Leviticus 16 is the structural and theological centerpiece of the book. The chapter installs the annual Day of Atonement — , the tenth day of the seventh month — the one day each year on which the high priest enters beyond the inner veil into the most holy place. The chapter has five major movements: the opening warning anchored in Nadab-and-Abihu’s death (16:1-2), the priestly preparations (16:3-5), the two-goat rite and the priest’s offerings (16:6-22), the closing procedures (16:23-28), and the institution of the annual fast (16:29-34).
The warning and the cost of unauthorized access (16:1-2). The chapter opens by linking back to Lev 10’s Nadab-and-Abihu catastrophe: Leviticus 16:1–2↗ — “And the LORD spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron… Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat… that he die not.” Unauthorized access is fatal; the chapter’s procedure is the one and only approved way. The Day of Atonement is established because the alternative is death.
The priestly preparations (16:3-5). Aaron enters not in his ordinary high-priestly garments (the gold-and-jewel breastplate of Exod 28) but in plain linen — bathed, linen coat, linen breeches, linen girdle, linen mitre (16:4). The reduced vestments signal a humbled approach; on this day the high priest is a sin-bearer, not a glorified intercessor. He brings a bullock for his own sin offering and a ram for his own burnt offering; from the people he takes two goats (for a single sin offering performed in two-part rite) and a ram for a burnt offering.
The two-goat rite (16:6-22). The chapter’s most distinctive single ritual. Aaron presents the two goats at the door of the tabernacle and casts lots: one lot “for the LORD,” the other “for ” (16:8). The first goat is slain as the people’s sin offering; Aaron brings its blood beyond the veil and sprinkles it on the kapporet (the mercy seat) and seven times before it, atoning for the most holy place “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins” (16:16). Then over the live goat — the Azazel goat — Aaron lays both hands and confesses over it “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat” (16:21). The goat is sent away into the wilderness by the hand of a fit man, “and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (16:22). The two-fold rite separates the chapter’s atonement-vocabulary into two motions: blood-on-kapporet (cleansing the sanctuary of accumulated defilement) and confession-on-goat (carrying away the people’s sins from the camp).
The closing procedures and the annual fast (16:23-34). Aaron washes, changes vestments, offers the burnt offerings. The chapter then institutes the day as a perpetual statute: Leviticus 16:29↗ — “in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all” — the only fast-day commanded in the Pentateuch. The chapter closes by stating the day’s effect: “to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year” (16:34).
The chapter’s NT trajectory is treated more explicitly than any other OT passage in the epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews 9:7–12↗ takes up the chapter’s once-yearly-with-blood pattern and reads Christ as the high priest who has entered the true holy place “by his own blood… having obtained eternal redemption for us” — once for all, not yearly. Hebrews 9:24–28↗ elaborates: Christ entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us… once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Hebrews 10:11–22↗ draws the conclusion: by one offering Christ has perfected the sanctified; the believer now has “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” The chapter’s once-a-year fearful entry through the veil becomes, in the NT typology, the believer’s continuous access through Christ’s torn flesh.
The narrative confirmation comes at Matthew 27:50–51↗: at the moment of Christ’s death, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” — the chapter’s central architectural barrier torn from above, the gospel narrative signaling that the once-yearly-only access has been opened. In the Book of Mormon, the post-resurrection Christ announces at the Lehite Bountiful (3 Nephi 9:19–20↗) that “your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” The chapter’s sacrificial-blood-system reaches its consummation; the offering it required is offered, and a new offering — the broken heart — replaces it.
Language & Translation Notes
Kaphar / kipper / kapporet and the chapter’s atonement-vocabulary. Leviticus 16’s central verbal root is k-p-r — appearing as the verb kipper (KJV “make atonement”) and the noun kapporet (KJV “mercy seat”). The verb’s basic semantic range includes “cover,” “wipe / purge,” and “ransom”; standard critical commentary (Milgrom is the canonical reference) reads the chapter’s kipper as primarily a purgation-vocabulary — the blood RITUALLY DETERGES the sanctuary of defilement that has accumulated through Israel’s sins, intentional and unintentional. The kapporet — the gold lid of the ark with its two beaten-work cherubim (Exodus 25:17–22↗) — is the place where the LORD’s presence localizes between the cherubim’s wings; sprinkling blood on the kapporet is the ritual cleansing of the most concentrated point of holiness in the camp. The Septuagint translates kapporet as hilasterion; the NT carries this word forward in two places: Romans 3:25↗ (“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation [hilasterion] through faith in his blood”) identifies Christ as the kapporet; Hebrews 9:5↗ uses the same Greek term for the OT mercy seat. The translation tradition shifts between “mercy seat” (KJV, following Tyndale’s reading of Luther’s Gnadenstuhl) and “propitiatory” (Catholic Douay-Rheims) and “atonement cover” (NIV); the underlying Hebrew preserves the wordplay between the place of atonement and the verb of atoning.
Azazel and the two-goat rite. Leviticus 16:8-10’s casting of lots — one for the LORD, one for Azazel — is OT scholarship’s most-debated single name-question. The KJV reads Azazel as ez-azel (“goat that departs”) and produces the English word “scapegoat” (Tyndale’s coinage); this etymology has been largely abandoned in critical scholarship. The modern dominant reading (Milgrom, Levine, and most contemporary commentaries) treats Azazel as the proper name of a wilderness-demon or chthonic figure — the goat is sent into the wilderness AS a place inhabited by Azazel, not as an offering TO Azazel (the chapter is firm that no sacrifice may be offered to anyone but the LORD). 1 Enoch’s account of Azazel as a fallen angel (1 Enoch 6-10) is one of the earliest extra-biblical references and may preserve a tradition older than the book itself. Other readings: Azazel as a rocky cliff in the wilderness from which the goat was pushed (Mishnah Yoma 6:6 — rabbinic tradition); Azazel as an abstract noun for total destruction or removal. The chapter does not resolve the etymology. What is clear: the two-goat rite is a single sin offering performed in two-part rite — the slain goat’s blood cleanses the sanctuary; the live goat’s confessed-upon back carries the sins away. Both motions together effect what the chapter calls atonement; neither alone is sufficient. The Christological reading (Christ as both the slain goat — His blood cleansing — and the live goat bearing sin away into the wilderness) is one of the most-developed single typological readings in patristic and reformation theology.
Once-for-all: the Hebrews 9-10 reading. Hebrews 9-10’s reading of Leviticus 16 is the NT’s most extended and structured single OT-typological argument. The argument’s anchor-points: (1) the chapter’s once-a-year access pattern signals that the way is not yet open (Heb 9:8 — “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest”); (2) the repetition itself testifies to the system’s inability to perfect (“the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins,” Heb 10:11); (3) Christ’s offering of Himself is once-for-all (ephapax — the Greek term Hebrews uses repeatedly), in contrast to the high priest’s annual repetition; (4) the destination of His blood is the true holy place — heaven itself — not the earthly copy (Heb 9:24); (5) the result is that the believer enters the holiest with boldness, the very phrase that Lev 16:2’s warning forbids (“that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail”). Hebrews does not say the Day of Atonement was wrong; it says the day was a figure for the time then present (Heb 9:9) that has now reached its anti-type. The chapter’s framework is honored, not abrogated; the system is fulfilled, not erased.
The veil torn, the holy place opened. Matthew 27:50-51’s record of the temple veil torn from top to bottom at Christ’s death is the gospel narratives’ most direct single intertextual signal to Leviticus 16. The veil mentioned is the parokhet (Hebrew) / katapetasma (Greek) — the barrier between the holy place and the most holy place that, under Lev 16, only the high priest crosses once a year. Torn from top to bottom, the tearing is signaled as an action from heaven (top), not from earth (bottom) — the LORD Himself opening what He had closed. The synoptics all record the tearing (Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45); Hebrews 10:20 reads it explicitly as Christ’s flesh becoming the new-and-living way through the veil. The NT signals are unanimous: the chapter’s once-a-year fearful access becomes, after the crucifixion, the believer’s continuous welcomed access.
The broken heart and contrite spirit: the Lehite-Bountiful announcement. 3 Nephi 9:19-20 records the post-resurrection Christ’s voice from heaven to the Lehite Bountiful survivors, declaring that the sacrificial system installed at Leviticus 16 (and the broader Mosaic-sacrificial program of Lev 1-7, 16) is “done away.” The replacement offering — “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” — picks up the OT’s own internal-prophetic critique of mere external sacrifice (psalm51:16-17: “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it… The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise”); Hosea 6:6↗: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice”; Micah 6:6–8↗ on the LORD requiring justice and mercy rather than rivers of oil). The 3 Nephi announcement makes the OT-prophetic critique operative: the chapter’s sacrificial system is fulfilled, and what now comes before God is the interior offering the chapter’s external rituals always pointed toward.