Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/920

a man who was standing ready, that it might carry all its sins upon it into a land cut off; and there the man was to set the goat at liberty. עתּי, ἁπάξ λεγ. from עת an appointed time, signifies opportune, present at the right time, or ready. גּזרה, which is also met with in this passage alone, from גּזר to cut, or cut off, that which is severed, a country cut off from others, not connected by roads with any inhabited land. “The goat was not to find its way back” (Knobel). To understand clearly the meaning of this symbolical rite, we must start from the fact, that according to the distinct words of Lev 16:5, the two goats were to serve as a sin-offering (לחטּאת). They were both of them devoted, therefore, to one and the same purpose, as was pointed out by the Talmudists, who laid down the law on that very account, that they were to be exactly alike, colore, statura, et valore. The living goat, therefore, is not to be regarded merely as the bearer of the sin to be taken away, but as quite as truly a sin-offering as the one that was slaughtered. It was appointed עליו לכפּר (Lev 16:10), i.e., not that an expiatory rite might be performed over it, for על with כּפּר always applies to the object of the expiation, but properly to expiate it, i.e., to make it the object of the expiation, or make expiation with it. To this end the sins of the nation were confessed upon it with the laying on of hands, and thus symbolically laid upon its head, that it might bear them, and when sent into the desert carry them away thither. The sins, which were thus laid upon its head by confession, were the sins of Israel, which had already been expiated by the sacrifice of the other goat. To understand, however, how the sins already expiated could still be confessed and laid upon the living goat, it is not sufficient to say, with Bähr, that the expiation with blood represented merely a covering or covering up of the sin, and that in order to impress upon the expiation the stamp of the greatest possible completeness and perfection, a supplement was appended, which represented the carrying away and removal of the sin. For in the case of every sin-offering for the congregation, in addition to the covering or forgiveness of sin represented by the sprinkling of blood, the removal or abolition of it was also represented by the burning of the flesh of the sacrifice; and this took place in the present instance also. As both goats were intended for a sin-offering, the sins of the nation were confessed upon both, and placed upon the heads of both by the laying on of hands; though