Yom Kippur
On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. Leviticus 23:27-28 NASB
Humble your souls – Yom Kippur—the most solemn day of the Jewish year, a day of fasting and repentance, of religious ritual that has been performed for thousands of years, the day of kippūrîm. We may practice this ritual without actually understanding its history or meaning, so let’s correct that.
First, a comment about the mistake of thinking that yom kippūr is simply pre-Christian preparation for Yeshua’s sacrifice:
The root kāpar is used some 150 times. It has been much discussed. There is an equivalent Arabic root meaning “cover,” or “conceal.” On the strength of this connection it has been supposed that the Hebrew word means “to cover over sin” and thus pacify the deity, making an atonement (so BDB). It has been suggested that the [Old Testament] ritual symbolized a covering over of sin until it was dealt with in fact by the atonement of Christ. There is, however, very little evidence for this view. The connection of the Arabic word is weak and the Hebrew root is not used to mean “cover.” The Hebrew verb is never used in the simple or Qal stem, but only in the derived intensive stems. These intensive stems often indicate not emphasis, but merely that the verb is derived from a noun whose meaning is more basic to the root idea.[1]
Now a note about the use of the two basic nouns:
(kippūr). Atonement. kapporet. Mercy seat. These two nouns are derived from the verb as used in the intensive stem: The first is used today in the name of the Jewish holiday yom kippur “day of atonement” (used only in the plural in the [Old Testament]) which was the tenth day of the seventh month, Tishri. This solemn day was the only day of fasting prescribed for Israel. It was celebrated by a special sin offering for the whole nation. On that day only would the high priest enter within the inner veil bearing the blood of the sin offering (cf. Heb 9:7). A second goat was released as an escape goat to symbolize the total removal of sin.[2]
This, however, isn’t the end of the investigation. Rabbinic thought raised the issue about the human and divine involvement in this ritual. Does it depend on what men do, or does it depend on what God does? As usual, there was a division of opinion.
“On atonement and repentance, too, the division of opinion [between Akiva and Ishmael] is on the question of human self-sufficiency. To say that repentance is required, puts the burden of effort on human mortals. But to say that atonement follows automatically from the performance of prescribed rituals (even where repentance is lacking), is to affirm that the divine power steps in where human efforts fall short.
Jewish tradition ultimately adopted here a synthesis (not always elegant) of the two views. Throughout the Day of Atonement, the liturgy bemoans the burden of sin we labor under, and our inadequacy to measure up in God’s sight. But at the end of the day, in the Ne’ilah (Closing ) Prayer, the burden of sin is gone; the Jew is confident of having achieved forgiveness, by a combination of human repentance and divine mercy, and proceeds forward refreshed, optimistic about our power to do good in the world under God’s guidance.”[3]
The result is forgiveness. Perhaps that’s all that matters. But how this happens takes us through etymological history and rabbinic discussion, just in case you wanted to ask.
Topical Index: yom kippur, Leviticus 23:27-28
[1] Harris, R. L. (1999). 1023 כָפַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 452–453). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gordon Tucker, in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (ed. and trans. by Gordon Tucker, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, 2007), p. 169.
