I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 16-18 .

In today’s passage God gave Moses the instructions for the Day of Atonement.  The first thought I had about this passage was curiosity about where the “wilderness of Azazel” was.  As I suspected, the place being referred to is ambiguous.  In fact, some translations say that the goat should be driven into the “wilderness for Azazel”.  In fact, there are Jewish legends which say that Azazel was a demon, whom the goat was intended to appease.  That would essentially make the goat an offering to a demon, which seems to me to be inconsistent with the commands against idolatry.  A little further research on my part revealed that the Hebrew word “azazel” is composed of the Hebrew word for rugged, “azaz”, and a generic word for God, “el”. (note: “el” in the Bible usually, and perhaps always, applies to God, but was used by the people of that area for other gods as well, even in some of their names for their gods).  All of which suggests to me that the original writer of this passage would have understood the phrase to mean that the goat would be driven into a rugged wilderness dedicated to God (perhaps so dedicated by its use for this purpose?).  I want to add that it is from this passage that we get the term “scapegoat”, which is sometimes misspoken as “escape goat”.  Interestingly enough, the “scape” in “scapegoat” is almost certainly a shortening of the word escape.  The importance of all of this is that words change meaning over time and Ancient Hebrew was a language which, at least the written form, contained many words whose meanings changed significantly depending on context.  

Later in today’s passage, in chapter 18, there are a series of prohibited sexual practices.  When Christians refer to these prohibitions as guidelines, some people ask why they do not also follow kosher food rules.  There is a relatively simple answer to that question of which most Christians fail to be aware.  When the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts, sent out a letter instructing Gentile believers on the issue of following Jewish “Law”, they specifically said that Gentile believers only needed to follow three elements of Jewish Law.  Those elements were: do not worship idols by taking part in their feasts (eating food offered to idols), do not eat/drink blood, do not commit fornication.  These instructions contained here would have been more or less what they were thinking of by fornication.