The Law
The Day of Atonement
One day a year, one man goes in — and the whole book is explained by what he does
This is the centre of Leviticus and the centre of the Israelite year. Everything the book has been teaching about sacrifice, priesthood and access converges on a single day, and on one man walking through a curtain nobody else may pass.
It is worth slowing down here, because almost every line of it turns up again in the New Testament — and because the writer of Hebrews assumed his readers had this day in their bones. Read Hebrews 8 to 10 alongside this page.
If you have come straight here, the book it belongs to is Leviticus.
One way to put it: Diatheke (an unequal covenant — a binding promise whose terms God alone sets) versus Syntheke (an equal covenant, agreed between peers). The Day of Atonement was the day all of the regular sacrifices and offerings were consummated in this one celebration. God had taken it upon Himself to make it possible for His people to celebrate covenant with Him.
The High Priest
- Had to be a man — one like me who could understand my need. An angel wouldn’t understand having a bad day.
- Had stones on his breastplate and shoulders which represented each of the twelve tribes. He carries me on his heart and his shoulders.
- On the Day of Atonement he laid aside his usual priestly garments and went in wearing plain linen. Leviticus 16:4 gives no reason for it. It is hard not to notice that he comes in dressed like anybody else.
The activity of a Day of Atonement
- The priest arrives (without his priestly robes) and as he walks by you wonder if it is really him.
- He offers sacrifice for himself first — he too is a sinner.
- He offers a sin offering — makes me right with God.
- He brings two goats — the one chosen by lot is the sin offering. Should you ask what he is doing he would explain, “I am going into the Holy of Holies, to bear His people into His Presence. In me today, you will go in where you could not go yourself.”
- He takes the goat on which the lot for Yahweh fell. His knife flashes, and the goat is killed — and its blood is what he will carry inside. This is the half of it you are not allowed to follow.
- He takes some of the blood of the goat and enters into the Holy of Holies, where he sprinkles it on the ark of the covenant. He may never sit down, because his work is not ever done — as Hebrews 10:11 notices, there is no chair in the tabernacle. He will be back next year.
- He returns and takes the live goat, lays both hands on its head, and confesses over it all the iniquities of the people — the one place in the whole day where the sin is named out loud. This time the goat is led out into the wilderness and released, carrying their sin away with it.
- When the sacrifice is finished, the priest puts on his priestly garments again. He offers a peace offering, and you celebrate before the Lord that you have been accepted into His presence. Then he offers a burnt offering — your giving of yourself entirely to God.
Two goats, one offering — and where the sin is laid
It is easy to think of the two goats as two rituals. Leviticus does not. Read how they are introduced:
And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering… And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for the scapegoat.
Leviticus 16:5, 8 · Legacy Standard Bible
Two goats. A sin offering — singular. One offering with two halves, because no single animal could show the whole of what was happening. The slain goat shows the price, paid inside the veil where nobody may watch. The live goat shows the removal, acted out in the open where everybody can. And the second is not an afterthought: it too is “presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement upon it.”
Now the moment the whole day turns on. The confession is spoken once, over the living goat, and the language is not symbolic — it is a transfer:
Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it out into the wilderness… And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an isolated land.
Leviticus 16:21–22 · Legacy Standard Bible
He shall lay them on the head of the goat. Not sympathy, not a gesture — sin located on a specific head, in public, by name, and then carried somewhere it cannot be followed back from.
Hold that verb, because two writers reach for it again.
All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
Isaiah 53:6 · Legacy Standard Bible
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21 · Legacy Standard Bible
The same movement, three times: laid on the goat, caused to fall on Him, made to be sin. In each case it does not stay where it started, and in each case somebody who did not earn it carries it away.
And He is both goats. The blood taken inside, and the one led outside — which is why Hebrews notices where He died: outside the gate, in the place the second goat was sent.
Worth noting too that the Legacy Standard Bible’s own cross-reference at verse 10 — the scapegoat verse — points the reader to Isaiah 53:4–10. The connection above is not novel; the editors drew the same line.
Insufficiencies of the old system
- The priest was too much like us — changed from time to time because of death, some good ones and some bad ones.
- The sacrifice was not like us. How can an amoral goat with no ability to choose atone for us when we have chosen to go our own way?
- But the shadow is the evidence that the reality exists.
Fulfillment in Christ
Jesus has fulfilled every element of the Day of Atonement once and for all.
- Hebrews 8-9 — the full commentary on Levitical priesthood and sacrifice
- John 13-17 — Jesus’ own words the night before His sacrifice
- I Corinthians 11:23-28 — we celebrate the covenant meal in His memory
The garments
One detail in the Day of Atonement is worth following all the way through, because it turns out to be the whole gospel in a change of clothes.
The high priest does not enter the Holy of Holies in his glorious robes. He lays them aside and goes in wearing plain linen. The reason is not given, but the effect is unmistakable: on the one day he does the most important work of the year, he looks like nobody in particular. It is in the walk-through above — as he walks by you wonder if it is really him.
Now put the New Testament beside it.
who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:6–7 · Legacy Standard Bible
Our High Priest is first seen with the garments laid aside. And that, I think, is precisely why so many missed Him. They were watching for someone who looked like a high priest. He came dressed like everybody else.
But Leviticus does not end with the linen. Read what Aaron does when the work is done:
Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments… and put on his clothes and come forth, and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people.
Leviticus 16:23–24 · Legacy Standard Bible
The garments go back on. The work finished, the priest is robed again and comes out to the people.
So watch the ascension. He goes up, and He is clothed and seated:
He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God.
Hebrews 10:12 · Legacy Standard Bible
I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.
Revelation 1:13 · Legacy Standard Bible
A long robe and a golden sash. Priestly dress, and kingly. The garments are back on.
And He sat down — which is the detail Hebrews will not let go of, because in this book the priest never sits. There is no chair in the tabernacle. The work is never finished, so he is always standing, and he will be back next year.
This one sat down. It is the same word He said from the cross: tetelestai — it has been brought to completion, and it stays completed.
Laid aside, at work unrecognised, robed again, seated. Leviticus 16 walked through it once a year for centuries, and nobody watching knew they were rehearsing.
Where to go next. The rest of the book, and what it is for when you reach the Gospels, is on Leviticus — including the comparison between those the law kept back from worship and the people Jesus restored to it.