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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

inscribed " for the Lord

"

and the other

" for Azazel.

The high priest then laid his hands with the upon the two goats and said, " A sin-offering

labels to the

Lord"—using the Tetragrammaton and the two men accompanying him replied, "Blessed be the

name

of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. then fastened a scarlet woolen thread to the head of the goat " for Azazel " and laying his hands upon it again, recited the following confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness " O Lord, I have acted iniquitously, trespassed, sinned before Thee: I, my household, and the sons of Aaron Thy holy ones. O Lord, forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins that I, my household, and Aaron's children Thy holy people committed before Thee, as is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, for on this day He will forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord ye shall be clean. This prayer was responded to by the congrega-

He





—

—

'

'



A

tion present (see Atonement, Day op). man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness and he was accom;

panied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down (Yoma vi. 1-8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual. The scarlet thread was a symbolical reference to and the Talmud tells us (ib. 39«) that durIsa. i. 18 ing the forty years that Simon the Just was high priest, the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice: a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: a proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, that was gradually on the increase, until forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple, when the change of color was no longer observed (I.e. 39*).

,t.

sr.

I.

Htr.

There has been much controCritical View versy over the function of Azazel as well as over his Inasmuch as according to the essential character. narrative the sacrifice of Azazel, while symbolical, was yet held to be a genuine vicarious atonement, it is maintained by critics that Azazel was originally no mere abstraction, but a real being to the authors of the ritual— as real as Yhwh himself. This relation to the purpose of the ceremony may throw light upon the character of Azazel. Three (1) Azazel is not a points seem reasonably clear. mere jinnee or demon of uncertain ways and temper,

anonymous and

Azazel

Azban elusive (see

Animal Wokship), but

a deity standing in a fixed relation to his clients. Hence the notion, which has become prevalent, that Azazel was a " personal angel," here introduced for the purpose of " doing away with the crowd of impersonal and dangerous se'irim" (as Cheyne puts it), scarcely meets the requirements of the ritual. Moreover, there is no evidence that this section of Leviticus is so late as the hagiological period of Jewish literature. (3) The realm of Azazel is indicated clearly. It was the lonely wilderness; and Israel is represented as a nomadic people in the wilderness, though pre-

paring to leave it. Necessarily their environment subjected them in a measure to superstitions associated with the local deities, and of these latter Azazel

was the chief. The point of the whole ceremony seems to have been that as the scapegoat was set free in the desert, so Israel was to be set free from the offenses contracted in its desert life within the domain of the god of the desert. (3) Azazel would therefore appear to be the head of the supernatural beings of the desert. He was thus an .instance of the elevation of a demon into a

deity. Such a development is indeed rare in Hebrew religious history of the Biblical age, but Azazel was really never a national Hebrew god, and his

share in the ritual seems to be only the recognition of a local deity. The fact that such a ceremony as that in which he figured was instituted, is not a contravention of Lev. x vii. 7, by which demon-worship was suppressed. For Azazel, in this instance, played a merely passive part. Moreover, as shown, the sym-

was

really a renunciation of his authorthe signification of the utter separation of the scapegoat from the people of Israel. This interpretation is borne out by the fact that the complete ceremony could not be literally fulfilled in the settled life of Canaan, but only in the wilderness. Hence it was the practise in Jerusalem, according to Yoma vii. 4, to take the scapegoat to a cliff and push him over it out of sight. In this way the complete separation was effected. bolical act

Such

ity.

is

Diestel, Set-Typhnn, Asasel und Satan, in Zeitsehrift fttr HUtorische Theologie, 1860, pp. 159 et seq.; Cheyne, in Stade's Zeitsehrift, xv. 153 et seq. Baudissin, Studien zur Scmit. Religionsgesch. i. 180 et seq.; Nowack, Lehrbuch der Hebr. Arch. ii. 186 et seq.; and various commentators on Lev. xvi.

Bibliography





j.

J. F.

jr.

AZAZIAH

McC.

A

Levite who took part in the choral services on the return of the Ark to Jerusalem (I Chron. xv. 21). 2. Father of Hoshea, who was the leader of Ephraim at the time that David enumerated the people (I Chron. xxvii. 20). 3. Levite who had charge of the offerings brought to the Temple in the days of Hezekiah (II Chron.

1

.

A

xxxi. j.

13).

G. B. L.

jr.

AZBAN, MORDECAI BEN ISAAC:

CabaLeghorn; born in the interior of Africa died at Jerusalem 1740. At Leghorn he had a controversy with Abraham Havyim Rodriguez, list

and rabbi

in



which is printed in the latter's collection of decisions, "Orah le-Zadik." He went as rabbi to Aleppo, and later to Jerusalem, where he remained Azban composed " Zobeah Todah " till his death. entitled