|
by
Doug Ward |
For a high priest in ancient Israel, the Day of Atonement (Yom
Kippur in Hebrew) was the most important occasion of the year. On that day he
performed rituals that led to the removal of sin and impurity from the
tabernacle or temple.
In
one of those rituals, the high priest laid his hands on the head of a goat
selected by lot from two candidates and confessed over it the sins of the
Israelites. The goat was then led away to a remote area to symbolize the
removal of those sins from Israel (Lev 16:21-22). This ritual reminds us of
what David said in praise of God's mercy in Ps 103:12: "As far as the east
is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us."
In
Jewish tradition the goat came to be identified with the sins that it carried.
When the ritual was conducted in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period,
people would spit on the goat or pull on its hair as it was being led out of
the city, and some would shout, "Bear our sins and be gone!" Measures
were taken to ensure that the goat did not come back, so that those sins did
not return. After the goat was led to "the wilderness," a location
five Sabbath days' journey outside the city, it was pushed backward over a
cliff and fell to its death in a ravine below.1
By
the time of Jesus the goat and the ritual were also associated with the future
judgment of spiritual forces of evil. When lots were cast for the two goat
candidates on Yom Kippur, one lot was said to be "for the Lord" and
the other "for Azazel" (Lev 16:8). The Hebrew word azazel appears in the Bible
only in Lev 16, and its meaning is uncertain. Anciently the word was often
interpreted as a proper name denoting an entity who is being contrasted with
God. In this reading Azazel is the devil or a demon, and the ritual assigns to
Azazel ultimate responsibility for sin that it brought into the world.
In
the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period, a prominent fallen
angel named Azazel (or its variant Asael) appears in
several works, including 1 Enoch, the Book of Giants, and the Apocalypse of
Abraham.2 Of particular interest is 1 Enoch 6-11,
a section of 1 Enoch believed to date from the second century BC. In this
story, which takes Gen 6:1-4 as its point of departure, a group of two hundred
rebellious angels called the Watchers decides to come to earth and have
children with human women. Eighteen leaders of this group are listed in 1 Enoch
6, including one named Asael/Azazel.
The
Watchers wreak havoc on earth, fathering malicious giants (Chap 7) and showing
people how to make war (Chap 8). As the world becomes increasingly chaotic, God
sends archangels to warn Noah about a coming deluge and restrain the activities
of Azazel:
"And again the Lord said to Raphael: `Bind Azazel hand
and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert,
which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place
upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide
there for ever, and cover his face that he may not
see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the
fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted.... And the whole
earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him
ascribe all sin' " (1 Enoch 10:4-9).
We
can see Lev 16 in the background of this excerpt from 1 Enoch. Azazel bears the
sins of the Watchers as the goat in the Yom Kippur ritual carries the sins of
Israel. (Notice the phrase "to him ascribe all sin.") Moreover, like
the goat, Azazel is taken to a rocky desert place and not allowed to return.
Keeping
Lev 16 and 1 Enoch in mind, let us now consider the accounts in Mark 5:1-20 and
Luke 8:26-39 of Jesus' healing of a demon-possessed man on the eastern shore of
the Sea of Galilee, near the village of Gerasa. We
can quickly notice a correspondence between the Yom Kippur ritual, where a goat
carries the sins of Israel into the wilderness and is sent off a cliff; and the
Gerasene exorcism, where a herd of pigs carries a legion of demons down a steep
precipice into the Sea of Galilee.
There
are some additional parallels in the details of these passages. In Lev 16 the
people "afflict their souls" through fasting and self-denial (v. 29).
The community is spiritually cleansed on Yom Kippur (v. 30) and prepared to
continue its mission as a light to the world. Before the exorcism the demon-possessed
man afflicts himself by cutting himself (Mark 5:5). When the demons are cast
out he is restored to health and proclaims to his people what Jesus has done
for him (vv. 15-20). The presence of the herd of pigs
signals that the man is not a Jew, and his witness is a first step in
announcing the Gospel to the nations.
On
Yom Kippur the goat was subject to verbal and physical abuse as it was led out
of Jerusalem. In Mark 5:7-8 the demons feel tormented when Jesus commands them to
leave the man. In Luke 8:31 they beg Jesus not to be sent "into the
abyss," like the "abyss of fire" where Azazel and the Watchers
will be tormented forever (1 Enoch 10:13-14). The demons in Mark 5 and Luke 8
exhibit the same kind of fear and trembling as Azazel and the Watchers do in 1
Enoch 13.
In
the Bible the sea, like the wilderness, symbolizes chaos and the territories
over which God has not yet moved to exert complete authority. Significantly,
Jesus takes control over the waves of the Sea of Galilee shortly before the
exorcism (Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25).
Scholars
have noted additional symbolism in the fact that Legion is cast into pigs.
There was a Roman legion, the Legio X Fretensis, which carried the standard of a boar. The
death of the pigs can be seen as a hint that judgment is coming for the
kingdoms of this world (Rev 11:15).3
The
accounts of the Gerasene exorcism give a powerful announcement that through
Jesus, Satan's kingdom is thrown down as the Kingdom of God breaks into the
world, bringing healing to the nations. The final judgment of evil supernatural
powers and their human servants has begun. When we understand the connections
between the exorcism and the rituals of Lev 16, this announcement is magnified
and brought into sharper focus.
1These traditions are
described in the Mishnah in tractate Yoma, chapter 6.
2See for example The
Symbolism of the Azazel Goat by Ralph D. Levy, Christian Universities
Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 1999, pp. 39-51.
3See
Hans M. Moscicke, "The Gerasene Exorcism and
Jesus' Eschatological Expulsion of Cosmic Powers: Echoes of Second Temple
Scapegoat Traditions in Mark 5.1-20," Journal for the Study of the New
Testament, Vol. 41, no. 3, 2019, pp. 363-383.
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