Yahoel
as Remover of Human Sins
It has already been mentioned in our
study that, in Exod 23:21, the Angel of the Lord may be depicted as the one who
can forgive sins. While in this passage from Exodus, such function does not
have clear sacerdotal significance, in later biblical materials it often
acquires such meaning.
Thus, for example, in the Book of
Zechariah, the prophet receives a vision of the following eschatological scene,
in which the Angel of the Lord removes the garment of human sins in a very
peculiar cultic setting. Zech 3:1–10 unveils the following tradition:
Then he showed me the high priest
Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right
hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan!
The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from
the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the
angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his
filthy clothes.” And to him he said, “See, I have taken your guilt away from
you, and I will clothe you with festal apparel.” And I said, “Let them put a
clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed
him with the apparel; and the angel of the Lord was standing by. Then the angel
of the Lord assured Joshua, saying “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk
in my ways and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have
charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who
are standing here. Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who
sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my
servant the Branch. For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single
stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of
hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. On that day, says
the Lord of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig
tree.”
Here the familiar biblical mediator of
the divine Name removes the unclean garment from a priestly figure, the attire
that here symbolizes human transgressions, and then clothes the priest with
festal apparel. Here, the removal of human sins is cast in a distinctive
sacerdotal context, which some scholars argue is reminiscent of the Yom Kippur
ritual. The choice of the ritual is not coincidental, since it was the most
significant event in ancient Judaism associated with both the transference and
removal of impurity caused by human transgressions. An important detail that
points to the presence of the Yom Kippur tradition in Zech 3 is the high
priestly garment, which is changed during the course of the story. Lena-Sofia
Tiemeyer points out that “the Torah legislates that the high priest should
change garments on two occasions: at his inauguration and at the Day of
Atonement.” She argues that there is support for identifying the ceremony in
Zech 3 with the Day of Atonement as it is described in Lev 16 rather than with
the ceremony of inauguration, as it is described in Exod 28–29 and Lev 9. Further
reflecting on Joshua’s investiture, Tiemeyer points out that “the cleansing of
Joshua and his symbolic change of clothes (Zech 3:3–5) are ... the vital
preparations for celebration of the Day of Atonement and its resulting removal
of sin from the land (3:9).”
Another possible link with the Yom
Kippur ritual includes the expression, “I (God) will remove the guilt of this
land in a single day ( ביום אחד ),” found in Zech 3:9. Scholars previously have
noted that this statement “is important for the understanding of the Sitz-im-Leben
of Zech 3 as a whole.” Tiemeyer argues that “the expression ביום אחד = ‘in one
day’ points to a ceremony which takes place in one day. Based on this
definition, the only day known in the OT when God removes the sins of His
people is the annual Day of Atonement.” She further suggests, “assuming that
this feast was known to the people at the time of Zechariah, it seems likely
that the original audience of this material associated ביום אחד with this
festival.” Tiemeyer adds that “the עון in verse 9 is naturally connected with
Joshua’s עון in verse 4, pointing to a link between the removal of Joshua’s
guilt and of that of the land.” She also suggests that “Joshua’s impurity
represents his own guilt, something which must have rendered him unable to
carry the guilt of the people on the Day of Atonement. Thus, Joshua’s cleansing
prepares the way for the Day of Atonement and the cleansing of the land.”
As we can see, the prophetic account
offers not just one, but several possible cultic allusions that point to the
atoning rite. Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra concisely summarizes these important
details that have previously been noted by a number of scholars. He suggests
that the
protagonist is a high priest. He
stands at a special place where only he, God, a defending angel and the
accusing Satan are present. The right of access to this place is dependent on observance
of certain regulations and amoral code. This evokes the holy of holies. The
central act is a symbolic change of vestments. The soiled high priest’s
vestments symbolize his sins. Exchanging these soiled clothes for clean ones
signifies atonement. The “single day” of purification of the land evokes Yom
Kippur and gives it an eschatological ring. The cultic scene alluded to could
be the picture of a high priest who changes his linen vestments, which have
become stained from sprinkling the blood on Yom Kippur.
His summative assessment is as
follows: “regarding the number of corresponding
elements, a connection to Yom Kippur
is probable.”
The scene from Zech 3, wherein the
Angel of the divine Name removes the load of human transgressions from a human
recipient, is consequential for our study of similar functions of Yahoel in the
Apocalypse of Abraham. As one remembers, in the Slavonic pseudepigraphon, the
angel of the Name similarly removes the vestment of human sins from the
patriarch Abraham.
Apoc. Ab. 13:7–14 narrates the
following interaction between the heavenly high priest, Yahoel, and the
celestial scapegoat, Azazel:
Reproach is on you, Azazel! Since
Abraham’s portion is in heaven, and yours is on earth, since you have chosen it and desired it to be
the dwelling place of your impurity. Therefore the Eternal Lord, the Mighty
One, has made you a dweller on earth. And because of you [there is] the
wholly-evil spirit of the lie, and because of you [there are] wrath and trials on
the generations of impious men. Since the Eternal Mighty God did not send the
righteous, in their bodies, to be in your hand, in order to affirm through them
the righteous life and the destruction of impiety. ... Hear, adviser! Be shamed
by me, since you have been appointed to tempt not all the righteous! Depart
from this man! You cannot deceive him, because he is the enemy of you and of
those who follow you and who love what you desire. For behold, the garment
which in heaven was formerly yours has been set aside for him, and the
corruption which was on him has gone over to you.
Scholars previously noted that this
depiction is reminiscent of the scapegoat ritual in which the infamous goat
carried Israel’s sins into the uninhabitable realm after they had been
transposed onto the creature’s head. Quite literally, through the laying on of
hands and the high priest’s confession, the communal sins of Israel were heaped
upon the scapegoat.
A number of Yahoel’s actions in the Apocalypse
of Abraham are reminiscent of the familiar actions of the high priest on the
Day of Atonement. In light of the sacerdotal affiliations of Yahoel that we
have already explored, it is likely that his actions against Azazel in this
chapter also take on cultic significance. Most relevant for our purposes is
that Yahoel’s address is reminiscent of the curses that are bestowed on the
scapegoat during the atoning rite. In the passage that is quoted above, the
transference of Abraham’s sin onto the celestial scapegoat conspicuously
coincides with the departure command. This is quite similar to a description
found in m. Yoma 6:4. There, members of the community harassed the scapegoat
physically and verbally by pulling the animal’s hair and shouting, “Bear [our
sins] and be gone! Bear [our sins] and be gone!” The similarity with the Apocalypse
of Abraham has not gone unnoticed by scholars. Here, the mishnaic passage
includes two explicit cultic elements: first, there is a bestowal of sins (“bear
[our sins]”) and, second, there is a command of departure (“be gone”). We find
nearly identical elements in the Apocalypse of Abraham. The transference of
sins onto Azazel is contained in the phrase “the corruption which was on him
has gone over to you.” This eschatological transference appears simultaneously
with the departure element, which is indicated by the phrase “depart from this
man.”
Yahoel’s power to remove sins from God’s
creatures is further underlined when he strips from the celestial antagonist
his angelic garment. This demonstrates that Yahoel is not simply a sacerdotal
servant who heaps sins upon the eschatological scapegoat, but an agent who
makes decisions regarding the final outcomes of such purgatorial actions. (Andrei
A. Orlov, Yahoel and Metatron: Aural Apocalypticism and the origins of Early
Jewish Mysticism [Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 169; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2017], 126-30)
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