A Mystery: Who Is Azazel?

 “[God] has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psa. 103:10-12).

The Day of Atonement includes just such a picture of sin being removed far away. Under the Old Covenant, there were two goats: one to die for the sins of the people, and one to carry those sins far away.

Here’s Lev. 16:8: “Then Aaron [the high priest] shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat.”

“Scapegoat” is a poor translation. The Hebrew word used here is azazel (Strong’s # H5799), which derives from two other Hebrew words: az (# H5795), or goat, and azal (# H235), “to go away.” So the azazel is the “goat to go away,” or, as some Bible translations render it, the “goat of departure.”

The goat on which the lot of the LORD, or YHWH, fell would die for the sins of the people: “And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the LORD’s lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering” (Lev. 16:9). A few verses later, we read,

15 Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil, do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat.

16 So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness. (Lev. 16:15-16.)

The goat on which the lot of azazel fell would be banished and sent far away into the wilderness: “But the goat on which the lot fell to be the azazel shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the azazel into the wilderness” (Lev. 16:10). Again, a few verses later, we find more details:

21 Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.

22 The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. (Lev. 16:21-22.)

The Old Covenant contained another sacrificial ceremony that paralleled this one. You can read about it in Lev. 14:33-53. To cleanse a “leprous” house — apparently one with an outbreak of mold or mildew — the priest would take two birds, kill one, and release the other outside the city (vv. 49-53).

Again, one creature was killed and one released, just like on the Day of Atonement. We’ll see more of this pattern later on.

But why goats on Atonement? What do the two goats picture? Who is the goat of YHWH, and who is Azazel?

Symbolism of Goats

Goats picture sin. Whenever God commanded goats to be sacrificed under the Old Covenant, they were sacrificed as a sin offering. On each annual Holy Day and on the first day of each month, God commanded that a goat be offered as a sin offering (Num. 28:15, 22, 30; 29:5, 11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 38). For the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles, a goat was to be offered for sin every day for each of the seven days.

Jesus Christ associated goats with sinful, unrepentant people: “All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left” (Mat. 25:32-33). The sheep will enter into God’s Kingdom (vv. 34-40); the goats will be destroyed (vv. 41-46).

Goats also picture Satan and his demons. In Lev. 17:7, God commanded His people, “No longer shall they sacrifice their sacrifices to hairy goat-demons after whom they have been prostituting” (Concordant Literal Version). Centuries later, when King Jeroboam led Israel into idolatry, he offered sacrifices to these same goat-demons (2 Chron. 11:15).

The word used in these passages, and others, is sair (Strong’s # H8163). It means “shaggy, rough, he-goat, demon.”

But the goats sacrificed as sin offerings pictured Jesus Christ, who became sin for us: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). And thus we read in Hebrews 10, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:4, 11-12).

So goats picture all manner of sin: Yeshua/Jesus’ sacrifice for sin; sinful people; and Satan and his demons.

Identity of the Two Goats

The symbolism of the goat killed for the sins of the people now becomes obvious: it can only portray Jesus Christ. He became sin for us, and He shed His blood for our sins.

Just as the high priest carried the blood of this goat into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat, so Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has done with His own blood. Here’s Heb. 9:11-12: “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Looking back at Lev. 16 again, how could it be anyone else? We’re explicitly told that this goat is the goat on which fell the lot of the LORD, YHWH (vv. 8-9). As we’ve seen previously, YHWH can be either God the Father or Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, but is usually Jesus Christ speaking on behalf of the Father. And here He was, telling us plainly what His lot and mission would be!

So what about the other goat? The Azazel?

Here’s something interesting: both goats are “to make atonement” (Lev. 16:10, 16). The Hebrew word used here is kafar (Strong’s # H3722). It means “to cover over, pacify, make propitiation.”

Both goats make atonement, or pacification, for sin, but we’re seeing two different types of atonement here. YHWH’s goat dies for the people’s sins; the Azazel is banished, but lives and bears their sins.

Only one of these two types of atonement results in forgiveness. Only the shedding of blood can purge away sin: “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22).

The Azazel cannot purge sins because he does not die for them. He simply bears them on his head and is banished into an uninhabited land.

Who is to be banished? We saw at the beginning, in Psa. 103:12, that God will remove our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west.” The unrepentant wicked will be banished with their sins, banished “into outer darkness” (Mat. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).

But there’s one noteworthy being in particular who is to be banished: Satan the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning” and “he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

By means of Satan, sin entered the world. He “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). He’s the one who sows tares among the wheat (Mat. 13:39). He’s the one who works overtime to turn people away from God (Luke 8:12). He’s the father of all unrepentant sinners (1 John 3:8, 10). The whole world lies under his sway (1 John 5:19).

The Book of Isaiah prophesies of Satan: “Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?’” (Isa. 14:16-17).

And so, when Yeshua/Jesus returns, He will banish the father of wickedness into an uninhabited land just as the Azazel was banished into an uninhabited land. Let’s read about this next!

Azazel Banished

Here’s Rev. 20:1-3 describing the events immediately following Jesus’ return:

1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;

3 and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

The father of unrepentant sinners, of liars, of murderers — the being who brought sin into the world, who deceives the whole world — will be banished into an uninhabited land. In Isa. 14:19, God says to Satan, “But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden underfoot” (Isa. 14:19).

Again, we read in Ezek. 28:16, “By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones.”

Satan’s demons will be banished with him. His hairy goat-demons, as we read a little earlier. Here’s what we read about the ruins of Great Babylon: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!” (Rev. 18:2).

And what about the angel who binds Satan? He’s the fit man, the strong man, who led the Azazel away into banishment in the wilderness.

At this same time, when Yeshua/Jesus returns and banishes Satan, He will regather the Israelites out of all lands where they’ve been scattered. Jer. 50:20 tells us, “‘In those days and in that time,’ says the LORD, ‘The iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found; for I will pardon those whom I preserve.’”

At this time, Psa. 103:12 will be fulfilled for those who live during Christ’s millennial reign: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

It’s Jesus Christ who died for sin. It’s Satan who’s banished for it.

Additional Types

God’s Word contains additional types and parallels of this. Additional examples of one dying, and the other being banished.

The first is Cain and Abel. “Cain was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous” (1 John 3:12). Cain was of the wicked one; Abel was a servant of God. Cain murdered Abel, just as Satan entered Judas Iscariot and brought about Jesus’ death (Luke 22:3; John 13:27). Abel died for his righteousness; Cain was banished and driven out from civilization (Gen. 4:12, 14).

The second is Esau and Jacob. God said of them, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (Rom. 9:13; Mal. 1:2, 3). Esau sought to kill Jacob (Gen. 27:41-42). But ultimately, it was Jacob who inherited the Promised Land, while Esau went away and dwelt in Mt. Seir (Gen. 36:8-9). “Seir” is Strong’s # H8165), which means “hairy” or “shaggy” and comes from sair (# H8163) — the very same word that means “shaggy, rough, he-goat, demon”! God loved Jacob and gave him the Promised Land; He hated Esau and banished him.

The third and final one I’d like to look at today is Jesus Christ and Barabbas. Christ was innocent and sinless; Barabbas was “a notorious prisoner,” a murderer, a robber, and a rebel (Mat. 27:16; Mark 15:7; John 18:40). Pontius Pilate presented the two men before the mob and said, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” (Mat. 27:21). The mob chose Barabbas. So Jesus died for sin, and Barabbas didn’t.

Putting all these things together, the meaning of the two goats on the Day of Atonement ought to be obvious. One died for sin; the other was banished for it.

Only Jesus Christ died for sin “and without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). But Jesus wasn’t banished for sin, nor does He still bear our sins or carry them around with Him today. He bore them once and died for them at that very same time: “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Rom. 6:10).

Satan is responsible for sin, the father of it. Jesus Christ is not. Satan will bear the guilt of all the blood he has shed.

The LORD’s goat, YHWH’s goat, represented Jesus Christ. The Azazel, the goat of banishment, represented Satan.