Leviticus · chapter 16 of 27
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Leviticus 16 establishes the Day of Atonement, once a year. The high priest bathes, dresses in linen, offers for himself and enters the Most Holy Place with incense and blood. Two goats are chosen by lot: one is sacrificed for the people, and over the other Aaron confesses their sins and it is sent into the wilderness. It is a lasting statute.
This chapter is the center of Leviticus and one of the most important in the whole Bible. It begins by recalling the death of Nadab and Abihu, who approached God without permission, and answers the question of how a sinful people can live near a holy God. The answer is the atonement that God himself establishes once a year.
After the death of Aaron's sons, the Lord warns that Aaron must not come at any time into the Most Holy Place, behind the veil, or he will die, because God appears there in the cloud over the mercy seat. He may enter only with a bull as a sin offering and a ram as a burnt offering, bathed and dressed in holy linen garments. From the people he receives two male goats and a ram.
Aaron first offers the bull for himself and his household. He enters with a censer full of coals and two handfuls of incense, so that the cloud covers the mercy seat, and sprinkles blood on it and before it. The two goats are chosen by lot: one for the Lord and one for Azazel. The first is sacrificed as the sin offering for the people, and its blood is sprinkled in the same way, to cleanse the sanctuary from the uncleanness and rebellion of Israel.
Then Aaron lays both hands on the live goat, confesses over it all the iniquities and rebellions of the people, and a man leads it into the wilderness. The high priest bathes, changes clothes and offers the burnt offerings. The bodies of the sin offerings are burned outside the camp. The day is the tenth of the seventh month: the people are to humble themselves and not work, and it is a solemn rest and a lasting statute.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The Lord tells Moses that Aaron must not come at any time into the Most Holy Place, or he will die, because God appears in the cloud over the mercy seat. Access to God does not depend on human desire but on what he himself establishes.
Aaron kills the goat of the sin offering for the people and takes its blood behind the veil to sprinkle it on the mercy seat. In this way the place where God meets his people is cleansed. Blood is at the center: without shed blood there is no access.
Aaron confesses over the live goat all the iniquities and rebellions of Israel, puts them on its head and sends it away into the wilderness. The picture of sin carried far away anticipates the complete forgiveness God promises his people.
The priest makes atonement for the people to cleanse them, and before the Lord they are clean from all their sins. It is the central declaration of the chapter: one appointed day, one sacrifice, and a people declared clean by God's grace.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: So that he would not die, because the Lord appears in the cloud over the mercy seat. — Leviticus 16:2
Answer: A bull as a sin offering for himself and his household. — Leviticus 16:6
Answer: Lots were cast: one for the Lord and one for Azazel. — Leviticus 16:8
Answer: He put it on the fire so the cloud would cover the mercy seat. — Leviticus 16:12-13
Answer: All the iniquities and rebellions of the Israelites, which he put on its head. — Leviticus 16:21
Answer: The tenth day of the seventh month. — Leviticus 16:29
Leviticus 16 reminds us that God's forgiveness is real and costly. In a small group you can talk about how we practice confession: not as a routine but as an honest encounter with a holy God who forgives. The people were to humble themselves, and that attitude remains a good starting point for approaching him.
The letter to the Hebrews explains that Christ is the high priest who entered, not with the blood of animals but with his own blood, once for all. What Israel repeated every year, Christ fulfilled definitively. That is why we can draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.
Leviticus 16 shows the heart of the sacrificial system: one day when God cleanses his people and carries their sins far away. Leviticus 17 turns to regulate where and how sacrifices were to be offered, and declares that the life of the flesh is in the blood.
The exact meaning of the Hebrew term is debated. Some understand it as the name of a place or of the act of going away into the wilderness, or as an expression for a goat that departs; others see a being of the wilderness. The text does not explain it, and the center of the rite is sin carried away.
Hebrews 9 and 10 present Christ as the high priest who enters not a sanctuary made by human hands but into God's presence, with his own blood. His single, final sacrifice does what the yearly sacrifices could only anticipate.
The Hebrew expression is generally understood as fasting and showing humble repentance before God. On that day the people stopped, did not work and acknowledged their need of forgiveness.