{"id":377,"date":"2017-11-15T03:44:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T03:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress_bw2\/6-4-1-the-yom-kippur-ceremony\/"},"modified":"2018-12-21T14:35:37","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T14:35:37","slug":"6-4-1-the-yom-kippur-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/the-case-for-lilith\/the-case-for-azazel\/6-4-azazel-in-leviticus-as-the-seed-of-the-serpent\/6-4-1-the-yom-kippur-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"6.4.1 The Yom Kippur Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Lev 16:1, the Yom Kippur ceremony was initiated after Aaron\u2019s sons erred in their priestly duties in the Temple\u2019s Holy of Holies.\u00a0 They had offered incense with a strange fire (inappropriately kindled), and were immediately burned to death in the Temple by a flame which erupted from Jehovah (Le 10:1).\u00a0 After this incident, Jehovah forbids all priests from entering into the Holy of Holies, except for the high priest one day each year on Yom Kippur.\u00a0 Even then, the high priest could only enter after going through the elaborate series of sacrifices and rites specified in Lev 16. \u00a0Edersheim describes this in great detail from rabbinic sources.\u00a0 The ceremony began with the high priest entering the court of the priests with a young bullock and two goats.\u00a0 The bullock would be a sin offering for himself, so that he might complete his duties.\u00a0 One of the goats would be selected to be an atonement for all the people, including the priest himself.\u00a0 The priest confessed his and Israel\u2019s sins over the head of the bullock, which stood between the temple-porch (beyond which was the Holy of Holies) and the altar.\u00a0 He then moved to the eastern part of the Court of Priests, which was close to the worshippers.\u00a0 There stood an urn, called Calpi<\/em>, in which were two lots of the same shape, size, and material.\u00a0 In the second Temple, they were of gold.\u00a0 One bore the inscription l\u2019Yahweh<\/em> (\u201cfor Jehovah\u201d) and the other l\u2019Azazel<\/em> (\u201cfor Azazel\u201d).\u00a0 The two goats stood north of the altar facing the sanctuary (westwards), with their backs to the people. The high priest faced the people and stood between the goats as he shook the urn, thrust his two hands into it and simultaneously withdrew the two lots, one in each hand.\u00a0 He then placed each hand\u2019s lot upon the goat on that hand\u2019s side.\u00a0 It was deemed good augury if the right-hand lot had fallen \u201cfor Jehovah\u201d, which was the goat closest to the altar.\u00a0 The high priest immediately tied a scarlet cloth to the horns of the goat for Azazel so that it would not be confused with the one whose lot was to Jehovah. The goat for Azazel was then turned round towards the people, and waited there facing the people as the next part of the ceremony unraveled.<\/p>\n

The high priest returned once more towards the sanctuary, and there he slew the young bullock and caught its blood in a vessel.\u00a0 He handed this vessel to an attendant who kept this blood stirring so it would not coagulate.\u00a0 The priest then carefully entered the Holy of Holies, bearing a censer and incense.\u00a0 Tradition has it a rope was tied around one of his ankles, so if he was stricken down dead by Jehovah, his body could be retrieved without subjecting anyone else to danger.\u00a0 Once inside the he emptied the incense on the coals of the censer, and waited until the smoke had filled the Holy of Holies.\u00a0 He then exited, took the blood of the bullock, returned, and sprinkled the blood within the Holy of Holies.\u00a0 He exited again, and deposited the vessel with the blood upon a golden stand before the veil of the Holy of Holies.\u00a0 The high priest then killed the goat set apart for Jehovah and entered the Holy of Holies a third time. \u00a0He sprinkled the goat\u2019s blood as before, and upon exiting he set the vessel with the goat\u2019s blood upon a second golden stand.\u00a0 He then took blood from the goat and the bullock\u2019s vessel, and sprinkled the veil of the Holy of Holies.\u00a0 He then did a very profound act.\u00a0 He poured the bullock\u2019s blood into the bowl which contained that of the goat, and mixed the two thoroughly together.\u00a0 He then sprinkled the altar of incense with this mixture.\u00a0 This mixing of blood showed that the two sacrifices had become one in their expiatory power.<\/p>\n

That which was left of the blood the high priest poured out on the west side of the base of the altar of burnt offering.\u00a0 At this point, the high priest had cleansed the sanctuary in all its parts from the defilement of the priesthood and the worshippers.\u00a0 The Holy of Holies, its veil, the golden altar of incense in the Holy Place, and the altar of burnt offering in the court of the priest were now clean alike.\u00a0 Both the priesthood and the sanctuary were now atoned for in their relationship to Jehovah.\u00a0 Yet the ceremony was not over.\u00a0 The goat to Azazel, which had stood confronting the people with its scarlet scarf, remained.<\/p>\n

All the peoples own personal guilt and sins were now to be removed from them, and placed upon the goat. \u00a0The high priest laid both his hands on the goat\u2019s head and pleaded:<\/p>\n

\n

Ah, Jehovah! they have committed iniquity; they have transgressed; they have sinned — Thy people, the house of Israel.\u00a0 Oh, then, Jehovah! cover over (i.e. atone for), their iniquities, their transgressions, and their sins, which they have wickedly committed, transgressed, and sinned before Thee.\u00a0 As it is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, saying: \u201cFor on that day shall it be covered over (i.e. atoned) for you, to make you clean from all your sins before Jehovah you shall be cleansed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The priests then removed half the scarlet wool cloth from the goat\u2019s horns and affixed it to the Sanctuary door.\u00a0 They then led the sin-burdened goat out through Solomon\u2019s Porch and then through the eastern gate.\u00a0 Here an arched bridge spanned the intervening valley, and they brought the goat over this to the Mount of Olives, where a ready man, specially appointed for the purpose, took charge of the goat.\u00a0 After a substantial journey, passing through several stations where others would accompany him for a while, he finally reached a rocky cliff area at the edge of the wilderness known alternatively as Dudael, Beth Hadudo, or simply Azazel. \u00a0He then pushed the animal backwards over the rock ledge. \u00a0The goat plummeted below, and before reaching the halfway point its limbs would be ripped off.\u00a0 In the final years of the Temple (after 30 CE), the slaying of the goat was immediately telegraphed, by the waving of flags from station to station, so that a few minutes after its occurrence it was known in the Temple. \u00a0However, tradition has it that in years when the sacrifice was accepted, this was not done as the people immediately knew the result because the half of the scarlet wool cloth affixed to the Sanctuary door had turned white the moment the goat had hit the bottom of the cliff.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Talmud Yomah 6 state that the rabbis taught that formerly the tongue of crimson wool used to be tied to the door of the porch, on the outside so that all should see.\u00a0 When it became white, the people rejoiced; when not, all became out of spirits and ashamed.\u00a0 Therefore it has been reformed that it should be tied to the door of the porch inside.\u00a0 However, the people\u00a0 used to take a look at it even then.\u00a0 It was then reformed that half should be tied to the rock at the cliff in the wilderness, another half to the horns.\u00a0 These later reforms may have come late, after the miracle of scarlet wool cloth stopped in 30 CE, as the priests did not wish to distress the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Lev 16:1, the Yom Kippur ceremony was initiated after Aaron\u2019s sons erred in their priestly duties in the Temple\u2019s Holy of Holies.\u00a0 They had offered incense with a strange fire (inappropriately kindled), and were immediately burned to death in the Temple by a flame which erupted from Jehovah (Le 10:1).\u00a0 After this incident, … Continue reading “6.4.1 The Yom Kippur Ceremony”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":354,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1033,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/377\/revisions\/1033"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}