It is generally known that the Hebrew word so translated in the Authorized Version, but left by the Revisers untranslated, has been the occasion of keen debate among men of learning, Jews as well as Christians, though chiefly rationalists. Symrnachus gives ἀπερχόμενος, and Aquila ἀπολυὀμενος (or, as Montfaucon reads, ἀπολελυμένος); and the Vulgate follows, as did Luther in his day. Theodoret in his comment on the passage seems to have had no question but that the Seventy meant ἀποπομπαῖος as ἀποπεμπόμενος. But the learned S. Bochart (Hieroz. II. liv.) objected that their rendering is by a term in classical authors appropriated to the active sense of averting or turning away evils, answering to the Latin averruncus, though he for his part suggests quite a different version of the Hebrew. One of his arguments repeated by moderns, that “ez” is a she goat, not a male, Gesenius confesses is not so certain. Indeed the remark in the Thesaurus, as anyone may verify from Hebrew usage, is “prius caprum quam capram significasse videtur.” It is really an epicene, and so capable of application to either sex. Besides, Azazel is a compound, or which the more general designation sufficed with another word to define. This allowed, the natural formation of the word is obvious: Azazel means goat of departure. Nor is there real difficulty in identifying the people's lot with it: as the slain goat was for Jehovah, so the living one for a scapegoat. This is the express distinction of scripture in each case.
People are easily stumbled who for such reasons abandon the intrinsically simple, suitable, and holy sense, for alternatives of the most equivocal nature, if not absurd and profane. Thus not a few suggest that it is the name of a place, of which nobody ever heard; whereas the context supposes a meaning which all could understand at once. This is true only of the ancient and commonly held view. The advocates for place cannot settle among themselves whether Azazel signifies a precipitous mountain, to which the goat is supposed to be led, or a lonely valley which Deut. 21 probably suggested, though the case was wholly different. Besides, we have the place of consignment already and distinctly specified in ver. 10, which puts this sense of Azazel out of court as intolerable tautology; so Gesenius rightly argues on the latter supposition. “To a desert place, into the desert,” cannot stand; any more than the former supposition of casting the goat down a precipice, instead of letting him go free as ver. 22 requires. Tholuck, Winer, &c., contended for such a manipulation of Azazel as would mean “for a complete removal.” which Gesenius condemned very properly, both for its rigid character and for its incoherence with ver. 8; and therefore he preferred with many others the abominable sense of a demon or Satan! Hence the Septuagint has been cited as if ὁ ἀποπομταῖος must mean some evil genius of the wilderness, who had to be propitiated by the sacrifice of the dismissed goat! One can understand the apostate emperor Julian so sneering at scripture; but Cyril of Alexandria found no difficulty in understanding the Greek translation, as the plain English reader does the A.V.
For on the face of the chapter the two goats were taken “for a sin-offering” (ver. 5); and Aaron presented not one only but both before Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle (ver. 7); and lots were cast (ver. 8) that the whole disposal of each might be of Jehovah. Is it not blasphemy then to find such sentiments insinuated as would involve an unholy compact between Jehovah and Satan, not merely in the face of the entire law which forbade giving His sacred honor to His adversary, but this on the most solemn day of sacrifice and confession of sins in the Jewish year? Now ver. 10 is conclusive proof that the Seventy had no such profanity in their minds, any more than they convey it in their words. For though the word in heathen mouths had no better connection, the LXX show that they simply employed it to mean the God-appointed dismisser of the sins charged on its head by varying the rendering in ver. 10. There, instead of saying τὸν ἀποπομπαῖον, as would have been the natural form after their translation of ver. 8, they seem to go out of their way to guard themselves and the scripture in hand by changing the phrase to αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν ἀποπιητήν, “to send away for the dismissal” (not “the dismisser”). Symmaclius has here εἰς τράγον ἀφιέμενον (Origenis Hexapla, Field, ii. 194). It is certain from this comparison that the Seventy meant by ὀ ἁποπομπαῖος the goat that was sent away; which demonstrates therefore, notwithstanding their use of the word, that the notion of a caco-daemon did not even occur to their thoughts. To crown the evidence, weigh their version of ver. 26, “And he that sends forth the goat that has been set apart to be let go,” as Sir L. C. L. Brenton translates τὸν χίμαρον τὸν διεσταλμένον. Who can doubt that there was no unworthy superstition of an Averruncus, but just simply the second goat of departure? It may be added that Mr. Chas. Thompson, the American Translator (Philad. 1808), did not differ as to this from Brenton, save in being less correct, “And he that letteth go the he-goat which was sent away to be set at liberty,” &c., as he had rendered 1-azazel in vers. 8, 10, simply “for escape.” Neither of them allows the idea of the heathen daemon in any case.
The notion of Witsius, &c., is less offensive, as might be expected in pious men. It was that the goat sent away to the Averter indicated Christ's relation to the devil, whom He, however tried, did overcome. And Henstenberg sought to purge it so as to express in symbol that he whom God forgives is freed from the devil's power. But it is all an inexcusable departure from the simple truth of the type by an attempt to christen a heathen idea, which has no ground whatever in the original, and only a semblance in the LXX corrected almost immediately by the context. “When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive.” Such is the noble way in which was displayed, completely and forever, Christ triumphing over the evil powers, which had before seemed to triumph for a while: they were really vanquished and despoiled in His cross.