In considering the meaning of the particular rites of the day, three points appear to be of a very distinc- tive character: 1. The white garments of the high- priest. 2. His entrance into the Holy of Holies. 3. The scape-goat. The writer of the Epistle to the He- brews (ix, 7-25) teaches us to apply the first two par- ticulars. The high-priest himself, with his person cleansed and dressed in white garments, was the best outward type which a living man could present in his own person of that pure and holy One who was to purify His people and to cleanse them from their sins. But respecting the meaning of the scape-goat we have no such light to guide us, and (as may be seen from the discussion under the word Azazel) the subject is one of great doubt and difficulty. Of those who take Azazel for the Evil Spirit, some have sup- posed that the goat was a sort of bribe or retaining fee for the accuser of men. Spencer, in supposing that it was given up with its load of sin to the ene- my to be tormented, made it a symbol of the punish- ment of the wicked ; while, according to the strange notion of Hengstenberg, that it was sent to mock the devil, it was significant of the freedom of those who had become reconciled to God. Some few of those who have held a different opinion on the word Azazel have supposed that the goat was taken into the wilder- ness to suffer there vicariously for the sins of the peo- ple. But it has been generally considered that it was dismissed to signify the carrying away of their sins, as it were, out of the sight of Jehovah. (In the similar
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part of the rite for the purification of the leper [Lev. xiv, 6, 7], in which a live bird was set free, it must be evident that the bird signified the carrying away of the uncleanness of the sufferer in precisely the same manner.) If we keep in view that the two goats are spoken of as parts of one and the same sin-offering, and that every circumstance connected with them ap- pears to have been carefully arranged to bring them under the same conditions up to the time of the casting of tin' lots, we shall not have much difficulty in seeing that they form together but one symbolical expression. Why there were two individuals instead of one may be simply this— that a single material object could not, in its nature, symbolically embrace the whole of the truth which was to be expressed. This is implied in the reasoning of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the office and sacrifice of Christ (Heb. ix). Hence some, regarding each goat as a type of Christ, sup- posed that the one which was slain represented his death, and that the goat set free signified his resurrec- tion (Cyril, Bochart, and others, quoted by Spencer). But we shall take a simpler, and perhaps a truer view, if we look upon the slain goat as setting forth the act of sacrifice, in giving up its own life for others " to Je- hovah," in accordance with the requirements of the divine law ; and the goat which carried off its load of sin "to an utter distance" as signifying the cleansing influence of faith in that sacrifice. Thus, in his degree, the devout Israelite might have felt the truth of the Psalmist's words, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." But for us the whole spiritual truth has been revealed in historical fact in the life, death, and resurrection of Him who was made sin for us, who died for us, and who rose again for our justification. This Mediator it was necessary should, " in some unspeakable manner, unite death and life" (Maurice, On Sacrifice, p. 85). Sec Journ. Sue. Lit. Jan. 1849, p. 74 sq. — Smith, s. v.
IX. Literature. — Josephus, Ant. iii, 10, 3 ; the Talmud (Mishna, tract Yoma, ed. by Sheringham [Franeq. 1696, 17108], also with notes in Surenhusius, ii, 5), with the Jerus. Gemara thereupon ; Maimonides dl"1 WO" d — "Z-~ {Worship of the Day of Atonement) ; also in ( Irenii, Opusc. ad philol. sacr. spect. vii, G51 sq., 819 sq. ; ( rtbo, Lex, Rabb. p. 216 sq. ; Spencer, De li gibus Hebrcc- orum. Ritualibus, lib. iii, diss, viii; Lightfoot's Temple Service, c. xv; Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica, cap. xs; Ugolini Thesaur. xviii ; see Eeland, Antiq. Sacr. iv, C; Carpzov, Appar. p. 433 sq. ; Moller, De ritlb.festi i vpiat. I Jen. 1689) ; Hochstetter, Defesto expiat, (Tub. 17o7 ) ; Hottinger, De ministerio did eorpiationis (Marb. 1708; Tur. 1754); Danz, in Menschen's Nov. Test. 'I'n1 in. y. 912; Balir, Symbol, ii, 664 sq. ; Langenberg, /v pontif. 'ni' expiationis die rieario (Griefsw. 1739); Michaelis, Num tip. dies sub templo secundo fuerit cele- bratus (Hal. 17.r>1); Danzere's two Dissert ationes de Functione Pontifieis Maximi in Adyto Anniversario ; Kraft, De mysterio !>'/! inaugurationum (Marb. 1749); Ci hn, Bedeutung mi'l Zwech des Versuhnungsfagrs (Lpz. 1862); Ewald, Die Alterthumer des Volhes Israel, p. 370 sq.; Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, on Lev. xvi (English translation); Thomson's Hampton /.■•fur,.-, let. iii, and notes. Sec Expiation.