What Actually Happened to the Scapegoat After It Left Jerusalem

Most people know the concept of the scapegoat in its modern, secular meaning: someone who bears blame for others. The original ritual was considerably more specific, and considerably stranger.

On Yom Kippur, the high priest selected two identical goats by lottery. One was offered as a sacrifice. The other had Israel's collective sins confessed over its head, was given a red thread tied to its horns, and was led through Jerusalem to the wilderness — where it was pushed off a cliff.

The Selection by Lottery

The Mishnah (Tractate Yoma, compiled c. 200 CE) describes the lottery in detail. Two identical goats stood before the high priest, and he reached into a wooden box and drew two lots — one marked "for God" and one marked "for Azazel." Whichever lot came up in the right hand determined which goat would be sacrificed and which would be sent away. The high priest would place the lots on the goats' heads and pronounce which was which.

The Midrash Aggadah notes that if both lots came up in the same hand, the lottery had to be repeated. The ritual required a precise bilateral balance — God and Azazel each receiving their goat by genuine chance, not by the priest's preference or arrangement. The randomness was the point.

Who or What Was Azazel?

The name appears only in Leviticus 16 in the entire Torah, and the rabbis debated what it referred to. One opinion in the Talmud (Tractate Yoma 67b) said Azazel referred to the rough, rocky cliff itself — derived from az (rough) and el (strong). A second opinion said it was the name of a wilderness demon or spirit. The Apocryphal tradition, particularly 1 Enoch (written c. 3rd–2nd century BCE), identifies Azazel as one of the Watchers — an angel who descended to earth, taught humans the arts of war and seduction, and was punished by being bound under a rock in the desert until the Day of Judgment.

The Midrash Rabbah (Vayikra Rabbah, c. 400–500 CE) treats the Azazel goat as a kind of cosmic bribe or payment — sins were being sent back to their source, returned to the wilderness entity that had, in some traditions, tempted Israel into committing them. The goat was not sent as worship; it was sent as a rejection — here, take these back, they are not ours to keep.

The Twelve Stations and the Red Thread

The Mishnah describes the goat's journey in detail. Twelve stations were set up between Jerusalem and the cliff at Beit Hadudo, approximately twelve miles from the city. At each station, the leading priest was offered food and water, but the man actually leading the goat was prohibited from eating. This fast was a sign of the seriousness of what he was carrying.

The red thread tied to the goat's horns had a dual purpose. According to the Talmud (Tractate Yoma 67a and 68b), half of the red thread was tied to a rock at the top of the cliff, and half remained on the goat. When the goat died, the thread was supposed to turn white — a sign that the sins had been accepted and Israel's atonement was complete. The Legends of the Jews records that in the final forty years before the Temple's destruction, the thread stopped turning white. The Talmud treats this as a sign that the atonement mechanism had ceased to function — the first in a series of bad omens that preceded 70 CE.

The Cliff at Beit Hadudo

The Mishnah says the appointed man pushed the goat backward off the cliff. The animal tumbled and was dead before it reached the bottom, broken by the fall. No part of the goat was retrieved. The man who led it was ritually impure and had to immerse himself before returning. The man who received his clothing at the last station was also impure from proximity to the goat.

The entire ritual was a statement about where sin belongs: not in Jerusalem, not on the altar, not in the community, but in the wilderness — in the place of chaos and emptiness, returned to the entity associated with its origin, pushed off the edge of the inhabited world. Explore Yom Kippur traditions and Temple rituals in our full collection at jewishmythology.com.