Let Goats Escape

In Leviticus 16:8 and 16:10 we read that Aaron (the brother of Moses) was tasked with separating, by lot, two goats. One goat was to be offered as a sacrifice for the sin of the people. The other was to be an atonement for the sin of the people and it was to be let free into the wilderness. This second goat effectively escaped being a sacrificial offering.

When William Tyndale (1494 to 1536) undertook the first translation of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, and German into the English language he coined the word (e)scapegoat as a translation of the Hebrew words that referred to the second goat.

So today, in the English language Bible we read that ‘…the scapegoat shall be presented live before the Lord…’ and that Aaron was to ‘…let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.’¹

The scapegoat that Arron let go took with it the sins of the people. Leviticus 16:22 tells us that this goat ‘…shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land: and (Aaron) shall release the goat in the wilderness.’

The word scapegoat has now been part of the English language for almost 400 years. We are still making use of it, and doing so increasingly. In the early 1800s the word was used approximately 0.04 times in every one million words uttered. By 2019 it was being used 0.83 times in every one million words. That is a staggering twenty-fold increase in just 200 years.

Why? we might ask.

Does the increase in the number of times we use the word scapegoat mean that we are more willing to atone for our sins? Does it indicate an increase in the number of scapegoats?

Or, through a subtle shift in the sense of the word scapegoat, does it suggest a keenness to shift the blame for our sins, and iniquities, onto someone else, and treat them as a scapegoat?

Today, the meaning has shifted subtly. A scapegoat is someone who is blamed for the sins and iniquities of another. Furthermore, in today’s world a scapegoat is not only blamed, but often punished. We see it often, don’t we; not only at an individual level, but also at a societal and even global level. Something bad happens and immediately we (individually and/or collectively) look around for a scapegoat – someone to blame.

That someone (the scapegoat) is then threatened in all sorts of ways. It could be a threat of personal violence. It could be the threat of exile. It could, as we have seen many times throughout the past century, be the threat of bombing and invasion of one country by another.

The scapegoat nowadays is no longer the means by which our sins, iniquities, and harms are let go into the wilderness. The scapegoat is the reason for those sins, iniquities, and harms.

When will we rediscover the courage to admit that we can be the authors of our own misfortune and not seek out a scapegoat to blame, accuse, and threaten?

If the world is ever to find some peacefulness and harmony then we will have to learn what Aaron was taught.

We will have to let the goats escape.

Notes

1. Holy Bible, New King James Version, copyright 1990 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.