Leviticus 16:6–10

Leviticus 16:6 — The High Priest's Own Atonement Before Aaron can mediate on behalf of Israel, he must first offer a bull as a sin offering for himself and his household. This sequence is theologically decisive: even the high priest, mediator between God and the people, is himself a sinner in need of expiation. He cannot approach the Holy of Holies with unclean hands. The Mishnah (Yoma 3:8) preserves the confession Aaron would pronounce over the bull, underscoring the personal and priestly dimension of this act. Catholic tradition reads this requirement as highlighting the profound difference between the Levitical priesthood and Christ the eternal High Priest, who needs no sin offering for himself (cf. Heb 7:27). The bull's blood is Aaron's entry ticket into the divine presence — a costly and unrepeatable grace within that single liturgical year.

Leviticus 16:7 — The Two Goats Presented Before God Both goats are brought together and stationed "at the door of the Tent of Meeting" — the liminal threshold between the profane camp and the holy precincts. Their placement "before Yahweh" is liturgically significant: both animals, though destined for different ends, are consecrated to God's purpose from the outset. Neither the sacrifice nor the dispatch of the scapegoat is a purely human act; both occur within the sphere of the divine will. The pairing of the two goats at this threshold anticipates the dramatic division that will follow.

Leviticus 16:8 — The Casting of Lots Aaron casts lots (Hebrew: gôrāl) over the two goats. The lot (gôrāl) in ancient Israel was not mere chance but a disclosure of divine will (cf. Prov 16:33). The two lots determine which goat goes "for Yahweh" (la-YHWH) and which goes "for Azazel" (la-azazel). The Hebrew azazel is one of the most debated terms in the entire Pentateuch. Three main interpretations exist: (1) a proper noun designating a wilderness demon or fallen angel to whom the sins are "returned" (cf. 1 Enoch 8–10; Origen, Contra Celsum 6.43); (2) a geographic location, a rocky precipice; or (3) simply "the goat that goes away" (hence Jerome's caper emissarius, "emissary goat," from which English "scapegoat" derives). Catholic tradition, following Jerome's Vulgate, has generally interpreted azazel as describing the goat's function rather than naming a demonic recipient — the animal goes away bearing sin, not as an offering to a rival spirit. The lot device ensures human preference plays no role: God alone determines the assignment.

Leviticus 16:9 — The First Goat: Sacrifice for Sin The goat on which the lot "for Yahweh" falls is presented and slaughtered as a ḥaṭṭā't (sin offering). Its blood will be brought inside the veil and sprinkled on the mercy seat (v. 15), making direct contact with the kappōret — the golden cover of the Ark where God's presence dwells. This goat represents the propitiatory dimension of atonement: the satisfaction rendered to divine holiness through the shedding of blood. The Church Fathers (especially Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on Leviticus, and Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 9) saw in this goat a direct type of Christ's passion — blood offered to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary.

Leviticus 16:10 — The Second Goat: The Living Bearer of Sin The second goat is explicitly kept alive before Yahweh — a striking contrast to the sacrificial victim. Its function is not propitiation but expiation in the sense of removal: the sins of Israel will be confessed over it (v. 21) and it will carry them away from the community "into the wilderness" — the realm of chaos, absence, and non-being, far from the camp of God's people. The phrase "to make atonement for him" (lekapper ʿalāyw) signals that this goat's release is itself an atoning act, not a leftover postscript. Together, the two goats constitute a single sacramental drama: sin is both paid for in blood and banished from the community — two inseparable dimensions of what Christ will accomplish in one indivisible act on Calvary.

Catholic tradition has consistently read the two goats of Leviticus 16 as a unified typological foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive work, while carefully distinguishing the two dimensions they represent.

The Church Fathers were remarkably consistent on this point. Origen (Homilies on Leviticus, Hom. 9) taught that the two goats together signify the one Christ: one goat reveals Him as the sacrificial victim offered to the Father; the other reveals Him as the one who carries our sins far away — into the "desert" of death and Sheol — and abolishes them. Cyril of Alexandria similarly argued that Christ is "both the goat slain and the goat sent away" (Glaphyra, Book 3). This patristic consensus is significant: the two animals are not rivals but a diptych, each panel requiring the other.

The Letter to the Hebrews, the New Testament's most sustained engagement with Levitical liturgy, draws explicitly on this chapter. Hebrews 9:7–12 contrasts Aaron's annual entry into the earthly Holy of Holies (requiring fresh blood each year) with Christ's once-for-all entry into the heavenly sanctuary through his own blood. Christ fulfills both goats: he is the sin offering whose blood achieves eternal redemption (Goat 1), and the one who "bears away" sin definitively, removing it not merely from the camp but into non-being (Goat 2; cf. Heb 9:26, "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself").

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 433, 601, 613) teaches that Christ's atoning death fulfilled the Levitical sacrifices, not by mere repetition, but by surpassing and completing them. CCC §1539 notes that the Levitical priesthood was a type of the unique priesthood of Christ. The fact that Aaron himself required atonement (v. 6) is explicitly cited in Hebrews 7:27 to demonstrate Christ's superiority as High Priest: "He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily... he did this once for all when he offered up himself."

The Scapegoat and the Theology of Sin's Removal: Catholic theology distinguishes between propitiation (satisfaction rendered to divine justice) and expiation (the removal/cleansing of sin). The two goats elegantly map onto this distinction. Pope John Paul II, in Salvifici Doloris (§17), describes Christ's suffering as taking on himself the "whole evil of sin" — an echo of the scapegoat's function. The Catechism §615 teaches: "His obedience unto death... substitutes for our disobedience," encompassing both dimensions. Importantly, Aaron's requirement to be purified first (v. 6) contrasts with Christ who, as Hebrews 4:15 insists, was "without sin" — yet still entered death on our behalf.

The ritual of the two goats offers contemporary Catholics two concrete lenses for the spiritual life. First, the sequence in verse 6 — the high priest atoning for himself before interceding for others — is a perennial challenge to every believer who serves in any ministerial or pastoral capacity: parents, priests, catechists, counselors, and lay leaders must attend to their own conversion and regular recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation before they can authentically mediate God's mercy to others. The confessional is the Christian's equivalent of Aaron's bull.

Second, the scapegoat's dispatch into the wilderness speaks directly to the Catholic practice of genuine, total surrender of sin in confession. Too often, Catholics confess sins but mentally retrieve them — replaying guilt, refusing to believe in the completeness of God's forgiveness. The living goat sent far away is a ritual enactment of Psalm 103:12: "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." The sacramental grace of absolution is not a partial cleaning but a radical removal. The wilderness swallows what God has forgiven. Catholics are called to trust that completely.