1 And the LORD spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the LORD, and died;YHWH, murderer of two of Aaron's sons, tells Moses that Aaron better stay away from "the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat," or else he'll be killed.
2 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
3 Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.
4 He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired: these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.
5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
11 And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself:
12 And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:
13 And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:
14 And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.
15 Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
16 And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
17 And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel.
18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the LORD, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
19 And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
20 And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
23 And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there:
24 And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.
25 And the fat of the sin offering shall he burn upon the altar.
26 And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp.
27 And the bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung.
28 And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp.
29 And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you:
30 For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD.
31 It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.
32 And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest's office in his father's stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments:
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.
34 And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the LORD commanded Moses.
But Aaron can come to the holy place with offerings of a young bullock and a ram. His two burnt-offering kids just weren't enough for The Great and Merciful Lord.
He's to wear more linen than a southern lawyer and take "two kids" (ever hear the phrase "too soon," Yahweh?), goats that is, from the congregation as additional sacrifices.
Aaron's supposed to flip a coin or something and see which goat is for the Lord, and which is "for the scapegoat."
The Lord's goat is killed as a sin offering, while the scapegoat is set free in the wilderness. Being a scapegoat doesn't sound that bad, certainly better than being the bullock, which is killed as Aaron's personal sin offering.
Aaron is also to burn some incense (we've just moved past "too soon" into total mindfuck for the guy whose two kids were just burned alive for, y'know, burning incense).
The cloud from the incense needs to cover the mercy seat, otherwise Aaron will (or at least might) die.
He's supposed to sprinkle bullock blood on the east side of the mercy seat and sprinkle bullock blood in front of the seat, using his finger, seven times. Thank goodness we're reading the Holy Bible and not some weird, sick cult literature, eh?
Then Aaron is to kill the goat as the people's sin offering and sprinkle its blood like he did the bullock's.
This is to "make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." Got a problem? Kill some livestock!
Aaron's supposed to do this whole ritual by himself, and then he's supposed to make an atonement for the altar (wow, even the altar is a sinner!), taking blood from the bullock and goat and spraying it around the altar's horns. See, nothing freaky going on here!
Now that he's got the holy place, the tabernacle, and the altar all bloody-well cleaned up, he's to bring in the live goat, confess over it all the sins of the Israelites (does that include believing in this ghastly book?). This scapegoat, escorted by a "fit man," carries the sins off into the wilderness.
Then Aaron is to strip off the linen garment in the tabernacle and leave them there, wash himself, put his other clothes back on and cook up the burnt offerings for the people and himself.
The buff dude that shepherded (well, goat-herded) the scapegoat is to wash his clothes and himself and head into the camp.
The skin, flesh, and dung of the goat are to be burned outside the camp.
The skin/flesh/dung burner (looks great on a résumé) is to wash himself and his clothes before returning to the camp.
Forever more, on the tenth day of the seven month, "ye shall afflict your souls" (where's the pleasure in that?) and "do no work at all" (well, a day off is a day off), and the priest will "make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD" (which is nice). This, a bit of wiki-ing reveals, is what we call Yom Kippur. Not sure if they do the sacrifices nowadays or if it's never mind the bullocks.
After a few more reminders that this is supposed to be done forever and ever, we find that Aaron did as he was instructed.
3 comments:
This chapter is about Yom Kippur. "Yom Kippur" translates as "Day of Atonement".
Its a very interesting chapter for several reasons. For a start there's the demonic Azazel, which you haven't even noticed (because of the translation you are using).
There are multiple layers of the priestly code spliced together here. Note how verse 2 states "Don't come in" and verse 3 then says "You can come in whenever you ...."; its only after verse 28 that there is any suggestion that the mechanism for entering (started at verse 3) is only permitted to occur for a single day.
Also note the rather confused repetitions. For example, it states that the high priest should kill the bullock as an atoning sin offering for an (verse 6), do a number of other things, and then kill the bullock as an atoning sin offering AGAIN (verse 11).
The original layers are as follows:
-You can come in to the room of the mercy seat AT ANY TIME OF THE YEAR WHATSOEVER, as long as a certain ritual is performed.
-There is an annual day of atonement, lead by the high priest (verses 29-34)
They really aren't connected. Its just the juxtaposition that makes it seem like they are.
The original ritual was fairly simple. The holy of holies could be entered whenever the priest wanted, as long as they wore the linen clothes (humility), made a sin offering (to ensure that the priest was ritually pure - and hence avoid bringing the profane in contact with the sacred [mercy seat]), and filled the chamber with incense (to avoid being killed by the sight of God).
The two-goats thing is a later addition by another priestly writer. It seems to be based on the same principles as the two-birds ritual in the cases of tzaraath (chapters 13-14); one is killed to create the ritually purifying blood of a sin offering, and the "sin" is "placed" on the other, which is sent away, "taking the sin with it".
The thing with goats, is that goats can wander back to villages, hence why it had to be lead away. The person who did this was to be a "healthy man" NOT someone who was "buff" (that's a mistaken interpretation of the KJV english); the Hebrew term has a more general meaning, and in this case would be better translated as "ritually pure man"
The Hebrew words translated as "scapegoat" actually say "goat for Azazel", Azazel being a proper name. The KJV and certain modern translations dishonestly try to hide the clear suggestion of polytheism in "one goat for Yahweh and the other one for Azazel". Try looking at this version. Like many other obscure features suppressed by dishonest translation, there is only one chapter mentioning Azazel (this one). In classical Jewish popular tradition, Azazel was regarded as some sort of demon; the Book of Enoch (which only really occurs in Ethiopian bibles - and not the KJV) describes Azazel as the demon that taught men how to work metal, and use makeup (particularly eyeshadow made from antimony). The modern excuse, however, is that Azazel is the name of a cliff near Jerusalem (the goat being lead over the cliff to ensure it couldn't return); the argument is based on the assumption that "Azazel" means "jagged rocks", but it is actually much more obscure, deriving from "rough" ("Az") and "mighty" ("El"), hence only meaning "mighty and very rough", and nowhere near as unambiguous as "jagged rocks".
The "dung burner" is required because:
-all sin offerings are burnt like this when the offering is made on behalf of a group that includes the priest (the dung is always burnt like this, but [according to leviticus] priests are allowed the flesh if they aren't among the group the offering is on the behalf of)
-according to other regulations, the priest cannot leave the sanctuary, and therefore cannot burn these parts of the sin offering himself, as it has to be done outside the sanctuary
According to this chapter, the day of atonement was day 10 of month 7 But this isn't what the original situation was. Again, this is one of those places where comparing the view of the Book of Ezekiel (which slightly pre-dates the priestly source) is very useful. Ezekiel (45:18-20) states that there should be an atonement day on two occasions - day 1 month 1 and day 1 month 7 (most historic versions of the bible, including the septuagint, have it like this, but the masoretic [on which the kjv usually relies] states that it is day 1 month 1 and day 7 month 1; the masoretic has the latter date backwards). Month 1 is the first month in the religious calendar, but month 7 is the start of the year in the civil calendar (there's also a "new year for trees" and "new year for animals", which are basically financial-years/tax-years, for the agricultural tithes, and animal tithes, respectively). Such a different "civil new year" to the "religious new year" is down to foreign influence; the original system was to start in Autumn (which became the "civil new year"), like most semitic nations, but due to the invented explanations for Pesach ("passover") by the priests, it gradually came to be seen as the appropriate place to start a year (and additionally it was the time of year that ethnicities with growing influence, like the persians, started their years), hence the "religious new year". So Ezekiel basically has a day of atonement at the start of religious year and another at the start of civil year (perhaps "just in case" or perhaps down to rivalry between priests over which was the legitimate "new year").
For some reason the start of the civil year (Rosh Hashanah) shifted to day 10 of month 7 rather than day 1 of month 7 (this is noticeable in other parts of Ezekiel). And then later it shifted back, swapping places with the Day of Atonement, which hence became the 10th day of the 7th month.
In Ezekiel's description, the Day of Atonement features the priest sacrificing a bullock as a sin offering, and then smearing the blood on the temple door's lintel, the gate posts of the surrounding inner sanctuary, and the corners of the altar. By the time the priestly code was written, this had evidently become more elaborate and is conflated in the text of Leviticus 16 with the "how can I enter the holy of holies" ritual.
Modern-day Jews do not sacrifice bullocks on Yom Kippur; the main reason for this is because of the Red Heifer issue (which will be described in the first half of the book of numbers).
anon,
The redacted Azazel element is most intriguing. Thanks for pointing it out!
read slowly... don´t let the excitement of discovering something to hang on to excuse your selves for not believing let you make 1st grade mistakes... there are so much that can be pinted without feeling is a waste of time since it wont change your minds... for your lack of faith is a choice. respectfully but tired
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