AZAZEL – Devil or Deliverer?

In the not too distant past, we ran across statements concerning the word ‘Azazel’. The articles stated the word ‘Azazel’ refers to ‘the rebels of Israel’, ‘the prophets of Baal’ and even ‘Satan the devil’ himself.

Leviticus 16, part of the Torah portion entitled ‘Acharey Mot’ (After the death)sets the pattern for what would become Yom Kippur or The Day of Atonement. In these passages is where we see, for the first time, the word ‘scapegoat’. In the Hebrew language, it is the word ‘azazel’. The Hebrew word ‘Azazel’ in Leviticus 16 comes from two Hebrew roots, one being a word for ‘goat’ and the other root meaning ‘to remove completely’ but strangely enough it is translated in many versions of Scripture as ‘scapegoat’.

‘Azazel’ is actually a Hebrew word meaning ‘total removal’ or’ the goat which causes or brings about total removal’. The scapegoat, or Azazel, is the live goat on whose head ALL the sins of Israel were pronounced and placed before it was sent into the wilderness, by the hand of a ‘fit man’. (Lev 16:21)

Mark 1 tells us, after Yeshua’s baptism, He was taken into the wilderness by The Spirit (the fit man) and tempted by satan for forty days. The writer of Hebrews (chapter 4) tells us Yeshua was tempted in all ways as we and yet sinned not.

At what point in history or Scripture were the ‘rebels of Israel’ or the ‘prophets of Baal’ or ‘Satan the devil’ the ones who took upon themselves ‘the sins of ALL Israel’ ?

BOTH goats in Leviticus 16, at the institution of what came to be Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) represent Jesus/Yeshua the Messiah, for He is the Only One Who was alive, the One who died, and the One Who lives again. ‘ . . . these things saith The First and The Last, which was dead and IS alive . . .’( Rev.2:8)

The one goat which was sacrificed (slaughtered) and whose blood was shed and placed on the mercy seat and the horns of the altar is a picture of the shed blood of Messiah Yeshua who went into the ‘holy place not made by hands’ and placed His blood once for all for all sin for them that will accept Him and look for His return. (Heb 9) ‘for without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin’.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it (the blood) to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it, The Blood, that makes atonement for your soul. (Lev 17:11)

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Rom 5:10)

And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring forth the live goat (Azazel): (Lev 16:20)

This second goat – The scapegoat – Azazel – the goat that removes entirely – received all the sins of all Israel and symbolically carried all the sins away from the people. “For He – Messiah Yeshua – became sin, He who knew NO sin, that we might become the righteousness of God through Him. (1 Cor 5:21)

As far as the east is from the west, so has HE – Messiah Yeshua – removed our sins from us . . . to be remembered no more. ( Psalm 103:12)

‘Azazel – total removal’ . . . Messiah Yeshua . . . Jesus the Christ

‘In the volume of the book it is written of Me . . .’

‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill’. (Mat 5:17)

For God so loved the world, he sent His Son . . .

Every aspect of Yom Kippur points us to Yeshua of Nazareth, the Promised Messiah of YHVH. .

Shalom