Lev 16:8.
Azazel (Heb. ‘A5>’5Ll, perhaps “separation”, “he who drives away”). The most accepted etymology breaks down the word into ‘Lz, “goat” or “goat” (because it is of epicene gender; that is, with the same ending the male and female are designated), plus ‘>5al, “which is goes” (and so, “a goat sent away”). The phrase “scapegoat” comes to us from the Vulgate: capro emissario (related phrases: “scapegoat” or “scapegoat”). In turn, the Latin expression is apparently based on revision 123 of the LXX of Symmachus, where gr. tragos aperjómenos is a translation of the heb. ‘Lz ‘>5al. Our “Azazel” is a direct transliteration of the Hebrew. Term that appears in Lev 16:8, 10, 26. Some scholars believe that it refers to a personal being or a particular demon; others, to the act of sending; and others, to the place where the goat was sent. The RVR takes it as a personal name. Two facts support this idea: 1. The parallel Hebrew construction, “by Yahweh…by Azazel,” implies that Azazel is a personal being (as is Jehovah, the Lord). 2. Certain Jewish expositors and writers considered it that way. For example, the pseudepigraphical (apocryphal) Book of Enoch characterizes Azazel as the one who “has taught all the iniquities of the world” (Enoch 9:6), adding that “the whole earth has been corrupted because of the works that Azazel taught: all sin is attributed to him” (10:8). Azazel is also depicted as bound hand and foot and thrown into an abyss somewhere in the desert, awaiting “the great day of judgment,” when he “shall be cast into the fire” (10:4, 6; cf 54:1 -5). On the Day of Atonement, 2 male goats were brought to the sanctuary court, where lots were cast to choose one “for Yahweh” and the other “for Azazel” (Lev 16:5-10). With the blood of the goat on which the lot fell “by Yahweh”, the high priest made atonement for the most holy place, the holy place and the altar of burnt offering, because of the sins of Israel (vs 16-19). It is important to note that the goat chosen “by Azazel” had no part in the Day of Atonement service until all atonement had been made with the goat “by Yahweh” (v 20). Only then did the high priest symbolically transfer the sins accumulated during the year to the goat “by Azazel” and send it to the desert (vs 21, 22). It was the blood of the goat “by Yahweh” that atoned, symbolically, for the sins of the people (vs 15-17). The blood of the goat “for Azazel” was not shed (vs 10, 20). His removal represented the removal of sin from the universe. During the time of the second temple, as described in the Mishnah, the high priest tied a red thread to the head of the goat by Azazel that had been chosen by lot, while another thread was tied to the neck of the other goat. At the end of the day of activities, the high priest placed his 2 hands on the scapegoat and made his confession, saying: “O God, your people, the house of Israel, have committed iniquity, have transgressed and sinned before you. O God, forgive, I pray, the iniquities and transgressions and sins that your people, the house of Israel, have committed and transgressed and sinned before you; as it is written in the law of your servant Moses: ‘For on this day atonement will be made for you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord.’” Then the goat was taken to the desert, to a certain hollow. There, whoever wore it divided the red cord into 2 pieces: one half tied it to a rock and the other half between the 2 horns; then he would make him fall over the cliff to die. The goat was considered to bear the sins of the people, and the sanctuary was cleansed when the goat died in the desert. Bib.: Mishnah, Yoma 4:1, 2; 6:1-8.
Source: Evangelical Bible Dictionary
name of a demon who, according to the ancient Hebrews and Canaanites, dwelt in the desert. On the great day of Atonement, the lot was cast on two goats, one of which, Yahweh’s, was sacrificed, and the other, A.’s, was released in the desert loaded with all the sins of the people, transferred to the male goat before Yahweh, Lv 16, 8 ss.
Digital Bible Dictionary, Grupo C Service & Design Ltda., Colombia, 2003
Source: Digital Bible Dictionary
A term that appears only in Lev 16:8, Lev 16:10 and 26. It has been interpreted in various ways. It is used to refer to the second of the goats over which lots were cast on the Day of Atonement.
The first goat was sacrificed as a sin offering (Lev 16:9), but onto the other goat the sins of the people were transferred by prayer and the laying on of hands (Lev 16:26). He then he was released in the desert.
A goat parallel to Azazel can be seen in the scriptures. In the ritual for the recovered leper, a live bird was released into the field to drive away the evil, and then the leper was declared clean (Lev 14:6).
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
Appellation applied to one of the two goats that were brought before the high priest on the great day of atonement. You had to cast your lot on both. “The male goat on which the lot fell by Jehovah” was sacrificed. “But the male goat on which the lot falls for A., he shall present him alive before the Lord to reconcile him, to send A. into the wilderness† (Lev 16:8-10).
Much has been discussed about the meaning of this word. It is said that perhaps A. was the name of a place and that is why the animal received that name. But a large part of the scholars believe that the animal was sent to the desert, considering it to be the dwelling place of the demons (comp. Luc 11:24: “When the unclean spirit goes out of man, it walks through dry places, seeking rest”), bringing thither “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions, and all their sins…. And that male goat shall bear all their iniquities to an uninhabited land† (Lev 16:21-22).
Of the many ideas associated with this fact, one cannot overemphasize the one related to the reality of divine forgetfulness of confessed sins (“Who is a God like you, who forgives iniquity, and forgets the sin of the remnant of his inheritance? ? … because he delights in mercy. He will have mercy on us again; he will bury our iniquities, and will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea† ).
én A. is interpreted to be the name of an evil †œpower† or angelic being. So by sending the animal to the desert “to A.†, sin is being referred to its origin. In one of the apocryphal books named after Enoch, a fallen angel named A. is put as the leader of the angelic beings who sought council with the daughters of men. That A., according to the apocryphal story, was the one who taught the sons of men to make weapons and ornaments.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
(-> angels, goats, atonement). A sacred figure, of an ambiguous nature, that has had a certain importance in the apocalyptic and in the ritual of Lv 16. It appears as a violating angel or as a divinity of the desert.
(1) Apocalyptic. Azazel appears as God in some countries of the biblical environment, with the probable meaning of “the Strong” (or “the Strong”), and may even have been venerated in the pre-Islamic sanctuary of Mecca, in the form of a goddess: she would be Al -Uzza, the Strong (Quran 53,19). He also appears (attached to Semyaza) as one of the chiefs of the two hundred raping angels. First he occupies the tenth place (cf. 1 Fien 6,7; 8,1), but later he comes to present himself, in parallel with Semyaza, as a diffuser of heavenly secrets, a guide to rapists of women, guilty of the blood spilled on the world (1 Fien 9,49) On a historical-literary level, this Semyaza/Azazel satanic duality can (and perhaps should) be explained from the convergence of different traditions. But within 1 Hen 9 the importance of one spirit or the other is then accentuated. This is indicated by the later word of God to the archangels in which Azazel appears as the instigator and main origin of the perversion: “The whole earth has been corrupted by the teaching of the works of Azazel; ascribe all the blame to him” (1 Hen 10,8). Men are innocent, but they have been subjected to a great misfortune, whose responsibility is Azazel, a satanic or perverse spirit, who, therefore, has to be thrown into darkness, consumed by the fire of the great judgment, so that the earth is revived (healed), by the action of Raphael, God’s medicine (cf. 1 Hen 10,4-8). At a later time, Semyaza comes to present himself as the cause of those same evils, being condemned (1 Hen 10, 11-16).
(2) Leviticus 16. Azazel has influenced the biblical tradition because it is linked to the rite of the scapegoat* (Lv 16), appearing as a God-Demon of the desert, to whom the sins of the people are sent. In this context, God is defined as holiness; he is universal owner of the cosmos and has his abode above heaven, as indicated by the theology of the temple (cf. 1 Kings 8; Ex 40,34). Azazel appears as the antithesis of God: it is the sin that lives outside the habitable space (in the desert). The text does not theorize: it makes no effort to fix his face, to define or present him. Between God and Azazel, representing the people, stands the Priest. There is no need for a king, because the problem is not political. Nor is a prophet necessary, as in Elijah’s time. Here a priest is needed who performs the purification rite well, taking in his hands the blood that cleanses and consecrates the place of God, to later expel the sins of the people, loaded on Azazel’s goat, far away. In this context we speak of the two goats. It is evident that they have an ambivalent meaning: they can mean good (blood of God), but also evil (they are bearers of sin). They are on the border between God and Azazel, on the border where good and evil come together; That’s why you have to draw lots. Obviously, the goats represent the people: they are like the two faces of the same humanity that can be opened to God (purifying blood) or lost in the desert (impurity that cannot be cleansed). They begin by being mixed in such a way that they must be sorted (Lv 16,8-10), according to a rite that recalls old sacral gestures, known within Israel by the Urim and Thummim (cf. Ex 28,30; Lv 8,8; Nm 27,21; Dt 28,8.10). It is as if, reaching the limit, good and evil, God and Azazel, were not distinguished. It is as if in the end only fortune remained, which puts one at the service of God and another makes him a servant of the devil (dualism*). i ZIMOS
(-> passover, yeast, bread). At the center of the Israelite religion we find the festival of the Azimos, that is, of the new bread (unleavened) that the faithful eat each year, once the harvest is done, to give thanks to God for the new fruit of the earth. It is as if life began with each harvest, marked by cultivation and…