'And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of

Aaron, when they offered before the Lord, and died; and the Lord said

unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times

into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat, which is

upon the ark; that he die not' (Lev. 16:1,2).

'That he die not' has allusion to the fate of the two sons, Nadab and

Abihu.  It is repeated in verse 13, where, in contrast with the strange fire

that called down judgment, Aaron was to 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 ... that he die

not' (Lev. 16:12,13).

The peculiar feature of this atonement is that, not one, but two goats

are presented before the Lord, one being subsequently slain and the other,

the living goat, sent away and let go in a land not inhabited.  The margin of

the Authorized Version draws attention to the fact that the word rendered

'scapegoat' is the Hebrew word azazel, and further investigation shows that,

placed in juxtaposition, are the expressions 'one lot for the Lord' and 'the

other lot for Azazel', which has lent colour to the suggestion that Azazel

must be a person.  We do not think it would be edifying to indicate the many

different explanations of the allocations of these lots that have, from time

to time, been put forward, but we give a few in order that the reader may be

able to judge of the matter for himself:

Newberry gives as a note explanatory of Azazel: 'goat of departure,

Heb. Hazah -zeel, from hez, a goat, and ahzal, to depart'.

Rotherham says: 'Azazel ... is the name or title of an evil Being,

opposed to Yahweh, to whom the live goat on the great Day of

Propitiation was sent.  Not as a sacrifice to Satan, but rather because

of the death of the other goat, in virtue of which he cries aloud to

Satan, "Slay me if thou durst, I claim to live!  I have already died in

my companion whose death is accounted mine!"'.

The Oxford Gesenius translates Azazel, 'entire removal' which is very

similar to the view of Tholuck and Bahr, who take the word as a form of

azal, to remove.

Another view is that the goat for Azazel is not a type of Christ at

all.  This interpretation holds that it symbolizes the unbeliever, who is

sent away from the presence of the Lord bearing his sin, and Barabbas is

mentioned as the antitype of the goat whose life was spared.  Taking this

last view first, we cannot accept it because of the simple statement in

Leviticus 16:5, 'take two kids of the goats

for a sin offering'.  Surely, if the Lord intended us to understand that only

one of the goats was a type of the Lord's offering, this statement would have

been qualified.  The fact that no one knew which goat would be for the Lord

and which for Azazel necessitated that they should both be without blemish,

and therefore types of Christ.