Azazel

Azazel is the destination-name attached to one of the two Day-of-Atonement goats in Leviticus 16. The first goat, by lot, belongs to Yahweh and is slain. The second, by lot, is "for Azazel" — kept alive, sin-loaded, and sent into the wilderness. UPDV preserves the proper name "Azazel" rather than translating it; the same rite is the long-standing source of the English word "scapegoat."

The Two-Goat Lot

The ritual opens with a sorting of two goats by lot, with one destination naming Yahweh and the other naming Azazel: "And Aaron will cast lots on the two goats; one lot for [the name of the Speech of] Yahweh, and the other lot for Azazel" (Lev 16:8). The pair is one selection-pool, but the two lots split them onto opposite tracks of the day's rite — slaughter on one side, wilderness-dispatch on the other.

The Live Goat for Azazel

The Azazel-goat is not killed at the altar. It is held alive for a different purpose: "But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, will be set alive before Yahweh, to make atonement for him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness" (Lev 16:10). The verse joins three movements — the goat is set alive before Yahweh, atonement is made through him, and he is sent away "for Azazel into the wilderness."

The sin-load is placed by a two-handed confession: "Aaron will lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he will put them on the head of the goat, and will send him away by the hand of a man who is in readiness into the wilderness" (Lev 16:21). All three categories — iniquities, transgressions, sins — are spoken over the live goat and "put on" his head. A designated man then leads him out.

The Handler's Cleansing

Contact with the Azazel-goat carries a residue requiring washing: "And he who lets the goat go for Azazel will wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he will come into the camp" (Lev 16:26). Only after washing and bathing does the handler return to the camp, marking the wilderness-dispatch as a passage out of and back into the people's space.

A Prophetic Echo

The pattern of an iniquity-load deposited on a single bearer surfaces again in Isaiah's servant-portrait: "All of us like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:6). The wandering-flock language and the divine "laying" of iniquity on one figure echo the structure of the Day-of-Atonement rite — a single bearer carrying away the corporate sin-load.