood of verse 14. The order of the steps puts a cloud between Aaron and the mercy seat before any sprinkling happens.

Coals from off the altar, not fire from elsewhere: the fault of Nadab and Abihu was strange fire (10:1). His hands full is melo’ chofnav, both cupped hands. Beaten small, daqqah, is the finely ground incense of Exodus 30:36, reserved for the sanctuary alone.

The testimony is the pair of tablets inside the ark (Exodus 25:16). The cloud of incense covers the mercy seat so that Aaron does not look straight at the place where God appears. That he die not is said now for the second time, after verse 2.

Upon the mercy seat eastward means on its front, since the tabernacle faced east. The blood goes once on the lid and seven times in front of it. The Mishnah (Yoma 5:3) describes the priest counting aloud, one, one and one, one and two, as he sprinkled.

The people’s goat follows the same procedure as Aaron’s bullock. Hebrews 9:12 reaches for this verse when it says Christ entered the holy place not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood.

Transgressions is pesha‘, rebellion, the strongest word for sin in the Hebrew Bible, used only here and in verse 21 in the whole of Leviticus. That remaineth among them is shokhen, dwelling, the root of mishkan, the tabernacle: it lives among them.

No man, not even another priest, may be in the tent while Aaron is inside. The whole congregation waits outside for him to come out. The Mishnah (Yoma 5:1) says the high priest kept his prayer short so as not to alarm the people waiting for him.

Which altar is meant is debated. The rabbis read the golden incense altar, since Exodus 30:10 says atonement is made on its horns once a year. Others take it as the bronze altar, since Aaron goes out. The two bloods, bullock’s and goat’s, are mixed together for the horns.

Two verbs, cleanse and hallow, tiharo and qiddesho. The first removes the uncleanness; the second restores the altar’s holiness. The seven sprinklings match the seven before the mercy seat in verse 14.

Reconciling is the King James rendering of kipper here, since in 1611 reconcile and atone overlapped. Made an end marks the turning point: only when the holy place, tent and altar are finished does the living goat come forward.

Both his hands: elsewhere in Leviticus the offerer lays one hand (1:4; 3:2). A fit man is ’ish ‘itti, a man of the appointed time, a word found nowhere else. The phrase suggests someone ready and designated in advance for the task.

A land not inhabited is ’erets gezerah, a land cut off, from gazar, to cut. Bear, nasa’, is the verb for bearing iniquity (5:1), and Isaiah 53:12 uses it of the servant: he bare the sin of many.

The linen garments are left there, inside the tent. The rabbis held they were never worn again, set aside after the one day. The Hebrew verb hinniach means to lay down and leave at rest, as the manna was laid up before the LORD (Exodus 16:34).

Wash his flesh in the holy place: the second full bath of the day. His garments are now the ordinary high-priestly vestments of Exodus 28. The two burnt offerings are the rams of verses 3 and 5, one his and one the people’s.

The fat of the sin offerings goes on the bronze altar, as in 4:8–10, 19. Only the fat is burned there; the rest of the bullock and goat is taken outside the camp in verse 27. A brief verse for a set practice.

The man who led the goat away returns only after washing and bathing. Afterward come into the camp makes the camp boundary the checkpoint. He has done nothing wrong, but he has been in contact with the goat that bore Israel’s iniquities.

The rule of 6:30 applies: a sin offering whose blood was brought into the holy place is not eaten but burned outside the camp, skin, flesh and dung. Hebrews 13:11–12 reads this verse as a picture of Jesus, who suffered without the gate.

The man who burns the remains must wash and bathe too. The same rule governs the one who burns the red heifer in Numbers 19:8. Those who carry out the remains of cleansing rites come back needing cleansing themselves.

The seventh month is later called Tishri, falling in September or October; the tenth day is five days before Tabernacles (23:34). Afflict your souls is understood as fasting, as Isaiah 58:3 and Psalm 35:13 show. Acts 27:9 calls it simply the fast.

Clean from all your sins brings the purity vocabulary of chapters 11 to 15 to bear on sin itself. The words for clean and unclean now apply to the people’s moral state, as in Psalm 51:2, cleanse me from my sin.

A sabbath of rest is shabbath shabbathon, a sabbath of complete rest, the fullest form of the expression. The same doubled phrase marks the weekly sabbath (23:3; Exodus 31:15) and the sabbath year (25:4). Of the annual days in chapter 23, only this one receives it (23:32).

In his father’s stead: the office passes by succession, as it did when Eleazar put on Aaron’s garments on Mount Hor (Numbers 20:28). Whom he shall anoint is impersonal in Hebrew, whom one shall anoint. The linen of verse 4 is named again.

The list of atonements runs from the inside out: the holy sanctuary, then the tent, then the altar, then the priests, then all the people. It traces the same route Aaron walked, from the innermost room to the congregation at the door.

Once a year limits the day to one occurrence; Hebrews 9:7 repeats it, the high priest alone once every year. And he did as the LORD commanded Moses is an odd ending, since the tenth day of the seventh month was still to come. Some read it as Aaron obeying later, others as Moses passing the command on.