that explanation. It is plainly intimated in the fifth verse of that wonderful chapter that both kids formed ONE SIN OFFERING. The very lots cast only corroborates the idea. The tenth verse, moreover, intimates that the kid to be despatched "into the wilderness," notwithstanding his lot, was to be presented unto the Lord to make an ATONEMENT. There certainly is an apparent difficulty about the term NY AZAZEL, as the printed Hebrew version has the word, which is rendered SCAPEGOAT in the English version. The original word, however, occurs in some MSS. as follows:- AZEL, NY AZZAEL, NINI AZAAZEL; every one of which may be rendered, and we believe ought to have been rendered, the STRONG GOD. The adjective Azaz, or Ezzuz, according to Masorah pointing, has thus been rendered in Psalm xxiv. 8, to which verse we direct particular attention. We consider, therefore, that the translation SCAPEGOAT was a premature one, and that the kid on which the lot fell for AZAZEL, that is, for the SECOND PERSON in the TRIune Deity, was to symbolise the completion of the sin-offering, by its despatch to to the LAND OF EXCISION, which represented burial. The verb GAZOR signifies death, or excision from the land of the living. It is so used in Isaiah liii. 8, in the sentence, "For He was cut off out of the land of the living." We suggest, therefore, that the dual Day of Atonement offering-the two kids, living and dead-personified the crucified and buried Saviour. Our suggestion gathers force when we read of Joseph of Arimathea, the y N, the principal man of the time when the Redeemer of the world was crucified, having had the sacred body consigned to him for burial. We venture further to suggest that this explanation of the typical character of the kid whose lot was for Azazel throws more light upon that professedly most difficult passage:-" For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

Modern Biblical expositors have contrived to quote, second-hand, one after another, various Rabbinical opinions on the word Ny AZAZEL, as we have it. As an illustration of what we mean, let our readers compare Mr. Clark's note of it, in the "Speaker's Bible," with that of Dr. Fairbairns in his work, "Typology of Scripture," as well as the different Bible Dictionaries published of late years. None, however, have

* 1 Pet. iii. 18-21.

quoted the pithy and somewhat oracular observation on it by the shrewd and cautious Ibn Ezra. The reason is obvious. Ibn Ezra's Jewish successors in Mosaic hermeneutics did not like either to quote or to translate his extraordinary observation, and hence are modern Biblical expositors in utter and blissful ignorance of Ibn Ezra's opinion. Yet that opinion should be quoted, notwithstanding that it was vouchsafed in sphinx fashion. Here is what he wrote, after having given the opinions of others on the above problematic word, on it :-" But if thou canst understand the mystery which follows the word AZAZEL, thou wilt know its secret meaning, as well as that of the name, for it has fellows in Scripture. And I shall unveil unto thee part of the mystery by a hint. When thou art thirty-three years of age thou shalt know it."* Now the word which follows the last mention of AZAZEL is, in verse 11, "into the wilderness." Could Ibn Ezra have hinted at the mystery of Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil! It seems like it! Does Ibn Ezra refer to 7", "the LORD Strong" (Ps. xxiv. 8), and to many other places where y Az, strong, serves as an adjective either for LORD or GOD, when he writes, "it has fellows in Scripture ?" Possibly. It seems almost certain that Ibn Ezra refers to the Redeemer's age at His crucifixion and burial, when he indites the enigmatic words, "when thou art THIRTY-THREE YEARS OF AGE thou shalt know it."

One more thought touching the solemn Mosaic Ritual of the day of atonement, suggested by the month and the day of the month. It was to take place on the SEVENTH month. The Jews, according to their computation of time, have two new years, one ecclesiastical and the other civil. Counting from the month ABIB, or NISAN-the ecclesiastical new year-TISHRI, is the SEVENTH month; the month in which the modern Jews continue to solemnise the prescribed " Day of Atonement;" divested of every shred and trace of the prescribed Ritual. Counting from the month Tishri, the Jewish civil new year,-the first day of which all the Jewish Rabbis determined to call 7 UN, THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, which was celebrated as such in all the synagogues of the world, on the 22nd and 23rd day of last monthf-Nisan is the SEVENTH month. Little did the Jewish Rabbis imagine that their decision only tended to illustrate the decree of the Almighty respecting sacrifices, and their divine import. The Paschal lamb, the sprinkling of whose blood distinguished the households of the redeemed of Egypt, is thus plainly set forth in the

* ואם יכולת להבין הכוד שאחר מלת עזאזל תדע סודו וסוד שמו: כי יש לו חברים במקרא: ואני אגלה לך קצת הסוד ברמז: בהיותך בן שלשים ושלש תדענו:

The reader, who may be interested in the subject, will find a paper on the Jewish New Year, from the same pen which writes this, in the last volume of the Scattered Nation, pp. 3-8.

Mosaic PASSOVER RITUAL :-" Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it, according to the number of the souls, every man according to his eating, shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: and ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper door-post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. . . . For I will pass though the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt"* Mark well the lamb, whether "from the sheep or from the goats," was to be taken on the TENTH day of the month. The date should not be overlooked it tells us plainly of the identity of type in the great Biblical sacrificial Ritual for the Day of Atonement and Feast of Passover; that both pointed to ONE GREAT SACRIFICE, and that ONE GREAT SACRIFICE was the LORD JESUS CHRIST, who was announced by His harbinger, John Baptist, in the words, "Behold the Lamb of God, which BEARETH away the sin of the world." It was on the TENTH day of that SEVENTH month that not only Mary anointed the Redeemer for the day of His burying," "but the chief priests consulted," with a view to put Him to death; He was, moreover, kept till the fourteenth day of that month ere He was "brought as that Lamb to the slaughter." How wonderfully were fulfilled in Him all the types set forth in the Mosaic Ritual! This He declared on the cross, when He said, "It is finished."

66

"'Tis finished! Aaron, now no more
Must stain his robe with purple gore;
The sacred veil is rent in twain,

And Jewish rites no more remain.

"'Tis finished!-Let the joyful sound

Be heard through all the nations round;

'Tis finished!-let the echo fly

Through heaven and hell, through earth and sky."

To us, who now believe and feel that we are "in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," our former unbelief, as well as the present unbelief of the generality of our brethren, would have been utterly unaccountable, were it not for such declarations as the following:-" And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. . . . For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath He covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”* Why! if we had not a single scrap of the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles left unto us, ordinary reasoning would have compelled us to arrive at the conclusion that the types and figures contained in the Mosaic Ritual for the Day of Atonement must long since have been substantiated, since that Ritual has long, long, long ago ceased to exist. But the above denunciation accounts for the extraordinary hallucination on the part of our unbelieving brethren that they still serve God according to the Mosaic Ritual, when nought but an alien, a parasite ritual, is all they have to misdirect their worship! How tremendous the effect of such a ritual, has been recently illustrated.†

The Rabbis gravely teach, and their disciples implicitly believe, that

* Isaiah vi. 9, 10; xxix. 10-14.

† See THE BANE OF A PARASITE RITUAL. A Sermon. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer.

Adam did penance and was pardoned on this day. Abraham circumcised himself on this day. Moses came down from Mount Sinai, the second time, on this day, when the Lord pardoned His people the sin of the golden calf, and made known to them his thirteen attributes.*

To give our readers a faint idea of the post-Biblical ritual of the "Day of Atonement," we only mention at present that it is the theme of a whole treatise-YOMA-in the TALMUD,-upwards of twenty chapters in the authorised Synagogue Ritual Code, entitled SHULCHAN AAROOCH MITOOR ORACH CHAYIM,t besides almost numberless minor opuscula bearing on the ritual. The prescribed prayers for private and public use are so numerous as to require the whole twenty-four hours of the appointed fast day to go through them. The fast is the only vestige of the Mosaic Ritual for that solemn day. Amongst the prescribed private prayersas given in the manual entitled LIKKOOTAY Z'BHEE§-are some which, if we rendered them into English, would subject us to an action for publishing indecent and obscene literature. Some specimens of the prescribed public prayers and observances we have given on former occasions.

At present we give two or three examples from the appointed prayers, taken at random from the liturgical service of the day, that our readers may judge for themselves how much post-Biblical Judaism has in common with Mosaic Judaism. The specimens we give are taken from the second volume of the Day of Atonement Prayers, as published by H. Abrahams, of St. Mary Axe. We give the late David Levi's translation, as it is the most approved of by the heads of the English synagogues. The first is taken from the sixty-fourth and fifth pages of that volume, and runs as follows:

“Our God, and the God of our ancestors.

"Verily, we are sinners, and trespassers; wherewith shall our abundant iniquities be expiated? From the time that the honour of the glorious house departed from us, we have not the means of pardon and expiation. While the holy temple was established on its basis, he that sinned brought an offering, and his iniquity was forgiven. And if it was not in his power to bring much, he brought little; for there is no restraint to the Lord, to save by many, or by few. Thou didst prepare eight beautiful garments for the high priest, who made expiation therewith, to expiate the sins of thy people. The pure coat, formed of flax and wool, woven together, was to do away entirely the sin of sowing a mixture of different seed, The linen breeches, which reached

* Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7.

† Compiled by Rabbi Joseph Karo, from all the post-Biblical Jewish writers. Those of the straitest sect never leave the synagogue the whole of that time. § The compilations of Z'bhee.

See our last year's vol., p. 163, and the August number for this year, pp. 347-8. The author has nearly ready a work, for the press, to be entitled, THE WHOLE PLAN AND DEVELOPMENT OF POST-BIBLICAL JUDAISM, in which all the Jewish festivals are comprehensively treated.