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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 16:6 - 16:6
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With the bullock Aaron was to make atonement for himself and his house. The two he-goats he was to place before Jehovah (see Lev 1:5), and “give lots over them,” i.e., have lots cast upon them, one lot for Jehovah, the other for Azazel. The one upon which the lot for Jehovah fell (עָלָה, from the coming up of the lot out of the urn, Jos 18:11; Jos 19:10), he was to prepare as a sin-offering for Jehovah, and to present the one upon which the lot for Azazel fell alive before Jehovah, עָלָיו לְכַפֵּר, “to expiate it,” i.e., to make it the object of expiation (see at Lev 16:21), to send it (them) into the desert to Azazel. עֲזָאזֵל, which only occurs in this chapter, signifies neither “a remote solitude,” nor any locality in the desert whatever (as Jonathan, Rashi, etc., suppose); nor the “he-goat” (from עֵז goat, and עָזַל to turn off, “the goat departing or sent away,” as Symm., Theodot., the Vulgate, Luther, and others render it); nor “complete removal” (Bähr, Winer, Tholuck, etc.). The words, one lot for Jehovah and one for Azazel, require unconditionally that Azazel should be regarded as a personal being, in opposition to Jehovah. The word is a more intense form of עָזַל removit, dimovit, and comes from עֲזַלְזֵל by absorbing the liquid, like Babel from balbel (Gen 11:9), and Golgotha from gulgalta (Ewald, §158c). The Septuagint rendering is correct, ὁ ἀποπομπαῖος; although in Lev 16:10 the rendering ἀποπομπή is also adopted, i.e., “averruncus, a fiend, or demon whom one drives away” (Ewald). We have not to think, however, of any demon whatever, who seduces men to wickedness in the form of an evil spirit, as the fallen angel Azazel is represented as doing in the Jewish writings (Book of Enoch 8:1; 10:10; 13:1ff.), like the terrible field Shibe, whom the Arabs of the peninsula of Sinai so much dread (Seetzen, i. pp. 273-4), but of the devil himself, the head of the fallen angels, who was afterwards called Satan; for no subordinate evil spirit could have been placed in antithesis to Jehovah as Azazel is here, but only the ruler or head of the kingdom of demons. The desert and desolate places are mentioned elsewhere as the abode of evil spirits (Isa 13:21; Isa 34:14; Mat 12:43; Luk 11:24; Rev 18:2). The desert, regarded as an image of death and desolation, corresponds to the nature of evil spirits, who fell away from the primary source of life, and in their hostility to God devastated the world, which was created good, and brought death and destruction in their train.