The Goat for Azazel—Why Was It Really Pushed Off a Cliff?

Jacob Milgrom summarizes three theories about Azazel: (1) that it means “scapegoat” and is connected to the words עז אזל—the goat left; (2) that it means “a rough and difficult place”; or (3) that it is the name of a demon who has been “eviscerated of his demonic powers” by the biblical text. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 Anchor Bible 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1020–1021. Editor’s note: See also Anna Angelini, “Is Azazel a Goat, Place, Demon, or Deity?” TheTorah (2021).

Biblical translations follow NJPS, with modifications. Unless otherwise indicated, all other translations are mine.

Though verses 10 and 22 use the same verb, piel forms of the root שלח, NJPS translates the verb differently: “release” in verse 10, and “set free” in verse 22. Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken, 1991), also is inconsistent: “send it away” in verse 10, and “send free” in verse 22.

The text here is from the Ashkenaz version of the Avodah, known as אמיץ כח, which was composed by Rabbi Meshulam ben Kalonymus of Mainz (ca. 950 – ca. 1010). The text of the Sefarad version, known as אתה כוננת, is very different, but the fate of the second goat is the same.

Translation by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in the Koren Yom Kippur Mahzor: Nusah Ashkenaz (Jerusalem: Koren, 2014), 894.

As NJPS notes, the meaning of the Hebrew word עתי is uncertain. The understanding of many Jewish commentators is that it means designated or appointed. (See, e.g., Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Samuel David Luzzatto [Shadal].) So also Menachem Zvi Kaddari, Milon ha-ivrit ha-miqrait [Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2007), 842, s.v. עתי: מיועד לזמן מיוחד, “designated for a specific time.”

A number of Bible interpreters have written that Azazel might be the name of that cliff. See e.g. Kaddari, Milon ha-ivrit ha-miqrait, 787, (?)עזאזל: כינוי לצוק במדבר יהודה, “Azazel: A name given to a cliff in the Judean desert(?)”

This is the understanding in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, too.

Quoted with minor variations by Rashi on the same verse.

To the best of my knowledge, Rashbam was the first Jewish exegete to make this comparison between the two birds of chapter 14 and the two goats of chapter 16. The Church Father Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185 – ca. 253 C.E.) also pointed out the parallel: “The two ‘hens’ here appear to me to have resemblance to the two rams, one of which is offered to the Lord, the other is sent to the wilderness; for thus also here one of the two hens is killed and the other is released ‘into the field.’” See Homily 8 of Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus 1–16; trans. Gary Wayne Barkley (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 168; cited in Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 840.

The Five Books of Moses, trans. Everrett Fox (New York: Schocken, 1991), footnote on Lev 14:7. See also Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 88, who writes that both ceremonies “employ slaughtered and live animals, the former for supplying blood as a ritual detergent and the latter for transporting the impurity from human habitation.”

^{Antiquities of the Jews 3.241} προσάγουσι δὲ δύο πρὸς τούτοις ἐρίφους, ὧν ὁ μὲν ζῶν εἰς τὴν ὑπερόριον ἐρημίαν πέμπεται ἀποτροπιασμὸς καὶ παραίτησις τοῦ πλήθους παντὸς ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτημάτων. Translation by Louis Feldman, in Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, ed. Steve Mason (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 3:298–299.

Olitzki was a respected community rabbi in East Prussia in the early 20^th century.

Feldman, Flavius Josephus, n. 672. I am grateful to Professor Daniel R. Schwartz for bringing this source to my attention.

Albert C. Geljon and David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria On Planting: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 55.

Geljon and Runia, Philo of Alexandria On Planting, 178.

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1045.

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1046.

Translation by Daniel A. Klein, Shadal on Leviticus: Samuel David Luzzatto’s Interpretation of the Book of Vayikra (New York: Kodesh Press, 2020), 145, with minor adjustments.

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 1046. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the relatively late translation into Aramaic of the Torah, sees a bad omen if the released bird comes back to the house that was purified from tzaraat (Targ Ps-J Lev 14:53).

Curiously, in Shadal’s commentary to Exodus 3:1, he writes: מדבר איננו שֵם מיוחד למקום שְמָמָה, אך כולל כל מקום שאיננו שדה נזרע ונעבד, אעפ״י שיש בו מרעה, “The term midbar is not used exclusively to mean a desolate place, but includes any area that is not a sown, cultivated field, even if it has pasturage,” conforming to Rashbam’s explanation of מדבר, quoted below.

“Saracens” (Greek: Σαρακηνοί; Latin: Saraceni) was a term used by Romans to describe the “savage” tribes in the east of their empire. Later in the Middle Ages, the term was used by Christians to describe Muslims, Turks and others.

The Talmud (b. Yoma 67b) concludes that one may derive benefit from the carcass of the scapegoat (i.e., in halakhic language, it is not אסור בהנאה). Rava explains there לא אמרה תורה שלח לתקלה, “the Torah did not say ‘send (the goat)’ to cause mishap.” In other words, the Torah would not have permitted “releasing” the dead goat’s body to the bottom of a ravine if people would be transgressing if they made use of those remains. Based on this principle, Naftali Herz Wessely (1725–1805; in his commentary to Lev 16:22) argues (contra Rashbam) that the Torah could not have meant to release the goat alive, for if that were the case, יהא מותר באכילה... ואיך יאכל השעיר שהופרש לחטאת ונשא עליו עון בית ישראל כולו, “It would be permitted to eat it.... And how could people eat the goat that was set aside as a sin offering and that carried on it the iniquities of the entire Jewish people?”