The Day of Atonement

In context

Leviticus 16 begins “after the death of the two sons of Aaron” and sets one day each year, the tenth day of the seventh month (in September or October), when the high priest went behind the veil into the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant stood (Leviticus 16:1–2, 29). It was a day of solemn rest, with no work. Jewish people still keep it as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

The high priest offered a bull for himself and his household, then a goat for the people, and sprinkled their blood on the mercy seat. Over a second goat, chosen by lot, he confessed all Israel’s sins, and a man led it away into the wilderness: the scapegoat, which “shall carry all their iniquities on himself to a solitary land” (Leviticus 16:21–22). English took the word scapegoat from this chapter.

Chapter 17 says that animals offered in sacrifice were to be brought to the door of the Tent of Meeting, not offered out in the open field, and that no one was to eat blood, “for the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:5, 11). The letter to the Hebrews recalls the high priest going in “once in the year” and speaks of Christ entering “once for all” (Hebrews 9:7, 11–12).