Commentaries:
The word "atonement" is mentioned three times, once in verse 27 and twice in verse 28 (afflicting the soul and doing no work are also mentioned three times, but these are responses to the atonement). The first two mentions confirm "the Day of Atonement" as the proper name for this holy day. It is a special day, a day devoted to atonement.
The Hebrew word behind "atone" is kāpar, which means "to atone," "to propitiate," "to appease," "to pacify," or "to wipe clean." The root of this verb suggests the idea of covering. It is easy to see the link between kāpar and the name the Jews use for this day, Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement is a day of covering.
Most uses of kāpar in the Old Testament are theological, describing God covering or purging sin through sacrifice. In one instance, however, when God instructs Noah about building the ark, He commands him to cover the ark with pitch (Genesis 6:14). From this illustration, we can discern what the word implies. Obviously, Noah and his sons carefully coated the entire ark with pitch so no water could seep in. Their efforts were vital in saving their lives. A similar result occurs when sin is truly covered—it is hidden completely, and the sinner can continue living without guilt.
However, most of the Old Testament usages of kāpar possess the theological thought of covering over or atoning for sin by using the lifeblood of an animal sacrifice. A bull, goat, ram, or some other animal sanctified to be used as a sacrifice is killed, its blood drained out, and its body offered to cover the sin. Yet we know from reading the New Testament that this ritual practice was not truly effective. Notice Hebrews 10:4: "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins."
This is a crucial principle in terms of the difference between the Old Covenant and the New: It is impossible for the blood of animals to take away sin. The author of Hebrews, probably the apostle Paul, means that a sacrifice greater than a mere bull or goat is required to remove the sin of a human being. In the centuries under the Old Covenant, all that happened when an Israelite offered an animal to God for his sins was that the sins were "covered," hidden from sight. We could say that they were ceremonially smoothed over. Paul calls "those sacrifices . . . a reminder of sins every year" (Hebrews 10:3), which God "did not desire, nor had pleasure in them" (Hebrews 10:8).
One thing that did not happen was their complete removal; the sins were not paid for, not forgiven. The blood of bulls and goats does not have what it takes to purge sin, to cleanse the guilt, to erase them completely. Conversely, under the New Covenant, sins are not only forgiven but also forgotten. As Paul goes on to write in Hebrews 10:17, quoting Jeremiah 31:34, a prophecy of the New Covenant, ". . . then He adds, 'Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.'"
There is a simple reason why an animal sacrifice is ineffective: The life of a bull or goat is not worth as much as the life of a man. A person cannot pay or trade for an item with something of lesser value. Even though a person might slaughter many bulls and goats to cover his sins, such a costly sacrifice still does not approach the price of a human life.
In Genesis 2:17, God set the cost of sin: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." When someone sins, he comes under the death penalty; the punishment is his life! We cannot expect God to forgive sins for anything less than this. Although bulls and goats have life and value, it is still well under the price of human redemption. It is a fact of life that a lesser thing cannot redeem a greater one.
To make eternal life possible for the sinner, the sacrifice must be worth at least as much or more than the sinner's life. A human, even if he gives his own life in payment for his sins in death, pays only for himself. There is no hope for anyone else or anything beyond his death. The person who would make such a payment makes a transaction: his life for his sins—and nothing remains.
So, a suitable, costly-enough sacrifice had to be offered so that the sins of mankind could not only be covered—as they were under the Old Covenant—but be completely paid for, forgiven, removed, and forgotten. The only worthy payment, of course, was the sinless life of the Creator God, who became flesh and dwelt among us—Jesus Christ (John 1:14). Only He has a value high enough to pay for everyone's sins and still have incalculable value to spare. So, because of who He is, our holy God, He could be raised again to life and become life for us (Romans 5:6-11).
That is the true price of atonement, which should be our focus on the Day of Atonement.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Price of Atonement
It should not come as a surprise that the Day of Atonement is the most unusual holy day of the year. Each holy day has its distinctive traits. As examples, the Feast of Unleavened Bread has us eating unleavened bread for a week, and Pentecost has the unusual aspect of counting. But for outsiders, Atonement is just plain weird. They think it very strange that we will voluntarily not eat or drink for an entire day.
Of course, in this distinction—which is called "fasting" or "afflicting our souls"—resides a great deal of the day's spiritual instruction. Fasting teaches us to realize just how dependent we are on God. Every day, every hour, every minute, He supplies us with everything we need for life. If He suddenly failed to do so or forgot or stopped caring, how quickly we would die! This day teaches us how frail and needy we are—how much we need God.
When we apply this understanding of how much God supplies to our spiritual life, we come to a stunning realization about how much He provides to us throughout our conversions. It begins with His revealing Himself to us, calling us, forgiving us, and giving us understanding—and so on, all the way to giving us eternal life! He supplies all we need to grow and bear fruit and prepare for His Kingdom.
Recognizing this leads us to feel humble and full of awe of Him, as well as eternally grateful for the things that He has done. It should cause us, as shown in Isaiah 58, to make a proper response, which is to treat others better by sacrificing for them and showing them outgoing concern. If God does so much for us, we should reciprocate by doing good things for others.
Another strange aspect of the Day of Atonement is that it puts two goats front and center (Leviticus 16). One goat in this Old Testament ritual is chosen for the Lord, and it is sacrificed, its blood sprinkled by the high priest on the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies, which he enters just this one time each year. The other goat, the azazel goat, is left alive, and all the sins of the people are laid on its head. Instead of being slain, it is led into the wilderness and abandoned.
This ritual contains the heart of this holy day's meaning: the need and the means of atonement for sin. Because of that, the possibility of unity with God opens up. Without such atonement, humankind cannot be at one with Him, which is God's ultimate goal.
Many people believe the azazel goat represents Satan, and through the Atonement ritual, God shows how He will deal with the problem of Satan and his broadcasts of his rebellious, anti-God attitudes to humanity as "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2). However, this cannot be correct, as Satan does not—cannot—bear away or remove human sin. That is a job only Christ, the Lord, can do (Hebrews 9:28; I Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:4-6; 53:11-12), as Psalm 103:12 makes clear: "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."
Because Jesus Christ's dual roles of paying for sin through His sacrifice and removing sin through complete forgiveness cannot be symbolized in a single ritual, God divides them between the two goats. The Devil and his guilt are nowhere contemplated in the Atonement ritual because Satan has no place or part in God's unilateral initiative to resolve the burdensome problem of human sin. God and Christ took it upon themselves to do what was necessary to bring about reconciliation with sinful humanity (see Romans 5:6-11). (For further information on the Atonement ritual, please see "Who Fulfills the Azazel Goat—Satan or Christ (Part One).")
The Day of Atonement is also an extraordinarily solemn day. Realizing the cost of God's grace, our observance of Atonement should make us feel humble, grieved, needy, and absolutely powerless. Even so, we should also feel a kind of joy and a great deal of gratitude knowing that God has provided an effective and powerful means of atonement for us through His Son Jesus Christ. Our Savior endured suffering and death for us, so that we could be cleared of sin, have access to the Father, and in time be united with God forever. Without His atoning work, we would have no hope of good and no future.
Atonement contains another oddity, one that has to do with what we do or—more exactly—what we do not do on this particular holy day. God instructs us on all the other holy days not to do any "customary work" (see Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28-29), which is our everyday labor, but for the Day of Atonement, the instruction to do no work on this day is far more emphatic. God even uses a different word for "work" in Numbers 29:7 (mela'kah, Strong's #4399) to stress that He forbids any kind of work on this holy day.
In His instructions about this day in Leviticus 23:26-32, God mentions not doing any work on this day three times. He says to do "no work," "[not] any work," and "no manner of work." This is a day in which we are to be completely at rest. His intention in this regard is so insistent that, once, He threatens to take the life of anyone who works on it: "Any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people." He means it!
In Leviticus 23:32, God calls the Day of Atonement "a sabbath of solemn rest." In Hebrew, it is literally "a sabbath of sabbaths," which is a superlative construction unique to that language. "Holy of Holies" and "Song of Songs" are similar phrases, doubling the same word to show that the thing in question is the greatest or best of its kind. Thus, the Holy of Holies was the holiest place of all in the Temple, and the Song of Songs is the most beautiful and best of songs. So the Day of Atonement is the exceptional Sabbath-rest, and as such, of all the Sabbaths of the year, we are to do no work at all.
The reason for this has to do with the fact that it is impossible for us to atone for ourselves. Once we sin, no work on our parts could ever make up for our disobedience and the evils that follow. It took the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God to make that happen (Ephesians 2:4-9). We had no part in it whatever, and Atonement reminds us of that each year. Only God's efforts can bring about forgiveness and reconciliation.
God was purposeful in including so many peculiarities in the Day of Atonement. It is intended to be strange for the purpose of capturing our interest. These oddities are supposed to jump out at us, so that we dig deeply for their meanings and receive the full benefit of God's instruction in them.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Peculiarities of Atonement
To put it even more succinctly, on the Day of Atonement, we are not to eat, drink, or work at all for the entire twenty-four-hour period. It is a day of worship, instruction, prayer, and humbling ourselves before God in thanks for His marvelous work in atoning for all sin and in bringing mankind into unity with Him (see Leviticus 16:29-34; Isaiah 58:1-12; Revelation 20:1-3).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
How Do We Keep God's Festivals?
The Day of Atonement is a commanded feast of God. God emphasizes this day's solemnity by threatening death to those who fail to afflict their souls or who do any work on this day. Nothing is more important than being at one with Him!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Holy Days: Atonement
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Leviticus 23:26:
Leviticus 16:8
Leviticus 23:26-32
