Everlasting Kingdom: Unraveling the Bible’s Secrets

Israel’s 7 Apocalyptic Days

The Day of Atonements

Azazel

Back Next Chapter 1, Part 4 Preview: Most narratives about the Azazel goat come right out of the Apocryphal Book of Enoch: Jews, Catholics, Muslims, most Protestants, Pagans, Witches, Adventists and Sabbatarian Churches of God, such as UCG are based on the Apocryphal fable of Azazel! But very few sources reject the bogus Books of Enoch and explain the true identity of the Azazel. (A new exception is CGG!)! And just as with the name Lucifer, Satan is not the “light bringer” and he never abolishes sins! The mysterious allegory of a goat being driven into the wilderness and mediating all the sins of the world really begins in Leviticus 16 and picks up with Yeshua (Jesus) being driven into the wilderness—not Satan! And immediately after Yeshua was driven into the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13), a mob tried to take Him out to a cliff and throw Him over it (Luke 4)! That was the Jewish custom of the day—they were to throw the ‘wicked’ Azazel over a cliff, as explained in the Jewish Encyclopedia. The Jews accurately equated Yeshua with the Azazel goat on that Day of Atonements! Eventually the Jews did kill the Lamb of Aloha (God) (Exodus 12:5), and when they did, He took on Himself the sins of the world (John 1:29). Naturally, Satan planted a lie! The most solemn day of the year has no hairy goat demon removing your sins! (Satan can’t stop laughing!) A similar shell game enticed Adam and Eve out of paradise! Israel was given the Day of Atonements to prophesy something far different. This is that story:

Mysteries of the Everlasting Kingdom
INDEX

This true story of Azazel begins in a wilderness just outside of the promised land, but it doesn’t end with a lonely goat wandering in the wilderness. It doesn’t even end with Yeshua, all alone, taking upon Himself all of the sins of anyone who would truly follow Him. Yehovah will actually give Israel a do-over in the same wilderness! There will be a Second Exodus of equally unconverted Israelites gathering just outside of the promised land, but this time eager to enter! In that Exodus everyone in Israel will know exactly who washes sins away, because He will be there in person to welcome them on that special Day of Atonements (there is more than one atoning.) But very few people understand that day. (Hint: there will be fasting).

Joel 2:12-18 “Yet even now,” Yehovah says, “Turn to Me with all your being, with fasting and crying and mourning. 13 Rip your 'paradigm', not your clothes, and return to Yehovah, your Elohim, because He is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love and hesitant to send disaster. 14 Who knows He’s returning? [4] He’s granting a reprieve, and leaving a blessing behind, resulting in grain and wine offerings to Yehovah your Elohim. 15 Blow a shofar in Zion, announce the fast, summon the Festival Assembly. 16 Gather the people. Prepare a 'special' assembly. Gather the elders. Gather the children, even nursing infants. The bridegroom must leave his room and the bride her chuppah. 17 The priests who serve Yehovah cry between the portico and the altar. They’re saying, “Spare Your people,” Yehovah, and don’t allow Your heritage to be scorned by the enemy, ridiculed by foreigners. Why should the nations ask, ‘Where is their Elohim?’” 18 Then Yehovah will be zealous for His land, and have pity on His people.—The Gabriel Bible

[4] Lots of people talk about Yeshua (Jesus) returning, but who talks about Yehovah, the Ancient of Days returning? See Daniel 7:21-22. The italicized word if is added in the KJV, unnecessarily casting a doubt on His return. It set a precedent that virtually every modern revision has repeated.

This “returning”, as Paul Harvey used to say, “is the rest of the story!” It’s actually the story about the entire nation of Israel accepting Yeshua’s zebak [sacrifice] as portrayed by he Azazel. I cover that event in The Time After Jacob’s Trouble—The Untold Story of the Second Exodus!

The Bible is filled with prophecies that involve the punishment of all twelve tribes of Israel for abandoning Yehovah. In a great many of them Yehovah pleads for them to return to Him. He had been a Husband to the nation of Israel. (Actually, in the Hebrew, both Father and Son are Husbands! Isaiah 54:5.) The Day of Atonements is the day when the backsliding stops forever! Yehovah will make a New (marriage) Covenant with Israel (no it’s not with “the church”). Atonements is the exact day where the happily ever after part begins! It also marks the rebirth date of the twelve tribes of Israel, presided over by 12 “apostles” sitting on 12 thrones. (Matthew 19:28)

Yeshua elaborated to His disciples about this very event:

Matthew 19:28 Yeshua told them, “I assure you that when the Human Son sits on His magnificent throne on the Renewed Earth, those of you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, presiding over the twelve tribes of Israel.

The Short-Lived Peaceful Beginning of Yeshua’s Ministry

He was driven into the wilderness by the spirit (John 1:1) immediately after being designated as the Lamb by John the Immerser (v.29) and having been immersed.

Yeshua’s time of service probably began on the very day that he turned 30: Aviv 1, (Nisan 1) Biblical New Year’s Day, (rather than a meaningless day) when He was immersed and began fasting for forty days:

Mark 1:9-13 During this time Yeshua came from Nazareth in Galilee and was immersed in the Jordan by John. 10 Just as He was coming out of the water, He saw the skies opening and the spirit coming down on Him like a dove. 11 Then a voice came from the sky and said, “You are My dear Son who I delight in.”

12 Immediately the spirit drove Him into the wilderness [2]. 13 He was in the wilderness for forty days, having His character tested by Satan. He was with the wild animals, but spirit messengers took care of Him.

[2] This is the actual enactment of the Azazel goat—the Lamb of Aloha [God], being driven into the wilderness on the Day of Atonements.

Mark 1:22, 27-28 People were struck with amazement at His doctrine, because He taught them as someone with superior mental power, unlike their Torah teachers.... 27 Everyone was amazed and began to ask each other, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? He gives authoritative orders to unclean spirits and they obey Him!” 28 Immediately news about Him spread thruout the region of Galilee.

Yeshua Became A Target on the Day of Atonements!

Later, on the Day of Atonements, He became the recipiant of a superstition explained in the Talmud about an Azazel goat wandering into Jerusalem. Perhaps he had mentioned His stay in the wilderness. So in sarcastic hatred, His fellow Jews tried to throw Him over a cliff (Luke 4:28-30) immediately after He announced the Jubilee, as mentioned below; a practice the Jews dreamed up and executed each year with the Azazal goat on the Day of Atonements—instead of releasing it into the wilderness alive as required in Levitus 16:10! Leviticus 25:8-11 is the instruction for announcing in advance the upcoming Jubilee year.

Great events happen on Biblical Feast and Festival Days (mo’ed & chag). In the Levitical account of the Azazel goat, it was driven into the wilderness on this particular day. From the very first minute that Yeshua announced the upcoming Day of Atonements people wanted to kill Him! We know from John 1:29 that Yeshua was to be the Passover “Lamb of Aloha (God), symbolically making Him either a sheep or a goat (Exodus 12:5). His being a goat fulfills the symbolism of both the Day of Atonements and Passover.

This is where it really gets interesting. The commandment was to release the live goat into the wilderness—not kill it, but because the Azazal goat would occasionally return from the wilderness, a custom arose of throwing the Azazal goat over a cliff, as explained in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

Yeshua accepted the role of the Azazel goat and ultimately carried the sins of Israel (both physical and spiritual) into a wilderness, a physical illustration of the spiritual sins of the world being removed!

So Who or What is Azazel?

The Hebrew term ‘azazel’ is only found in Leviticus 16—nowhere else in the Bible. It is often translated something like “the goat that goes away” (“scapegoat” in the KJV). Other translations use Azazel as a name, but since the phrase “for Azazel” occurs in conjunction with “for Yehovah,” the wording implies that two pure and blamelessly equal heavenly beings are being contrasted by the two goats. Jewish, Christian and pagan sources all suggest that Azazel is a demonic figure from the wilderness who removes sins. Ancient texts from paganism mention a being with a name spelled “Azazel,” “Azael” and “Asael.” He is said to be either a fallen angel or even a serpent. In religion, whenever there appears to be unanimity, I suspect a cover up! Naturally, if Azazal was pure (as described), Satan would love to villify Azazal’s purpose (even having the Jews shread the goat every year!) The Mishnah (ca. 200 AD; Yoma 6:6) explains how the goat for Azazel was driven to a cliff and thrown over it to kill him so that it would never return with the sins. But when Yeshua revealed His agenda, something only the Messiah could fulfill, that same hour the Jews in the synagogue tried to throw Him over a cliff! (Luke 4:29).

It is the second goat, or the “live goat”, that people do not recognize and almost universally cast as Satan. What a terrible misrepresentation! Religion is so misleading. Messiah’s death on the cross “that is for the people” (v.15), for the sins of all of us ultimately. Had Yeshua failed and remained dead we would have no eternity! Notice that before the Azazel goat was sent “away into the wilderness” bearing “all the sins of the children of Israel”, it had to have all the sins of Israel symbolically put on its head by Aaron, the high priest, and in later years, his descendants carried out this annual depiction. That is how the story was enacted on the Day of Atonements for centuries, with no one understanding for centuries.

[Note that BOTH defect free (sinless) goats were part of the sin offering! Every offering has to be perfect to be accepted:

Leviticus 16:5 He must take two male goats as a sin offering from the congregation of Israel and a ram for a burnt offering.]

Leviticus 16:9 Aaron will present the goat that the lot fell on to Yehovah, and offer him for a sin offering.

The Azazal represented the living zebak [sacrifice]!. Eventually Yeshua, typified by the Azazel who escaped death was killed in likely 32 AD.

Leviticus 16:20-22 “When he’s finished atoning for the 'cherished' place and the Tabernacle of Meeting, and the altar, he’ll offer the live goat. 21 Aaron will lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over him all the sins of the descendant’s of Israel and all their rebellious behavior—everything they did wrong; and he’ll put them on the head of the goat and lead him away into the wilderness, handled by a man who is designated. 22 The goat will carry all their sins on himself to a remote place, and the ‘man’ will release the goat in the wilderness.

1 Peter 3:18 The Messiah died for sins once for all, a righteous man for sinners, so that He could bring you to Yehovah. His body died, but His spirit was empowered with life. 19 He heralded to the spirits who were imprisoned in sheol, 20 those who disobeyed long ago in the days of Noah...

So while His body (represented by goat #1) was to lay dead in the grave, His spirit (goat #2) was in a spiritual wilderness for a short stint!

[Symbolism must be taken in context. Yeshua is described as the Lion of Judah in Revelation 5:5, but Satan is like a lion in 1 Peter 5:8. And a lamb can be a symbol of purity and innocence or typify someone quite stupid and prone to wandering off. (Two separate parables).]

When it was time for this symbolism to actually be fulfilled, a Levitical descendant of Aaron was required to lay hands on the ultimate “Lamb of Aloha”. John the Immerser was used as a priest to fulfill the prophetic meaning of this symbolism. Both of John’s parents were descendants of Aaron:

Luke 1:5 In the time of Herod the king of Judea there was a priest named Zacharias, of the priestly order of the house of Abijah, and his wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

The Pharisees, claiming to be priests at the time were not even Levites. They took the role from the Sadducees, among whom were true Levites, as was John, tho he is not known to have belonged to a sect. So John was the high priest of Yehovah’s actual choosing.

The Devil In The Details!

I began wondering about the “fit man” in all of this. What exactly is “fit” about him. My out-of-the-blue thought was that it seemed like a job for Satan! So I started checking various commentaries to see if anyone else had ever considered that, and one of them had—Gill’s! While most sources put the fit man in a good light, Gill’s considers someone quite the opposite. The term is unique to this one verse so many renderings have been proposed: “fit for the purpose”, “a man of time or opportunity”, “ready”, “appointed” or “prepared to go” and “waiting”. All of these could apply to the being who began testing Yeshua for forty days, as I mentioned, the minute He turned 30, the “fit man” Satan was “appointed”, “ready”, “prepared to go” and “waiting” for the “opportunity”. Then several months later other “fit men” began leaping from nowhere to squash Yeshua the moment He revealed His ultimate objective in a synagogue, intending to throw Him over a cliff to become buzzard food. After all, Satan had been “there for Him” as a baby when so many babies were killed in an effort too kill him, and Satan was there at the end to make sure that his minions finished Him off as He bore all of our sins—just as the Azazel analogy spells out!

“Aben Ezra finds fault with those who render [the fit man] a wise man, but observes, that some of their Rabbins say it was a priest that led the goat to the wilderness, which he approves of; according to the Misnah, all were fit for this service (formerly common and unclean), but what the high priest did (afterwards) was fixed, and they did not suffer an Israelite to lead him (i.e. a common Israelite, one that was not a priest); according to the Talmud, even a stranger, and an unclean person, was fit for this service... but seeing by Azazel, to whom this goat was let go, Satan seems to be meant...rather, as Witsius observes, the hand of the fit man may denote the power that rose up against Christ, namely, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and particularly Pilate—Gill’s.

The goat that was released into the wilderness represents the One who lived, died and lived again in the spirit realm after removing our sins.

The people in the synagogue viewed Yeshua as an Azazel goat on that Day of Atonements, returning to the city in accord with a long standing fear, as we are about to see!

...“A man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness; and he was accompanied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down (Yoma vi. 1-8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual.

“The scarlet thread was a symbolical reference to Isa. 1. 18; and the Talmud tells us (ib. 39a) that during the forty years that Simon the Just was high priest, the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice: a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: a proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, that was gradually on the increase, until forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple, when the change of color was no longer observed (l.c. 39b).

So the Jews developed a custom of shreading the Azazel goat to a bloody mess and then throwing him over a cliff. Does this sound familiar? As soon as Yeshua proclaimed the Jubilee, or “the acceptible year of Yehovah”, what happened:

Luke 4: 28-30 Everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage when they heard this. 29 They got up and rushed Him out of town, then brought Him to the top of the hill that the city was built on, intending to throw Him over a cliff. 30 But He walked right thru ‘the mob’ and went His way.

There are a lot of ways to murder someone, but how often do people rush someone out of town to throw them over a cliff to do it?

So Yeshua was sent into the wilderness for 40 days that spring, and by fall on the Day of Atonements He was thought to be Azazel. Ironically, they were right! But why 40 days? I believe the same Talmud quotation cited above about the 40 years explains that. Once they actually managed to beat Him to a bloody pulp, an ominous sign occurred in the Temple for the next 40 years.

...So would the crowd, called Babylonians or Alexandrians, pull the goat's hair [it’s beard being most readily available] to make it hasten forth, carrying the burden of sins [of the people] away with it (Yoma vi. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas," vii.), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Hadudo, twelve miles away from the city, was signalized by the waving of shawls to the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the event with boisterous hilarity and amid dancing on the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. 8). —Jewish Encyclopedia

Isaiah 50:6 I offered My back to those who scourged Me, and My cheeks to those who pulled out My beard. I didn’t hide My face from insults and spitting.

John 11:49-51 But one of them, named Caiaphas, the high priest that year, told them, “You don’t know anything. 50 You don’t realize that it’s better for us, for one Man to die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” 51 However He didn’t say this on his own initiative, but as high priest that year, he prophesied that Yeshua was about to die for the people,

After this, the “live goat” was not to publicly return to the scene for another two thousand years!

There is a second huge but almost entirely unnoticed reference to the Day of Atonements in Luke 4. In addition to the implications concerning the Azazel goat we just saw in Luke 4, there is a very plain reference to the Day of Atonements in 4:16-21. You see, it was on a Day of Atonements that an upcoming Jubilee year was announced. (No, the Jubilee year doesn’t start in the 7th month.) A synonym for Jubilee is ‘the Acceptable Year of Yehovah’ (the Lord). On the Day of Atonements in 28 AD Yeshua revealed His ultimate objective, just before they drove Him out of a synagogue intending to kill Him. (As of 2023 I now believe that the Jubilee anouncement part of His mission was fulfilled in His death in 31 AD, the year He said “It is finished”. During the Babylonian captivity the Israelites adopted the seventh month as the beginning of their years, tho the Jubilee year was always meant to be begun on the first month of the year, Aviv 1.

Leviticus 25:8-12 ‘You must count off seven Sabbaths of years—seven times seven years, so that the seven Sabbaths of years amounts to a period of forty-nine years. 9 THEN you must sound shofars loudly [2] on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the Day of Atonements you must sound shofars loudly thruout your entire land. 10 You must dedicate the fiftieth year, and proclaim [or read] liberty thruout the land to everyone who lives there. It will be your Jubilee. Each of you can return to your own property, and each of you can return to your own clan. 11 The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee year. During ‘that year’ you must not plant or preserve the ‘after crop’* from what grows by itself or make wine* from any leftover* grapes. 12 It’s a Jubilee, it will be a 'special' time for you. You can eat the fresh voluntary produce from your fields.

Yeshua stated His ultimate objective right after His immersion and after Satan tested Him. In Luke 4 we begin to read His first recorded words. Commentaries acknowledge that Yeshua was referencing the JUBILEE, but then they apparently spiritualize the words away! Luke gave us the circumstances leading up to Yeshua’s statement:

Luke 4:16-19 16 He went to Nazareth where He had been raised, and He went into the synagogue as usual on the Sabbath and stood up to read. 17 He was handed the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Yeshua unrolled the scroll and found the place where it says: 18 “The Sovereign YEHOVAH’s spirit overlooks Me, because Yehovah has anointed Me to bring Good News to the afflicted. He has sent Me to relieve the grief stricken, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight for the blind and to set the oppressed free; 19 to proclaim the Acceptable Year [1] of Yehovah... [Jubilee] [Directly from Isaiah 61:1-2]

The “Acceptable Year of Yehovah” is how Jubilee is expressed in Aramaic, Yeshua’s native language. Announcing the Jubilee was an unbelievable part of His mission statement!

10/23/22 addition: When His ministry was finished, so was the 4th millennium: He had become the light of the world—fulfilling the spiritual aspect of the 4th day of creation week by “separating the light from the darkness!”“ (Genesis 1:17-19)

Until the spring of 2022, I had believed that Yeshua had somehow fulfilled the announcement of the Jubilee on day #1 of His ministry, described in Luke 4, but Luke 4 simply states His ultimate objective. I had been calling it His “mission statement”.

I also found another “Mission Statement article” that does a really good job of explaining that at age 30 He had accomplished none of those goals. So in...

Luke 4:17-20 He was handed the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Yeshua unrolled the scroll and found the place where it says: “'Yehovah’s spirit' is on Me, because He has