And he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel. (Lev 16:8, 1985 JPS Tanakh)
Commenting on Lev 16:8 and “for Azazel” (KJV: “for the scapegoat”; Heb. לַעֲזָאזֵל), Jacob Milgrom wrote:
“for Azazel” (la’azā’zēl). The lamed auctoris indicates the name of the owner (Cazelles 1949). There are three main views concerning the meaning of Azazel . . . (3) 1 Enoch 10:4-5 relates that the angel Raphael is commanded to bind the rebellious demon ‘Azel hand and foot and banish him to a wilderness called Dudel (=ḥadûdû, M. Yoma 6:8) and cover him with sharp rocks (reminiscent of the cliff from which the goat is thrown, according to m. Yoma 6:6; cf. v. 22). The reference to Azazel is obvious . . . The most plausible explanation is that Azazel is the name of a demon (no. 3, above) who has been eviscerated of his erstwhile demonic powers by the Priestly legislators. First, the goat sent him is not an offering (so Elliger 1966; Kümmel 1968); it is not treated as a sacrifice, requiring slaughter, blood manipulation, and the like, nor does it have the effect of a sacrifice, namely, propitiation, expiation, and so on. Moreover, an animal laden with impurities would not be acceptable as an offering either to God or to a demon (cf. v. 26). Second, the goat is not the vicarious substitute for Israel (Hoffmann 1953) because there is no indication that it was punished (e.g., put to death) or demonically attacked in Israel’s place. Instead of being an offering or a substitute, the goat is simply that vehicle to dispatch Israel’s impurities and sins to the wilderness/netherworld . . . . The banishment of evil to an inaccessible place is a form of elimination amply attested in the ancient Near East . . . (Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991], 1020-21)
Interestingly, this interpretation is rather important for Book of Mormon studies, as it shows that the Old Testament writers, before the time of Lehi et al., did accept the ontological existence of demons, in this instance, a goat demon called “Azazel.” As with Deut 32:17 and other texts in light of modern scholarship and exegesis, the demonology and Satanology of the Book of Mormon are not anachronistic, notwithstanding claims to the contrary by some critics (cf. Satan in the Book of Mormon)
