Published: April 24, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Leviticus - The Parable of Leviticus 2 - Part 10 | Scripture: Leviticus 16:20-22
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Amen. So tonight we're talking about the scapegoat. And um we all know what a scapegoat is, at least in modern parliament. It's an innocent person who's blamed for something and usually
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punished for that something. And it did remind me of of that great Sicilian sage Sicilian sage Vini or actually it was Indigo Montoya
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who said this but they kept using the word inconceivable and finally Indigo said you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Scapegoat is just such a word. We keep
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using it. Um, in fact, we've used it so much in the way that we think it should be used that when we go back to Leviticus 16 and we read about the
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scapegoat, we just incorporate our understanding of the term into what we're reading. But in fact, we're not reading that there. When we actually
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read the words regarding what is in most of our English Bibles, the scapegoat, it's not like what we use that word for in our modern vernacular.
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So, I want to spend some time talking about this and I want to I want to try to set it up carefully um and and make sure that that everyone
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is following along with my logic. Even if you don't agree with it, just follow along. Because next week I want to talk about the scapegoat in relation to Jesus
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Christ. It is widely considered that Jesus is the scapegoat. But to give a little bit of a preview of next
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week, there is no clear reference in the New Testament of Jesus as the scapegoat. There are a few passages that might be
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associated. The the biggest one is John 1 verse 29 where John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and he
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says behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So you start out with a problem. It's not behold the goat of God. uh and I don't mean that facitiously or uh or or or
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sacrilegiously in any way. Jesus is not referred to as a goat as far as I know anywhere. So we have a challenge to understand this part
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of the Yam Kapor service. How how did the the scapegoat I'm going to continue using that until I stop using it and I use something else.
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But how did this goat feature in the in the overall ritual of Yam Kapor and what was its function? We saw last week that two goats were presented before the
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Lord. And those goats had to be both fully acceptable as a sacrifice because it wasn't determined which would be sacrificed and which wouldn't until they
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were presented before the Lord. And then lots were cast and one went on to die and its blood was taken into the holy of holies and the other was taken out into
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the wilderness as the scapegoat. The term scapegoat is attributed to William Tinddale, the uh reformation translator
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of the Bible into English. It's one of those words that derives not so much from its etmology as from its function. It means what it seems to
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mean. It's the goat that escapes. Okay, that's plain and simply. It's the goat that gets away. It or it's the goat that isn't killed. So when we
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look at the word scapegoat, we are incorporating things into the text and into the ritual
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itself. And we can trace where some of those things came from, but they're not coming from Leviticus 16. They're coming from other cultural
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and even uh some international uh phenomenon. that seemed like this Levitical ritual on Yam
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on Yam Kapor and also the desire of just basically men to see someone
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punished. Now, there's no doubt from the text that the sins and the iniquities, the uncleanness of the people were were were laid upon that goat. Remember we
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talked about this in the first session when we talked about the practice of the laying on of hands and what what that really meant. The only place that we
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find in Leviticus and I think in the Old Testament where the laying on of hands actually affects a transfer of sin, the animal upon which the hands are
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laid isn't then killed. It's released in the wilderness. the animals that are actually sacrificed that have had their hands laid upon.
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There's no mention of the sin of the offerer being transferred to the animal. That's an that's an assumption that we make or an inference and it may not
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actually be correct or it may be. That's not really the point. The point is that the one specific place where we have the transfer of sin mentioned the act of
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laying on of hands that animal is not killed. So we have the idea of scapegoat
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It's the goat that escapes. Very simple. Um, what does all that mean? And more importantly, how does that then move into the New Testament and the the work of Jesus Christ? So, what we're talking
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about tonight is somewhat preparatory for what we're, Lord willing, going to talk about next week. So I I do ask that if I say anything that doesn't make sense or or seems wrong that you
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highlight that you say, "Wait a minute, I don't agree with that. What are you talking about?" Because it's not it's this is not new. um this this is what I'm teaching has been taught before and
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uh it's but it's not the majority opinion and there there are a number of things you'll find in commentaries both Jewish and Christian um that when you read them and then you look back at the
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text you'll see that it's not in the text and there are no other texts that speak of this particular ritual so it's not like scholars are comparing a a text
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from Deuteronomy with a text from Leviticus and trying to come up with a harmony of the two. Um, no, that's that's not the case. This is the only place we read about this ritual. And yet, it's the
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most important day of the year. So, clearly, it's a very important ritual. So, we've talked about the actual going into the Holy of Holies with the blood
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of the bull for himself and his family, the high priest, and then the blood of the goat that was chosen by Lot to be um
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For the Lord, for aazel. Okay. What's what what version do you have? What version do you have? because that Okay. Well, good for the ESV. All right.
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Um, that's that's you read and Aazelle. These are the actual words that
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are in the text. Okay? And you can't really I mean I'm not expecting that you could read them but they both start with the same
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preposition the Hebrew letter lamemed which means for or to or belonging to. And in this application these are
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these are direct parallels. One goat le one goat l aazelle. That's that's how it reads. One goat for the
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Lord. One goat for Aazelle. That's what it says. Now the parallelism is very very tight. So
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tight. So that and I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So to take this and then just kind of file it and let's let's work through it then. But If one goat is for a
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person and the same phrase is used for the other the other goat, then it is at least reasonable to think that the other is for a person as
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well. Does that make sense? Uh, very almost. Yes. Um, very very almost. Uh,
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That's where we're headed. And it it does make a lot of scholars very nervous and they won't go there because they misinterpret what's being done with the second goat. Erin, is this one of those times where you pick up a commentary to
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find out what this means and what they tell you is really hard to I wish that were all it was. No. No. You pick up a commentary to find out what
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does this mean? and 15 to 20 pages later, you are no more enlightened than when you when you started. You'll get all of the different
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historical. This is a this is a um a common practice among scholars is when I don't know what I'm going to say, I tell you what everyone else has
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said, okay? Both Jews and Christians. I'll just tell you what all the difference opinions are. And at the end, you're more confused than when you
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started. But the problem is this goat is clearly sacrificed.
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Okay, that's where the problem is because you only sacrifice to Yahweh. But because of the parallelism and because of the evolution and mutation of the ritual over
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time, modern evangelical scholars recoil from the idea that Azazelle is a person because what they're recoiling from is the idea that
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there would ever be a sacrifice given to any other than Yave. And that's a very valid concern. We don't, you know, we don't, we're not looking in Leviticus for
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anything to be sacrificed to another being because there is only one God. And so, um, whoever this Aazelle
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is, he's not God. That's that's pretty clear. He's not God. Nowhere do you find either in the Bible or in any rabbitic or even um
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apocryphal writings. Nowhere do you find the name Aazelle associated with the identity of Yahweh. That's that's clear.
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And Aazel does show up in the extra biblical rabbitic writings. So it's not it's the first and only time you read it in the Old
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Testament, but it's not the only time you read it in Jewish writings. Now, Jewish writings themselves are not inspired, so that doesn't really mean anything that you see it there. What it
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does mean is it it it sheds some light on what the ancient Jews thought about this term. It doesn't give you a definitive answer because it's not
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inspired, but it lets you have some idea that what we're now saying about it is not what they said about it back in the day. A lot closer to the time of
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writing. Okay, does that make sense? So, we're not saying that the apocryphal writings, uh, you know, the, um, the assumption of Moses, for example, or first Enoch, they're not inspired, and
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they could be completely wrong, but they do represent a very, very um, small database of references to
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Aazelle. All right, I think the ESV is correct. If you take the name Aazel and you break it apart, you can you I've not been
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convinced by this, but some scholars say that in the Hebrew you can actually come up with the goat that escapes. I don't think you're starting with enough letters to come up with all that, but Hebrew is a very concise
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language. I've not been convinced by the arguments and I'm no Hebrew scholar, but I'm more convinced with the anthropologist Mary Douglas who says all
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that's fine but whenever all these words are put together in a compound it's always a proper name. You know when when different words are put together in a compound word
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altogether it's a name. Okay. So, I think the think the parallelism and the the the fact that whatever you do with the individual
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letters and putting them together, they're all together in the text. I I think we're dealing with a
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being. Okay. And so that, you know, that's one thing to get your mind around at the beginning. And I I guess I want to open it up. Does anybody have a problem with
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that from the text? The parallelism and the construction of the two phrases, one goat for the Lord, one goat for
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Aazelle. So, who's Aazazelle? Who or what I guess we could say is Aazelle?
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Now I I won't be able I I hope you have an opportunity to read the notes because it does it does lay a foundation for a discussion next week of how all of this um in my opinion how it is fulfilled in
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the ministry and especially the passion of Jesus Christ. something that is again not explicit in the New Testament in terms we talked last week a lot from Hebrews 9 and10 which we will
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again next week but it's very clear that the writer of Hebrews as he talks about the the tabernacle the sanctuary made with hands versus the heavenly sanctuary
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of which it is a model all through that he's talking about this goat right here and I don't think we have any problem seeing how Jesus fulfilled this goat
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I mean again Hebrews 9 and 10 are quite explicit that as the as the high priest he entered into the heavenly sanctuary with his own blood and clear that the
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context is Yam Kapoor but that's only one of the goats and what New Testament scholars do to try to get and and and also Petristic
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writers like Tertullian and Origin and Irenaeus the the second third century and Augustine in the fourth, you know, what they would do to make Jesus into
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the scapegoat was a lot of mental gymnastics, not not actual textual texturally based. Okay. So, but I think and again I'm I'm anticipating myself. I
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I think there's a sense in which we all kind of think of Jesus as the scapegoat as the one who takes away the sins of the world who removes them as far as
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east from the west and and that that ministry that function is this goat right here. Okay. So I think it it it's
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definitely important for us to try to wrestle with this aspect of the Yam Kapore uh event and ritual because I think it's the one that's least apparent
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to us even as we read Leviticus 16. Who who has a problem with the high priest going into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a bull for himself and for his
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families? Anybody struggle with that? Or or with the goat for the congregation? I mean that we've already read chapter upon chapter about how the blood is shed and sprinkled and whatnot. We're we're
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all and then then all of a sudden not the high priest and in fact not even a priest although it very quickly became a priest in the tradition. But the text
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does not require at all that the scapegoat be taken out into the wilderness by a priest. It simply says a suitable man
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suitable man And we're left to wonder what a suitable man is. Probably had to do with the his souls of his sandals because he's going out into the wilderness. There are no other requirements that are listed as
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far as this man who takes that goat out into the wilderness. He's just a a suitable man. Okay. Um however, taking the goat out into the
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wilderness, he he does render himself unclean until evening. So there's something going on there. But um when we look at the way this has been uh trai um
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viewed and traditionally evolved, we we see that what what the Jewish practice in terms of this goat
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became was not what we read in Leviticus 16. So what is this aazel? We'll start with that and then we'll look at the the thing uh the um the actual ritual and what happens to the sheep. Okay.
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Um there there is no there's no other use in the Bible of Azazel. This is a hox lagumina. It's only the time we find it. However, we do find in a number of
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apocryphal writings like first Enoch and the assumption of Moses. No, I'm sorry, of
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Abraham. Uh, no, it's not the assumption. It's the apocalypse of Abraham. Moses was assumed.
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Yeah. Yeah. That's the apocalypse of Abraham. All right. These are just two uh of several that that talk about by name Aazelle. So I want to read
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some uh excerpts and here we go. Let's see. Here's a shorter one from
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um from first Enoch where Aazel is actually mentioned a number of times. Moreover, Aazelle taught men to
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make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and bracelets and ornaments. Um basically what he's saying
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is that Azazel taught man warfare and vanity. is is what the the teaching is um in in this passage in first
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Enoch. The use of paint meaning cosmetics, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind and all sorts
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of dyes so that the world became altered. Okay. So, Azazelle is is not presented in a favorable light. Azazelle
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is one who has who has taken mankind's mind away from the Lord toward both seduction and enity
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enmity warfare and makeup vanity. And of course, back in the ancient world, we know from Egypt that by no means meant just the women because you see from the
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hieroglyphs that the Egyptian men um did the same thing with face paint and and the eyebrows and all of that sort of stuff. So the the Jewish writer is
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really it's a social commentary uh is what he's writing on the world outside of Israel. And and even in the New Testament, we find Peter
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encourage and Paul encouraging women not to be adorned merely outwardly, you know, with jewelry and and fine clothing. So the the idea of of
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simplistic or more humble attire is something you find in Judeo-Christian writings. And so so when he gets to the other side, he's blaming Azazelle. Um,
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and then later on in the same book again, the Lord said to Raphael, now Raphael is one of the archangels. I don't know that he's anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. I don't
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think so. I think we have Gabriel and Michael. Um, but some of the others, they just come up later kind of like Moroni, the Mormon,
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you know, we we have no idea that there is a Raphael. Okay. But here's the Lord said to Raphael, "Bind Aazel hand and foot, cast him into darkness and and
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opening the desert which is in Judael east, cast him in there, excuse me. Um throw upon him hurled and pointed stones
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covering him with darkness. There shall be uh there shall be remain there he shall re remain forever cover his face that he may not see the light and in the
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great day of judgment let him be cast into the into the fire. Um Aazel is one of the big the big baddies in Jewish literature. In fact,
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more so than Satan, whose name is actually a verb, means I accuse or the accuser, and
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really doesn't factor nearly as much in Jewish literature as some other demons. And Azazelle is one of the leaders of that of that group. So in the Jewish
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literature, this is a an an arched demon. Okay. So, uh, again, when when we look at this literature, he's an arch
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demon. Um, he's condemned to the
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desert. Now, the desert is is almost identical in biblical writing with the wilderness. as is the wilderness as a metaphor for chaos and
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chaos and darkness. So wilderness in Leviticus is not just a geographical location. It's a spiritual realm. Okay? So let let's put that up
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there that you know when we look at these termin we're we're looking at this
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idea Oops. that is frequent in the psalms and the prophets. This idea of the wilderness as representing utter representing utter chaos and
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darkness. This is the opposite of communion with Yahweh.
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So wilderness represents as I said not just a geographical location as it does more a spiritual realm. How'd it go?
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They don't. Yeah. The texts that I've read so far and then the one from the apocalypse of Abraham do not actually reference Yam Kapor at Kapor at all. They are actually more associated
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with Genesis especially Genesis 3. Okay. So that that's a very good question. Are these references associated? Are they are they just fanfiction spin-offs from Leviticus 16? Um, in fact, I think they
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are rather they are rather independent witnesses of what the Jewish community in the post exelic period considered about Azazel and then they read that
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back into Leviticus 16.
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chaos. him being cast as his punishment into
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desert. So therefore again uh that's very possible but there is no reference in these apocryphal texts to to the Yam Kapor ritual at all. These are associated. For example, he is
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the one who trained men. Well, that's what you read in in in Genesis 4 that this is when men first started uh metallurgy and uh the sons of Cain and
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and so this is a commentary more on Genesis and the evil of the world all going all the way through Noah's flood, which the texts do. No mention at all of
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the Leviticus 16. So, I don't I don't think there's any evidence that Leviticus 16 is driving or even contributing to these texts. Does that
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does that make sense, Aaron?
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Yeah, there's there's a very large uh u school of thought that that says that this was effectively uh killing the goat. And that's quite plausible except that of of all of the sacrificial
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animals, the goat is most adaptable to a wilderness environment. Certainly more so than a sheep. Now, I'm not saying I think I think you're right. If it's a
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domesticated coat used to to, you know, growing up with the children, it's probably going to be lion food. Um, you know, first.
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Yeah. But there Yes. And but we but I guess what I want to say is the goat is not commanded to be killed. And that is not even a statement that says take him into the wilderness
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that he may die. It is parallel as we saw from Leviticus Leviticus 15. It is parallel to the to the scapeird. The bird there are two birds
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remember for the healing I guess that was 14 for the healing of the msura the man with the skin affliction of indeterminate length. His ritual involved two birds. One of which was
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killed and the and the blood and all that. The other was used to dip in the blood but then released and set free. The terminology in that chapter and this
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chapter are almost identical to where we could actually call that the scapeird. It's the bird who escaped. Now because a bird is a bird, nobody thinks
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the bird then died. But we're we we can we can surmise that the goat then died. That's fine. I do tend to agree with you,
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however, with the illusions to turning him over. Turning him over. But death, all I can say is death is not in the in the text. Okay? What whatever we say about
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the fate of the goat is not in the text. It is simply set free. set free. Okay. Is that okay? I mean, we all right
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with that? I mean, we're just going with the text. So, that that is very important. Okay. Because of this question mark right here. That's very important. Whatever happens to the code
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afterward, we don't know about. We're not told. And and because we're not told, I think I do think that for the understanding the meaning of the whole
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ritual that we not assume that the goat eventually dies is a given. How long it survives in the
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wilderness is unknown. If it happens to be um somewhat resilient and there's a herd of goats there, maybe the goats from last year, I don't know. I don't
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know. We don't know. We're not told. And I think that's very important because the other goat is killed. And if this goat is killed by command, you're
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starting to get into this realm right here. In which case, you're starting to mix this and that. And and that's where whoop, we can't do that. So the the
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meaning of the goat does does anybody have a problem with aazelle representing either a being or a place? Is that is that okay? I mean, at least
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as food for thought. Nobody has a a visceral reaction to that because if you do, um I you know what I the rest of what I'm going to have to say that's it's kind of it's kind of there. I mean,
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we're we're we're saying this is more than just the goat that got away. This goat is actually being taken to a person
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slashplace that slashplace that represents darkness, represents darkness, chaos. And if we consider the holiness spectrum that we talked about weeks
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ago, this goat is being taken to the opposite pole of that spectrum. One goat's blood is taken into the
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center of the universe, the Holy of Holies, where Yahweh's presence dwells. The other is taken out geographically, spiritually,
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geographically, spiritually, geographically speaking to the opposite extreme where God's glory is not. Okay, does that does that make sense? So
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there's something going on here and and I think we have to try to conceptualize as best we can from the text just what is happening just the visual of what is happening. Now I want to read to you
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what the the rabbis very very soon sadly um came up with in terms of what happened. Uh go ahead.
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Say that again. The doesn't lend itself to an inanimate thing.
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that's the natural reading of the text. Yeah. If you read it in the ESV, which I think is correct because it there are some things that just ought to be transliterated and not interpreted. And the word scapegoat has
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come into our language um as an interpretation, not as a as a translation. Um and if it had been left to Tindle's definition, things would
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have been okay because it is the goat that escaped. We'd still have to wrestle with what that means. And I think we lose something by not realizing that at least in the Jewish opinion,
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Aazazelle was a demon. Okay? He was a fallen angel. And that again, um, he was cast out. Now, we
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don't we don't need to go to Leviticus 16 for the casting out because there's casting out in in in Genesis. Um, and there's there's there's casting out throughout the Bible of both demons as
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well as humans. So, um, whatever this being is, he's not God and not even aligned
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with God. And again, I think what we're dealing with then is once again that holiness spectrum where we have the
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is that's the goat for Yahweh. That goat is sacrificed. That goat sheds its blood. But then we have the other goat. The goat for Aazelle.
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was taken out into the wilderness. I think the next step, we don't have the time to do it this evening, but I think you've you've probably read your Old Testament enough to know that again the wilderness is wilderness is metaphorical for chaos and disorder,
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wickedness, and darkness. toou vabu the without form and void that we read in in Genesis 1. It it
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represents where God's grace is not operative. It represents the polar spiritual opposite to the presence of
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Yahweh. I think that's what we're dealing with dealing with here. And I think it's important to realize that the sins of the congregation are laid upon this goat.
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And then this goat is taken as far away from the presence of God as was within the literary notion of what we're talking
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about. It's not taken to any type of abyss, but it's taken out to a place that was recognized as being the opposite of the Holy of Holies. Josiah,
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it doesn't just say that it's not. It says that it's presented. That's at the beginning. present alive. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, at the beginning, they're both presented alive before the
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Lord and it it it's it's sits it stands there and waits until the rest of the thing is over. So, it's just it's like tied up at the at the all. I'm just saying try to visualize this. Both goats
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are brought forward. So, both of them must be ritually pure without blemish because one of them is going to be sacrificed to Yahweh. We don't know which. So we take it was viewed by the
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rabbis that they were they were of the same what do they call herd litter. I don't know what they have when they when goats have babies but that they were they were so close as to be essentially
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twins. Now that's not required. All that's required is that whatever is required for the sin offering a male goat a year old without blemish both of them had to meet that requirement. One
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of them is chosen by lot. The other one's just tied up at the fence and waits until the ritual in the Holy of Holies is done. And then the high priest comes
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back out, puts both hands, which is another unusual ritual, on that goat. And we don't know, although the rabbis tell us what they said. We don't know what he said because the scripture
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doesn't tell us what he said, but he places the sins and the iniquities and transgressions of the congregation on that goat. And then a suitable
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man takes the goat out into the wilderness. Aaron and then and then Abel. You mentioned before
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mention uh I won't mention that but you because you just did. Um, but that's just another one of the casting outs. And you know, and Cain's response was, "How will I survive? I will be
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murdered." Uh, so casting out in scripture means from the presence of Yahweh. And it didn't always mean execution, but it le it definitely led
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to excommunication.
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touches it. Well, the man who leads it out of the wilderness is unclean until the evening. That is true. Right. But it it's not corpse uncleanness because the Yeah. So, it doesn't
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actually say that the goat becomes unclean, although we might imply that by the fact that it's the the um uh the sins of the people are laid upon it. um
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which some scholars argue that it could never be a sacrifice at that point because it's because it's unclean. So actually lay that's an interesting argument that I'm not going to get into but it essentially goes like
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this that the laying on of hands cannot impute sin to the animal because that would render the animal unclean and therefore unsuitable as a sacrifice. Um you take that where you want to. All
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right. So listen to Yoma uh chapter 6 in the Mishna talking about the man who led the goat out into the wilderness who by this
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time is a priest. Okay. Um what did he do? Well, he divided the thread of crimson. I spelled wooled here. I don't know why I spelled wooled. Crimson wool.
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And oh, I see the D jumped from the and over to the wool. All right. That was that was my computer. I didn't do that. When you read it, put the D back
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over. Just let it move over. All right. Those of you who are dyslexic will have no trouble with this. He took the thread, divided the thread of crimson wool and tied one half
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to the rock and the other half between the horns. And he pushed it from behind and it went rolling down. And before it reached halfway down the hill, it was
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broken to pieces.
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Right. What was the sound the goat made as it went down? I think it might have been saying something else that rhymes with that.
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Um, where did you get this stuff? Okay. It's like, where did you get this? This is not in the text. There's no there's no time. There's no crimson thread. There's no that's another that's another verse. Next you'll have it beating it
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with hissup. I mean it's like it's you're just you're just grasping at things because you want to punish that goat. And I and I think that is
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understandable when when you look at and and I know this is this kind of uh dangerous territory when you look at some of the pagan rituals surrounding
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Israel and and the fact that they had a similar ritual to the to the Levitical scapegoat. Now I know that you know
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liberals always say that then Israel borrowed. Well, if you look at the different comparisons and I mean across the board on all the you can see that Israel did not
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borrow that Israel's were much much purer because of Israel's monotheism and complete rejection of any actual authority attaching to demons
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compared to Greek or Egyptian or Babylonian. They're not borrowed. But we do know from the prophets that the Israelites did
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absorb stuff from the nations around them. Right? So when we when we look at this ritual, we see that there are some other similar rituals, then we we
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realize how it it could happen that within the Jewish custom and not after not too many generations, the scapegoat was not just
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left to die. it was killed. The primary one that I think fits this model the most is actually from the ancient Greek
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ritual. And I'm not I'm totally out of sync here, but there
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was a ritual known as the Pharmarmacos. This was not once a year and it was not an atoning ritual. It was done whenever the community was facing a
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dire threat. And this is well documented and so well documented that many liberal scholars think this is where the Jews got the scapegoat ritual. But again, when you read the pharmachos ritual, you
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realize they have very little similarity except that something is cast out of the congregation. In the case of the formacos, this was not a goat. It was a
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man. A man is chosen to be cast out and thrown oftenimes off a cliff. But the nature of this man, you
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you you'd wonder how stupid the Greeks thought their gods were because this was not a man without blemish. This was typically a very poor person, a
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beggar, or even a criminal. It was like God saying, you know, why don't you take that lame animal that you're trying to bring to me and give it to your governor? What will
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he say? Well, that that's what the Greeks were doing. So this this was a man chosen but he was chosen from among the among the poor, the
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poor, the beggars or even criminals. That's an interesting feature.
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[Music] Yes. Yes. This would have been later, but it would have been contemporary with the rabbis.
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seemed like this. This was a common feature in ancient religion. And so, yeah, the Greeks uh all I'm saying about the Greek ritual is that it has the closest similarities to the Levitical one, but
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they were by no means the only people that had this kind of a scapegoating ritual. Okay? But there are more dissimilarities than there are similarities. And one of the the main
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dissimilarities is that the the man chosen as first of all, it's a man, not a goat. Secondly, the man was by no means an honorable person. But what they did was at first they dressed him up in
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in in purple robes and they fated him. They gave him a feast. Then they let him out of town, beating him with scorges and
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rods. And in some he was not allowed to return. He was he's cast out of the town and in some rituals he was cast off a cliff and killed. So first they they
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they dress him up and they make him a king basically. Now there there's a lot of similarities here to something that happened to the Lord. Okay. And then
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he's stripped again. He's beaten and he's sometimes killed. Okay. So um so the man is um first of all he's he's
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exalted but only then to be
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beaten cast out and sometimes not every ritual killed.
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That was their idea of of appeasing the gods is well, we we we killed our king. Well, he wasn't your king yesterday. You know, the god the gods must be pretty stupid to be fooled by this stuff. Um but they weren't going to they weren't
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going to sacrifice one of their own. Um and and so if they had a foreigner, if they had a a prisoner, a criminal, um that would be the one chosen. Okay. Um,
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again, the dissimilarities are far greater than the similarities. And to to say that Israel borrowed from these rituals is just to say you really haven't read either the Levitical ritual
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or the ancient Assyrian or Babylonian or Greek ritual because when you do there's almost there's only the broad the the vaguest comparison of con concept here
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but not in the details. And and so it it's really sad that that this has whether it's from the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptian, they all had these kind of things. Um whether it's
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the Pharmarmacos or some other ritual. It seems apparent that the the Jews did absorb this idea and and I think I can we can understand why when we realize
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that this goat received the imputed sins and iniquities and transgressions of the congregation. Well, what do you do with something like that? you've got to kill it. Except you're not told to kill it.
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You're told to take it out in a sense to borrow from the Psalms as far as east is from the west from the presence of Yahweh and release
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it. Now, that I think is something worth contemplating in light of Jesus Christ and and what he did in his passion. Okay, we we as I said earlier, we're very familiar, having read Hebrews,
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we're very familiar with how Jesus fulfills the the goat for Yahweh. Um it's a lot more difficult to figure out how he fulfills the goat for
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Aazelle. But what is I think again um crucial to our understanding of this entire thing is that at this point the
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parallel ends. This is absolutely not a sacrifice.
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No blood is shed, no ritual is performed, no sprinkling is done, no oblation, nothing.
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We can take next sun next week off the people of Israel. Yeah, that's a very sign that's a very significant passage. But Barabus did not do what the scapegoat did. Okay, we'll
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we'll talk about that. Barabus is in next week's notes because you can't not think of think of Barabus. You have two men, one is released and one is killed.
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And the one who's killed is clearly a sacrifice. But again, I think I think that has historical and and visual imi
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imagery that takes people's minds back to Yom Kapor. But I don't think that's it personally. I I've studied that. I've gone wrestled with that. And next week
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we'll talk about just that because I don't think I don't think Barabus did what the goat for Azazelle
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did. Barabus did not remove from the the people their sins. No. more I guess what they say. Yes. They're they're saying
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his blood be upon our head and ahead of our children. And yes, that's but that's a temporal fulfillment that will culminate in
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culminate in AD70. And yeah, that's that's there and it's real and we need to look at it. Um it's kind of like AD70 itself. That's real. It happened. It means something, but it's not the end of the story. And I
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think Barabus is there. It means something. Otherwise, it means nothing. But it's in all the gospels. So, it's like it must mean something. So, we have we have to deal with Barabus. But I
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don't think we can say um that he was he was it. Yeah. Right. Except his crime. That's Oh,
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well, we're going to get we'll get into that next week. Okay. Um, before you know it, we'll be in next week and we won't finish this week. Uh, but you're all I I I'm thrilled because I think you're seeing the connections. you're
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seeing the event and the ritual and and how the dynamics of it would have been I think drawn to the minds of especially the faithful Jew in the events of
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Christ's passion because there's actually no historical record of Roman governors habitually releasing
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prisoners that there's no actual that I know of and I've found many uh many scholars who say both Christian and secular Roman scholars say, "No, the Romans didn't do that." Especially men who were
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insurrectionists, which is what one description of Barabus is, okay? Um, but we'll get into that. Lord willing, we'll get into that. But keep thinking about that. It'll be a lively discussion next
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week. Um, Barabus is definitely somebody that we need to um, think about. Okay. So what what is this going what's going on now? Okay. Well, again, I think the
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geography of geography of holiness is is very very important. Okay. So, we've talked about this many times, but if we go back to the the
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camp and the tent of meeting and meeting and the sanctuary, it's that wasn't quite
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right. They're not half and half, but um we go back to this and we we look again at the
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parallel. We we all I think accept the principle that the whole created world in Genesis 1 was not the garden. The garden was something smaller than
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the whole created world. Even before the fall, Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. But
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the garden was a place prepared by Yahweh into which Adam was placed to tend and keep. He didn't have to subdue the garden. Is that okay? Everybody all
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right with that? that the garden is not the same subset. It's not co-extensive with with the world. And so when they fell and then of course when Cain murdered his brother, they were cast
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out. Okay, that idea of casting out then becomes integral to to the whole ritual of what's happening with this goat. Because again looking at the holiness
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spectrum as we did up there, everything outside of outside of this is
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wilderness. Okay. When we talk about the various degrees of holiness within the camp and the whole camp was to be holy. When we go outside into the wilderness,
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we have a holiness quotient of zero. That there's no holiness. This is this is chaos. This is darkness. This is all that is not God and is rejected by
55:57
God. Now, it is still God's, right? The whole world is the Lord's, right? and all the fullness. The whole
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universe came from his word. So there's no part of the realm of the universe that does not belong to God. But there are parts of the universe that are not
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benefiting from the grace of God, but are rather abiding in his wrath. So that that's the distinction here. Where is sin then
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brought? Well, it it first of all, it is both taken and it is brought. Okay. So, that that's where I want to go with this as we look at the
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um the geography once again. And I really do think I I hope I'm not belaboring this point, but I really do think the geography of the tabernacle is important. We're given tremendous um detail about
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the dimensions and the locations and then the encampments, right? We're given a lot of detail and I don't think is because ar that Moses was trained as an architect. This is this is very
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important because it is a model of the heavenly sanctuary which means it is a model of the heavenly people of God. So, and then it's used metaphorically in Ezekiel for
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example where you have the new temple and and its dimensions and then of course Jesus is the temple. So all of this I think is is incredibly important this geography. All right. So two things
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happen to the scapegoat. First he is
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away. Okay. The again the geography um has to do with directional vectors. First of all, he is taken away. So he's first of all, he's
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Lord. But because the the lot for Yahweh fell to the other goat, he is upon him is imputed the sins, etc., etc. of the
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congregation. Now you might ask, what sins? When did the high priest lay his hands upon the goat for
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Azazelle? Before or after the blood of purification was taken into the Holy of
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after. Think about that. The blood of purification had been administered in the Holy of Holies, cleansing the sanct, the
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sanctuary, the sanctuary, the camp. What sins? Okay. So, this this is I I'm not sure I have the answer there, but uh I
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do think as we talked about last week, I I'm coming more and more convinced that what we're dealing with here is not sin, as Augustine taught it, corruption, but
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sin as a reality, as a as an adverse And so the people and the sanctuary were