ESSAY
Two Shall Become One Flesh, (Part 2): The Day of Recoverings

The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,”[i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different kippurim: for the holy place, the tent of meeting, the altar, the priest, and the people.

The focal action of the kipper happens by placing blood onto the mercy-seat, the holy place, and the altar. The actual blood sprinkling/smearing takes place four times in the following order:

  1. Blood of the bull on the mercy seat for the priest (16:14)
  2. Blood of the goat on the mercy seat for the people (16:15)
  3. Blood of the bull and goat on the inside altar for the priest and the people (16:18)
  4. Blood of the ram on the outside altar for the priest and the people (16:24)

As Milgrom argues, the tabernacle is a magnet for sin and uncleanness of all the people of Israel, thus to wipe/cover the furniture of the tabernacle is to wipe/cover/make atonement for the people.

However, there is an additional atonement made with the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:10. The Hebrew text is slightly ambiguous, the ESV reads, “The goat… shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement over it.” The phrase “to make atonement over it” is often used in Leviticus and “over it” is usually translated “for him” in reference to the sin offering (cf. Leviticus 5:10,13,16,18). Thus, a more contextual reading of 16;10 would be, “to make atonement for him,” in this case referring to the priest. This makes sense given that in 10:17 the priest is supposed to eat the sin offering and thus “bear the iniquity” of the people, and after the priest lays his hands and confesses the iniquity of the people over the goat,[ii] the goat now “bears the iniquities” of the people (16:22). So, this is another form of kipper – closest to the ransoming idea of the word.[iii]

What is the purpose of all of the atonements? Leviticus 16:30 (the center of a chiasm in verses 29-31)[iv] explicitly states the purpose of the day, “For on this day he will make a wiping/covering/ransom over you all to cleanse you all; from all your sins before the Lord you will be cleansed.”[v] In general, the kipper is thus to cleanse the people of Israel from sin, thus allowing God, who is holy, to still dwell in the midst of his people. Leviticus 16:16 says that the tabernacle dwells in the midst of Israel’s “uncleanesses,” thus implying that heaven, God’s dwelling, is being joined to earth, where Israel dwells (although, even with the atonement being made, they are still unclean). More specifically, Milgrom points out that sprinkling the blood on the mercy seat wipes off the “uncleanness” of the people (Leviticus 16:16), along with their “transgressions” and “sins.” While the scapegoat ritual wipes off the “iniquities” of the people (Leviticus 16:21) along with their “transgressions” and “sins.”[vi]

Klawans points out that these atonements do not include certain grave sins, such as sexual immorality, idolatry, and murder, which cause moral impurity and pollute the land.[vii] As it says in Numbers 35:33, “no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Thus, the atonements that happen on this day remove various kinds of sins and uncleanness from priest and people, but they do not appear to affect the land.[viii]

However, this seems to only go so far. Every seventh (possibly eighth) Day of Atonement begins the year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:10). A key part of this celebration is both giving the land rest and returning the land to its original owners, reminding them that the Lord says, “The land is mine” (Leviticus 25:23). In fact, Israel’s failure to give the land rest ultimately results in their exile of 70 years, which is related to the failure to celebrate the Jubilee.[ix] Thus, while the Day of Atonement clearly does not atone for certain grave sins which defile the land, the Day of Atonement begins a process of healing for the land – once again, attempting to bring about the pattern of heaven onto the earth.[x]

How does the ritual action of the Day of Atonement reflect the meanings of kipper? The very first action of the Day of Atonement ritual is the priest washing in water (Leviticus 16:4). This is a cleaning rite and connects with the “wiping off” meaning of kipper. This bathing in water occurs when a very mild form of uncleanness needs to be cleansed, so a leper, after he is healed, washes with water (14:8-9), and anyone who merely touches something stained by a bodily discharge (15:27). Of course, this is only the beginning – the stain of uncleanness, iniquity, sin, and transgressions is deeper, and so needs a more effective detergent. Thus blood is given as the primary means of kipper (Leviticus 17:11).

Next, the priest must cloth himself with a linen tunic (Leviticus 16:4). This is the same garment God clothed Adam and Eve with in Genesis 3:21, except theirs was made out of skin, and the high priest’s garment is made out of linen.[xi] He has to wear these clothes because he is going to go back into the garden, he must pass “inside the veil” (16:2), which had cherubim sewed into it (Exodus 36:35), again signifying an entrance back into the garden – back into the presence of God. But if he goes, he has to make sure his nakedness is not uncovered (Exodus 20:26), because of the sin of Adam, now he can only go into the garden covered up.

Thus, next the priest enters the Holy Places and moves “inside the veil.” To be close to God requires that he both cover himself up, but at the same time uncover the dwelling place of God. This is dangerous business. Leviticus 18 sets forth a multitude of ways to improperly uncover. But it is the business of the priest to discover the fine distinctions between holy and common, clean and unclean (Leviticus 10:10).

And so at the same time he must put up another covering – smoking incense, which is supposed to “cover” (from the root kasah) the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:13). [xii] This covering is put in place so that the priest does not die (13). This again evokes the immediate context of the passage in verses 1-2, reminding us of the deaths of Nadab and Abihu – drawing near to God requires covering. God speaks from the mercy seat (Exodus 25:22), and hence, if the high priest goes in uncovered, he will die precisely because God must be kept holy, but the priest is still unclean[xiii] and in order to be clean he must be completely covered.[xiv]

Thus, we come to the focal point of the ritual, the kippurim, which offer an even more complete covering/cleansing/ransoming. The priest takes the blood and sprinkles it on the furniture (16:16,18) and in some cases furniture is the direct object of kipper (16:20). The priest does this “seven times” on the mercy seat and the altar signifying a complete covering (16:14,19). [xv]  Further, the first sprinkling occurs on the mercy seat (14), which itself is a covering over the law (13). This action of kipper includes all three concepts of cleansing, covering, and ransoming.

First, kipper, as we have already seen, results in cleansing. Thus, by placing the blood on the mercy seat, and the altar, this cleans up the sins of the people. The same action of sprinkling blood on the altar occurs in Leviticus 8:15 and results in a “purifying” or “cleansing” of the altar.

Second, kipper also means “to cover” in this context. Milgrom disagrees, “the connotation of ‘rubbing on’, smearing’ for kipper cannot be definitely ascertained from the cultic texts.” However, Milgrom himself notes that “the blood of the sacrifices is literally daubed or aspersed on the sancta, thereby ‘rubbing off’ their impurities.”[xvi] Already, the “covering” aspect of blood seems hard to miss – blood is sprinkled “on the face of” the mercy seat (16:14). The fact that this removes sin is clear, but it should be equally clear that this is also a covering. The concept is clearer if we compare the phraseology of Genesis 6:14, 32:22 and Leviticus 17:11. Leviticus 17:11 is a key passage for determining the meaning of kipper. Here it says that “life is in the blood,” and concludes “he shall make a wiping/covering/ransoming with the life.” The phrase “with the life” parallels how Noah covers the ark “with pitch” and also how Jacob covers Esau’s face “with gifts.” Thus, kipper means to cover, often times, “with” life, that is, with blood in the context of the levitical rituals, and especially here on the Day of Atonement. Through this covering of blood, the priest is covered in life, and thus, he will not die (or rather, he will die, but through the death of the animals).

Further, kipper also means “to ransom.” Sklar makes this argument largely from Leviticus 17. He notes that 17:10-12 is chiastic as follows:

A Prohibition against eating blood

B Reason for prohibition

A’ Prohibition against eating blood[xvii]

His translation of verse 11 is, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have bestowed it to you upon the altar to ransom your lives, for it is the blood that ransoms by means of the life.”[xviii] Thus, he argues that be is the beth instrumenti, concluding that the blood then serves as a ransom for the life of the offerer. He concludes that kipper means both “to make a ransom” and “to purge,” in the levitical context. So on the Day of Atonement then, the sacrifice of bull and the goat not only purges the priest and people from sin, but also ransoms their lives. This again fits the threat of death which God gives at the beginning of the text in Leviticus 16:2. In other places, we see that the people must die because they have seen God (cf. Deuteronomy 18:16 and Judges 6:22-23), but the animals die, and their blood/life is given to God instead.

After the priest has sprinkled the blood, he lays his hands on the scapegoat, confesses the sins of the people, and sends it away (Leviticus 16:21). Even though there is no blood here, the ransoming concept is also in this ritual. Already the sins of the people have been transferred to the priest (Leviticus 10:17), and now he transfers the iniquity to the goat. The goat is presented “before the face of” Yahweh, specifically “to make a ransom” (16:10). Just as Adam and Eve are threatened with death upon disobedience, so all the iniquity of the people of Israel demands death from God. The death for the scapegoat is similar to that which happens to Adam and Eve, they are cast out of the garden, like the goat is cast out of the camp, to die eventually, separated and exiled from God.[xix]

The Day of Atonement concludes with the burnt (or “ascension”) offering of the ram. This is also “to make atonement.” Why does atonement still need to be made? Isn’t all the wiping/covering/ransoming enough? Since the burnt offering is the last atonement of the day, it presumably could not have been made beforehand. The focus of the burnt offering is that it is smoke ascending to God and creating a “pleasing aroma” (1:9, 13, 17). This hearkens back to the first pleasing aroma in Genesis 8:21, when Noah sacrifices after the flood, and reminds us that here God begins to reverse the curse, “I will no more curse the ground.”[xx] The word for “pleasing aroma” is related to the word “Noah” implying a kind of “rest.”

To understand the full import of the burnt offering at the end of the Day of Atonement, we need to remember the eschatological vision of the cosmos. Smoke ascending to God is a sign of heaven and earth coming together. Not only is “earth” rising towards heaven, but it is also becoming like heaven, just as God often appears in a cloud (16:2). Thus, the ascension offering implies that humanity (here the priest and the people of Israel specifically) is taken up into the cloud of God. The burnt offering was performed morning and evening (cf. Leviticus 6:9 and 1 Chronicles 16:40), thus implying that God is now living with man constantly. Just as on the first day of creation, evening and morning became one day, so now, heaven and earth are being united.

So how does wiping, covering, and ransoming work together? The key again is Leviticus 17:11 – the life is in the blood. This will make sense if we draw an analogy between blood and water. If the priest is ritually unclean, he is dirty, so he must wash with water. In other words, he must be covered with water, this covering now causes cleansing. Being washed with blood, has an added element of ransoming or purchasing, and deepens the meaning of covering and cleansing. If the priest is unclean (because of iniquity), he is cursed with death, he must be covered and so cleansed, but he also must die, or, someone else must give his life to buy back the life of the priest. So then, the priest must be covered with life to be cleansed, in a word, the priest and the people must be recovered, and thereby enabled to enter into the presence of God. We might then, tentatively, call yom hakippurim, “The Day of Recoverings.”[xxi]


Ryan Handermann is the pastoral intern at Trinity Reformed Church, Moscow, Idaho.


[i] Or “The Day of Coverings” or “The Day of Ransoms,” or “The Day of Purgings.”

[ii] The two handed laying on of hands happens most clearly here and when Moses lays his hands on Joshua (Deuteronomy 34:9), hence its primary signification is some kind of transference. Wright attempts to argue that dual hand placement is simply making someone the “focus of ritual action.” However, this is based on the ambiguous example when the people lay their hands (plural because of the people or the hands?) on the blasphemer in Leviticus 24:14, where the dual hand placement is unclear, and single hand placement could easily be assumed since after they lay their hand on him, they kill him, which is very similar to the single hand placement of the sacrificial offerings. David Wright, “The Gesture of Hand Placement in the Hebrew Bible and in Hittite Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106:3 (1986) 433-446.

[iii] The odd fact though is that there is no mention of blood for this atonement. Perhaps the goat is intended to die, as some have suggested, and so its blood would eventually be shed. Or perhaps, as with the grain offering, atonement does not always need to have blood to accomplish the wiping/covering.

[iv] Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 1057.

[v] My literal translation.

[vi] Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 1033.

[vii] Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 30-31.

[viii] This may be what Hebrews 9:11 gets at when it says this blood is only for “sins of the people committed in ignorance.”

[ix] We can gather this taking Leviticus 26:34-35 together with 2 Chronicles 36:21. Leviticus states that the land will have rest when Israel is away for all the times that Israel did not give it rest, and then Chronicles says that the land had rest for 70 years, while Israel was in exile

[x] Below I will comment more on the inherently “incomplete” nature of the Day of Atonement.

[xi] Although, in both cases an animal is still killed and sacrifice is still made.

[xii] The text makes specific mention of the ark of the testimony under the mercy-seat, thus indicating another “covering.”

[xiii] The priest has just washed, added new garments, and sacrificed a bull for himself, so we should assume that he is clean. While he may be unclean for other reasons, at the very least he is still unclean because he has not put blood on the mercy seat, which properly is the focal point of the ritual and the most important area of cleansing. This, again, simply indicates that man must pass through layers and layers to return to God.

[xiv] This may shed light on the fact that if a man is completely covered in leprosy he is declared clean (Leviticus 13:13).

[xv] The importance of being completely covered relates back to Leviticus 13:13. A leper is unclean if he is only partly covered with leprosy. However, if he is fully covered, then he is clean. It is also possible that being fully covered with leprosy is symbolically like the priest being covered in the tunic. This may also explain why leaves are an insufficient covering for Adam and Eve. Sewing leaves together, just as leaves on a tree, still let some light through. Covering with the skin of an animal, completely covers the skin.

[xvi] Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 1081.

[xvii] Sklar, Sin, Impurity, 161.

[xviii] Sklar, Sin, Impurity, 170.

[xix] The fact that punishment is delayed does not negate the fact that it will happen. As we have seen, God does not immediately punish with death, but the fact of the Day of Atonement demonstrates, once again, that eventually death will happen.

[xx] This may give some support to the fact that the Jubilee is the beginning of atonement for the land, again relating to the fact that it has rest. The land must rest – this is the start of its atonement.

[xxi] Recover in English has several connotations which seem to fit well. Its basic meaning is to find something that is lost. But it can also mean to heal or cleanse, as we say, “He recovered so well from his sickness.” And it also can imply that something is covered or re-covered.

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