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In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of two kid goats. As a pair, one goat was sacrificed (not a scapegoat) and the living “scapegoat” was released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities. The concept first appears in Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.
Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.— Leviticus 16:21-22, New Revised Standard Version
Practices with some similarities to the scapegoat ritual also appear in Ancient Greece and Ebla.
Etymology
Main article: Azazel
The word “scapegoat” is an English translation of the Hebrew ‘ăzāzêl (Hebrew: עזאזל), which occurs in Leviticus 16:8:
ונתן אהרן על שני השעירם גרלות גורל אחד ליהוה וגורל אחד לעזאזל
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. (JPS)
The Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew Lexicon[1] gives la-azazel (Hebrew: לעזאזל) as a reduplicative intensive of the stem ‘-Z-L “remove”, hence la-‘ăzāzêl, “for entire removal”. This reading is supported by the Greek Old Testament translation as “the sender away (of sins)”. The lexicographer Gesenius takes azazel to mean “averter”, which he theorized was the name of a deity, to be appeased with the sacrifice of the goat.[2]
Alternatively, broadly contemporary with the Septuagint, the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch may preserve Azazel as the name of a fallen angel.[3][4][5]
And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures.— Enoch 8:1[6]
Early English Christian Bible versions follow the translation of the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate, which interpret azazel as “the goat that departs” (Greek tragos apopompaios, “goat sent out”, Latin caper emissarius, “emissary goat”). William Tyndale rendered the Latin as “(e)scape goat” in his 1530 Bible. This translation was followed by subsequent versions up through the King James Version of the Bible in 1611: “And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.”[7] Several modern versions however either leave it as the proper noun Azazel, or footnote “for Azazel” as an alternative reading.
Jewish sources in the Talmud (Yoma 6:4,67b) give the etymology of azazel as a compound of az, strong or rough, and el, mighty, that the goat was sent from the most rugged or strongest of mountains.[8] From the Targums onwards the term azazel was also seen by some rabbinical commentators as the name of a Hebrew demon, angelic force, or pagan deity.[9] The two readings are still disputed today.[10]