Azazel

Azazel

Abraham Ibn Ezra ‘code’,
… if you were capable of grasping the secret that follows the word (hasod she'hu achar milas) Azazel, then you would know its secret and the secret of its name, for it has parallels (chaverim) in the text. I shall reveal a bit of the secret only by way of a hint. When you reach age thirty-three you will know it.

Ibn Ezra, it is never given a thought, was a Jew, who lived in Roman Catholic Spain for most (parts) of his life (when he was not travelling). His readership was Christians mostly, and not only Christian Bible scholars read his great number of writings, because he wrote on a large variety of subjects. Ibn Ezra is best known for his philosophical writings and mystical mathematics and astrology … or so I read …

I don’t know a thing about or have ever read one page of what Ibn Ezra wrote. But immediately when I read this TRANSLATED extract from his commentary on Leviticus 16 that became know as the Ibn Ezra ‘code’, I could sense the glaring obvious implication this ‘riddle’, “secret”, or “hint” hides. Ibn Ezra secretly, because he was a Jew and not a Christian, who lived in a ‘Christian’ world, must have thought the goat for Azazel was the goat “for the Healer – ‘Aza’ – ‘Mighty to Redeem God” – ‘El’, the “Man Fit” to be the High Priest of Yahweh, HIMSELF.

No one ever seems to care about the historical positioning of the Law concerning the Great Day of Judgment and Atonement in Leviticus 16.
“The LORD Yahweh spake unto Moses AFTER THE DEATH OF THE TWO SONS OF AARON WHEN THEY OFFERED before the LORD and DIED.”
Aaron’s two sons were not ‘fit’ to do the HIGH priest’s work!
“Therefore the LORD said unto Moses, Speak to Aaron thy brother that he COME NOT AT ALL TIMES into the sanctuary / holy place, within the veil [of the “sanctuary / holy place / court of the people” [or] before the mercy seat which is upon the ark (of the testimony or law contained in it) THAT HE DIE NOT: FOR I-AM YAHWEH THE LORD WILL APPEAR in the cloud upon the mercy seat.”
You, Moses and Aaron, take to heart the lesson you have learned with the example of Aaron’s two son who were UNFIT MEN to appear in the PRESENCE of the LORD!
“No man taketh this honour [to be “high priest”, verse 1] unto himself, but HE that, as Aaron was, IS CALLED OF GOD AS SO INDEED WAS CHRIST who GLORIFIED not himself to be made High Priest, BUT HE THAT SAID UNTO HIM, THOU ART MY SON! Today have I, begotten Thee! JUST AS God says in another Scripture, THOU ART PRIEST FOREVER AFTER THE ORDER OF Melchisedec”— who was “HIGH priest of Almighty God”! Hebrews 5:4,5,10.
The “Man”, “fit” to lead the goat for Azazel into the wilderness had first of all be The Called of Yahweh— which Jesus Christ was; and He had to – on par – be High Priest— which Jesus Christ also, was.

Answered Christ Pilate the ruler of men, saying, “I have power to crucify thee, AND _I_ have power to RELEASE thee?— _THOU_ [o unfit man] couldest have NO power AT ALL AGAINST ME, EXCEPT IT WERE _GIVEN_ thee from above.” Only “the High Priest of Almighty God” by the “power GIVEN” Him could “release” the He-Goat, “Lamb” and “Called of God” of our confession. “Himself the Priest; Himself the Victim” [said guess who?]; Himself the He Goat, Himself the Fit Man … by His, and own, confession!

God, determined that the lot to be killed should not fall on the goat for Azazel. Thus God determined by two goats BOTH that Christ should be killed by a Fit Man “the High Priest of our confession” Hebrews 3:1 who ‘laid down His Life by his own Power’ John 10:18 who “hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” Hebrews 9:26, AND should be “led away to” and “released” in the “wilderness” of his own nature and freedom by a “Fit Man”, the SELFSAME “High Priest of our confession”.

Now I believe Abraham Ibn Ezra felt this; even believed this, but could only confess it but in riddles because he was a Jew in a Roman Catholic society with that aura of Judaism about it. The environment and age in which Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote, tell their own story – near the end of the 11th century into about two thirds of the 12th century and right in the middle of the ‘middle-’ or ‘dark ages’. One may say, here is the SUPERSTITIOUS Jewish expositor of the Pentateuch teaching SUPERSTITIOUS Christian students, true Christianity.

All Christian Judaists’ and Jewish explanations of Ibn Ezra’s ‘code’, are purely speculative. They abound on the internet; but all are the same. Best example of these confused unbelievers’ explanations (from a Christian perspective), is Maimonides’, who in his ‘Guide of the Perplexed’, thinks Ibn Ezra’s ‘code’ is a ‘metaphor’ of good people doing ‘good’ things, over against the ‘bad’ things bad people do.

Ironically, good Christians do not hesitate to quote Ibn Ezra and Maimonides in the same breath as if both taught Azazel meant some desert devil thing only— while neither ever taught such thing so categorically as claimed with great bombast.

The word ‘Azazel’ being only used in the Hebrew in this one place, Leviticus 16, Maimonides could do no more than speculate --- from his own Jewish and Judaist perspective naturally, which could NEVER RECOGNISE A TRUE CHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVE.

Sad thing about this is that it is the CHRISTIANS who most fervently and dogmatically, become enthusiasts of any but a Christian alternative for Maimonides and other Jews’ “exegesis” and “etymology” of the word Azazel --- I’ve seen … my goodness gracious, “exegesis” and “etymology”?! Rubbish! We long since don’t live in the middle ages anymore! There EXISTS no exegesis or etymology of the word or rather Name, Azazel than – as Ibn Ezra said, “parallels in the text”— in this ‘text’ of Leviticus 16, and then many centuries after, in the ‘text’ we find in Holy Scripture in the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. Now what Jew would give credit to the fact? Perhaps Ibn Ezra tried?!

“Scholars”, “eminent scholars”, “Jewish scholars” --- by the dozen or gross, away with! Let the Scriptures explain the Scriptures ITSELF!

So, What is _MY_ ‘theory’?

I gave it in the discussion on ‘The Good News of the Great Day of Judgment’— ‘Azazel’ means the two BIBLE-words, “The Healer- ‘Aza’, Mighty God – ‘El’, put together.

Now, How does that correlate with Ibn Ezra’s ‘code’ as I claimed it just might do?

Thus …

“… if you were capable of grasping the secret that follows the word (hasod she'hu achar milas) Azazel, then you would know its secret and the secret of its name, for it has parallels (chaverim) in the text. I shall reveal a bit of the secret only by way of a hint. When you reach age thirty-three you will know it.”

Let me state clearly that I am not conversant in Hebrew and therefore shall be UNABLE to comment on the meaning of “the secret that follows the word (hasod she'hu achar milas) Azazel”.

I made a feeble attempt though, keeping in mind Ibn Ezra’s “hint” about “parallels in the text” …

‘hasod’ < ‘has’, ‘the’; ‘od’, ‘while’— ‘the while …’;
‘she’hu’ < ‘she’ ’ from ‘sheshi’, ‘(fine) linen (clothes)’; ‘hu’, ‘himself’;
‘achar’, ‘wash’ / ‘bathe’;
‘milas’ < ‘malat’, ‘escape’ / ‘get away’—
… the while He Himself (in his High Priestly) clothes washed / cleansed / healed, escapes / heals.’

verses 19,30 … “cleansed / declared cleansed” < ‘taher’;
verses 4,26,32 … “clothes”, ‘begadim’ < ‘beged’— “HOLY garments”; which 10:21, “high priest is consecrated to put on”.

What Ibn Ezra does is to IDENTIFY the “fit man”, the “he goat” and the “high priest”. His Jewish colleagues would MURDER him for such ‘blasphemy’; and so would the Roman Catholics for whom, largely, he wrote. Ibn Ezra therefore spoke in “secrets” and “parables” or “parallels”, ‘chaverim’.

A Christian won’t have a problem though with a view such as Ibn Ezra’s concerning the Name Azazel in Leviticus 16 to mean the “fit man”, the “he goat” and the “high priest” at once.

Besides the “parallels in the text”, Ibn Ezra left onther “hint”. Said he, “… I shall reveal a bit of the secret only by way of a hint. When you reach age thirty-three you will know it.”

Since Ibn Ezra must have been acquainted with the Letter to the Hebrews as an exposition on the nature and work of the “High Priest” of Christian “Confession” of the great day of atonement and judgment, and has made the above alluded to or “hinted” at ‘coded’ observations and inferences regarding the high priest of Jewish confession concerning the great day of judgment and atonement in Leviticus 16, I find it personally not at all strange that Ibn Ezra must be playing at the Christians’ High Priest of the Great and Terrible Day of Judgment and Atonement according to THEIR “Text”— the New Testament Scriptures. “When you reach age thirty-three you will know it”— that “YOU ARE PRIEST ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC” who at age thirty entered upon Your Calling, and “when YOU reached age thirty-three”, “KNEW THAT HIS HOUR HAS COME”, for it is in the Text – not in parable, but in precise parallelism “according to the Scriptures” Leviticus 16, “MY HOUR HAS COME”; “NOW IS YOUR HOUR AND OF WICKED MEN”, that He would FULFIL Calling and Destiny PREORDAINED and ETERNAL, “HIGH PRIEST OF ALMIGHTY GOD YAHWEH ELOHIM”.

Make of it what you like, fellow believers of Jesus Christ. It is not it that will save you; but the “High Priest of our Confession” even Jesus Christ the Lord, our LORD GOD ALMIGHTY SAVIOUR HEALER, AZAZEL.

Sela.