Scriptures that Don’t Exist

While serving as a missionary, I made it a point to study the scriptures each morning before work and each evening before bed. I was 20 years old at this point, raised in the church and taught from my youth, but I was about to learn something I had never heard before, or since.

This particular evening, I somehow stumbled across a holy day detailed in the Old Testament called, “the Day of Atonement”. I was surprised that I had never heard of it because it was considered the most sacred and important day of the year under the law of Moses.

I read in the Old Testament, primarily from Leviticus, details about the ordinance performed on this holy day.  I had never read so much detail about any ordinance, it was amazing!   

There were several consecutive chapters that provided a detailed account of the institution of the Day of Atonement as well as its history.  I read about two goats, one named Jehovah and the other named Azazel. Both goats/roles were required to complete the atonement.

I had never before heard of this Azazel.  The spelling of that name was very strange yet easy to remember for me.  

One thing that I remember being discussed in odd detail was the death of both goats. The Jehovah goat was killed first and its blood was sprinkled all over the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant. They killed the goat named Jehovah, but they did not kill the goat named Azazel. Instead of killing Azazel, the High Priest held it by the horns and pronounced all the sins of the people on its head and then it was sent out of the camp into the wilderness to die.  It had to die of its own accord, nobody could kill it.  

I read that initially this goat was sent out into the wilderness, a rocky place without food or water and it would die of dehydration, heat stroke or the like.  Someone was assigned to watch the goat in the wilderness and make sure that it died by itself.  

The death of Jehovah marked the beginning of an extended fast of at least 25 hours to ensure it was more than one day. During that fast, the people would mourn for their sins and pray for forgiveness. 

The children of Israel couldn’t celebrate the forgiveness of their sins until Azazel was dead and the atonement was complete.  

Because they couldn’t kill the goat, it initially took days for the goat to die. I imagine that during the days between the death of Jehovah and the death of Azazel, the people waited anxiously thinking about what was happening, why they killed Jehovah and why they waited on the death of Azazel. 

Eventually, some time later a High Priest decided that as long as the Azazel killed itself it could die of other means. It wasn’t long before the ordinance was changed to speed things up.  They decided to send the goat into the wilderness near a cliff and coax it to jump off.  They couldn’t throw it off the cliff because that would be them killing it. It had to jump off the cliff by itself and thereby kill itself. The point of this part of the ordinance is that Azazel had to kill itself.

 So, keeping with the principle of the ordinance, it was decided that the goat would be released near a rocky cliff. Then a group of men would form a semicircle around the goat and slowly shrink the semicircle until the goat was pinned between the cliff and the men so much so that the goat couldn’t even turn around. They might at that point yell or surprise the goat, causing it to scare. When it recoiled, spooked or jumped, it would have nowhere else to go except off the cliff. The goat would actually jump off the cliff and thereby kill itself. 

As the years passed, the people lost the meaning of the ordinance and it naturally changed to the men directly killing the goat by nudging the goat off the cliff with their legs, and that eventually eroded the ordinance until it was lost entirely and a priest would push the goat off the cliff or even throw it off the cliff. By this point, they thought that the point of the ordinance was that the goat died in the wilderness.  They entirely forgot that Azazel must kill itself as part of the ritual and symbolism.

This cliff was a good distance from the temple which was the center of the gathered people. It was important to know when Azazel died so they could celebrate the atonement. Watchmen were set on hills between the city and the cliff. When Azazel was dead, a torch was lit or a banner waved which could be seen in the distance. The first watchman would see the signal and relay it with the same signal to the next watchman until the signal reached the temple. It was a fairly fast system to relay the news from miles away. 

The children of Israel anxiously waited for the signal of Azazel’s death. When the message was received at the temple, a great celebration began because the atonement was completed. 

Over the years, traditions have changed, some things have been added and some taken away, but to this day the Jews still celebrate the day of atonement which remains their most holy day of the year. We know this holiday as Yom Kippur which is still translated to mean, “The Day of Atonement”.

I read so much that night about the sacred ordinance and the two goats. Their meaning was so clear and obvious. Unfortunately, this was a one-time viewing…

The next day, I searched diligently to find these chapters again. They were nowhere to be found! I retraced my steps and found verses that talked about the Day of Atonement but couldn’t find the detail I had previously read. Instead of reading the original Hebrew name Azazel, I read the translated term “scapegoat”. Some of the information was there, but not much.

As a missionary, I didn’t have access to computers or the internet, so I couldn’t do a scripture word search nor look up what I had read online. It was almost two years before I returned home and had access to the internet.  

I was so anxious to verify what I had read that soon after I got home and had access to a computer, I did a wordsearch in the Old Testament for “Azazel”. I was shocked to find that it wasn’t there at all.  It wasn’t in the New Testament either.   

I also searched the internet. I found a tremendous amount of information which substantiated what I learned, but could never find the detail or clarify what I had gained from this remarkable reading. 

I found that the original Hebrew bible used the name “Jehovah” for one goat and “Azazel” for the other. The name Azazel was translated into the English word “scapegoat”. This made sense because the term “scapegoat” in English came from these exact verses. Azazel is in fact the scapegoat for our sins.

To this day I have no idea how I read it from my own King James Bible. It is clear to me that I read scriptures that don’t exist. 

From that night, I understood what I call the mechanics of the Atonement. The mechanics explains how Christ is able to offer mercy without robbing justice on conditions of repentance. It explains the process by which the penalty for sin can be transferred from one person to another. 

I immediately understood that the Jehovah goat was a prophetic reference to Jesus who was killed by the people. With his blood he laid claim to the seat of mercy from which he alone is able to offer mercy.

I also realized that the goat for Azazel was a prophetic reference to another death that happened shortly after Christ had died. This death was a suicide which we have all known but never associated with the atonement. It is the death of one called Judas, Judas Iscariot.

With this new revelation, the atonement suddenly made sense and what was shrouded in mystery was now obvious and easy to understand. Through the process of this revelation, I was taught the following mysteries which will be answered in this book:

• The essential role of Jehovah in the atonement
• The essential role of Azazel in the atonement
• How Jesus played the role of Jehovah
• How Judas played the role of Azazel
• Why Jesus suffered and died
• How through his suffering and death he is able to offer us mercy without robbing justice
• Why the atonement does not work except on conditions of repentance.
• Why Azazel wandered in the wilderness until he killed himself