Leviticus 16 King James Version (KJV)
16 And the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the Lord, and died;
2 And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
3 Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.
4 He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired: these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.
5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord‘s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
11 And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself:
12 And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:
13 And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:
14 And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.
15 Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
16 And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
17 And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel.
18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
19 And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
20 And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
23 And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there:
24 And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.
25 And the fat of the sin offering shall he burn upon the altar.
26 And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp.
27 And the bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung.
28 And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp.
29 And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you:
30 For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.
31 It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.
32 And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments:
33 And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.
34 And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses.
Commentary
16:1-17:16 THE BLOOD OF ATONEMENT
Day of Atonement: introduction (16:1-10)
God’s dramatic judgment on Aaron’s two sons (see 10:1-7) showed clearly that the priests needed to act with care and reverence in everything they did, especially inside the tabernacle (that is, in the Holy Place). This chapter goes on to explain that only the high priest could enter the inner sanctuary (the Most Holy Place), and then only once a year, on the Day of Atonement.
Although the regular rituals dealt with sin in various ways, the people were still not perfect and their sacrifices not fully effective. Even the best offerings did not enable the offerers to come into the presence of their God, not even through their representative, the high priest. Therefore, on this one day of the year when entrance into God’s presence was available, all the sins of the previous year were brought before God for his forgiveness and removal, so that the people, through their priestly representative, could enter his presence unhindered.
But the priests also were sinners, and had to make atonement for themselves before they could make it on behalf of others (cf. Heb 9:7). The regulations for the day’s proceedings begin by specifying the animals needed (16:1-5) and outlining the main offerings, namely, a sin offering for the priests (6; explained in detail in v. 11-14), and a two-part sin offering for the people (7-10; explained in detail in v. 15-22).
Day of Atonement: sacrifices (16:11-22)
Aaron sacrificed the priests’ sin offering at the altar in the tabernacle courtyard, then took fire from this altar along with blood from the sacrifice into the tabernacle (that is, into the tent). He used the fire to burn incense on the golden altar that stood in the Holy Place against the curtain dividing the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. As he drew back this curtain to enter the Most Holy Place, incense from the altar floated through the open curtain and covered the mercy seat (the lid of the ark, the covenant box),
the symbolic dwelling place of God. Aaron then sprinkled the blood of the sacrificial animal on and in front of the mercy seat (11-14).
This sprinkling of the blood on the mercy seat reminded the Israelites that mercy, God’s mercy, was their only hope for salvation. In spite of all their sacrifices and other rituals, when they at last reached the climax of their highest religious exercise, they could do nothing but acknowledge that they were helpless sinners, dependent entirely on God’s mercy for their forgiveness.
After completing the ritual for the priests’ sin offering, Aaron came out of the tabernacle-tent into the open courtyard. He offered the people’s sin offering on the altar of sacrifice, and returned into the Most Holy Place with the sacrificial blood to repeat the ritual at the mercy seat. Since everything that human beings have contact with is affected by their sin, the blood of the people’s sin offering was used also to make atonement for all parts of the tabernacle that any person had touched (15-19; cf. Heb 9:21-22).
The people’s sin offering consisted of not one goat but two. After sacrificing the first goat and applying its blood inside the tabernacle-tent, Aaron returned to the courtyard to carry out the ritual with the second goat. He laid his hands on its head, confessed over it the sins of the people, and sent it far away into the wilderness to a place from which it could not return. This was apparently a further picture to the people that their sins had been laid on an innocent victim and taken far away from them (20-22).
Although the blood ritual of the annual Day of Atonement had meaning to the Israelite people of Old Testament times, it was still only a shadow or outline of the reality that was to come through Jesus Christ (Heb 7:19; 10:1). For the way in which it pictured the sacrificial death of Christ, and for the contrast between its limitations and the perfection of the atoning work of Christ, see Hebrews 9:6-14,23-28.
Day of Atonement: other details (16:23-34)
Until now the high priest was clothed in the plain white clothes of the ordinary priests (see v. 4). This may have been to emphasize to him the need for humility and the importance of purity in all his representative actions in the ritual of sin-cleansing. Now that atonement for sin had been made, he bathed himself, put on his normal high priestly clothes and offered burnt offerings of consecration, first for the priests, then for the people. All others whose duties brought them into contact with the sin offering during the ritual had likewise to cleanse themselves (23-28).
As for the Israelite people as a whole, they were to participate in this solemn act of confession and atonement in a fitting spirit of shame and humility. It seems that on that day they were to do no work and eat no food (29-34).