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 away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.This is one of those stories that I've heard talked about ever since I was a kid, the origin of the term "scapegoat." However, reading this, I never before realized how much was involved. It wasn't just a matter of taking a goat and running it out into the wilderness. First, the goat had to be prepared to be the scapegoat. The priest had to confess the sins of the people, and lay that burden upon the goat. Makes me wonder how they did that. Was it just some generic speech for many unsaid things? Or was it confessing known sins of the entire people, like when they disobeyed God as a group? Or was there some sort of telling of many/all the people, for full disclosure? I don't know.
The other thing here that caught my attention is that the goat isn't taken out by the priest, or run through some kind of gauntlet of the people to drive it out of town. It was taken out of the city by a specific person, simply identified as standing in readiness. What does this mean? Is he a servant of the priest? Is he another, lower priest himself? Or is this some kind of honor/disgrace, that he was chosen for this duty? I can see reasons for all three, though I think the first or second are most likely. It's still interesting that this is someone's duty, to be the one to cast out their sins, and probably condemn the goat to a slow death.
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