Understanding: "The Day of Atonement"

The "Day of Atonement", called Yom HaKippurim or Day of Atonement in the Hebrew of Leviticus 23:27, is the most solemn of YaHWaH’s appointed times. It is observed on the tenth day of the seventh month, nine days after the Feast of Trumpets, and is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation, and a day set apart for YaHWaH’s people to afflict their souls before Him. Trumpets sounds the alarm. Atonement answers it with repentance, cleansing, and judgment.

The command is given in Leviticus 16, repeated in Leviticus 23, and its offerings are listed in Numbers 29:7-11 (Leviticus 16:29-31, NASB 1995):

• This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;

• for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD.

• It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute.

Leviticus 23:32 sets the timing: “from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.” The day runs from sundown on the ninth to sundown on the tenth.

At the center of the day stood two goats. One was slain for YaHWaH, and the high priest carried its blood behind the veil into the Holy of Holies, the only day of the year he could enter (Leviticus 16:15; Hebrews 9:7). Over the second goat, the goat “for Azazel,” he confessed all the iniquities of Israel and sent it away into the wilderness, carrying their sins to a solitary land (Leviticus 16:8-10, 21-22). One goat shows the price of sin paid. The other shows sin removed and carried away for good.