Jesus as Both Goats at his Baptism
and Temptation (Matt 3.13-4:11)
I have maintained the
plausibility that the compressed scene of Jesus’s death (Matt 27:50–54) evokes
a typology of Jesus as the two goats of Yom Kippur moving in antithetical
directions, first as the goat for YHWH offering his blood/lifeforce beyond the (cosmic)
sanctuary veil (Matt 27:50–51a), and then as the goat for Azazel sent into the
underworld (Matt 27:51b–53). If it can be shown that Matthew narrates Jesus’s
ministry in terms of this two-fold schema elsewhere in his Gospel, then this
reading becomes more probable.
Hannah An has recently argued
that “the ritual prescriptions of the Day of Atonement, particularly those
found in Leviticus 16:20–22, decisively inform our interpretation of the
Matthean witness of Jesus’s baptism and temptation (Matt 3:5–4:1).” While I do
not agree with all of her conclusions, An’s interpretive intuition may be
correct.
First, there is a formal
correspondence between the ritual of the two goats and the baptism-temptation
in Matthew’s Gospel. The heavens are opened and Jesus is affirmed as God’s Son
(Matt 3:16–17), which evokes the goat for YHWH (Lev 16:15–19). Immediately
after this, Jesus is lead into the desert to be tempted by the Devil (Matt
4:1), which evokes the goat for Azazel (Lev 16:20–22). Matthew preserves this
tight sequence derived from his Markan Vorlage (Mark 1:10–12), whereas
Luke disrupts it by sandwiching Jesus’s genealogy between his baptism and
temptation (Luke 3:23–38).
Second, a chief purpose of John’s
baptism of Jesus in Matthew is to identify Jesus with sinful Israel. By
means of John’s baptism, Matthew foreshadows Jesus’s redemptive role of
“bearing infirmities” (Matt 8:17) and giving his life as a “ransom for many”
(Matt 20:28) for the “forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). The baptism of John,
who is from a priestly lineage (Luke 1:5), functions in a similar way to
Aaron’s hand-leaning rite, whereby the sins of Israel are transferred onto the
scapegoat before the goat’s banishment into the wilderness (Lev 16:21–22).
Third, having symbolically
associated with sinful Israel, Jesus is immediately led “into the wilderness,”
which reminds one of the journey of the goat for Azazel. Unlike his Lukan
counterpart, who writes ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ (Luke 4:1), Matthew employs εἰς τὴν ἔρημον,
a phrase that appears three times in Leviticus 16 LXX:
He shall release it [the
scapegoat] into the desert [εἰς τὴν ἔρημον] … And he shall lay them [the sins]
upon the head of the living goat, and shall send it by the hand of a ready man
into the wilderness [εἰς τὴν ἔρημον]. And the goat shall bear their
unrighteousness upon itself into a desolate land. And Aaron shall send away the
goat into the wilderness [εἰς τὴν ἔρημον].
Matthew’s decision to retain εἰς
τὴν ἔρημον is surprising, given that the form ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ occurs in Deut 6:4;
8:2, 16, that is to say, in the two chapters from which Jesus quotes Scripture
in the temptation narrative (Deut 8:3 in Matt 4:4//Luke 4:4; Deut 6:16 in Matt
4:7//Luke 4:12; Deut 6:13 in Matt 4:10//Luke 4:8), and given that ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ
may be the evangelist’s preferred phrase, as he writes it three times (Matt
3:1, 3; 24:26) and εἰς τὴν ἔρημον just one other time (Matt 11:7).
Fourth, Yom Kippur was popularly
known as “The Fast” (ἡ νηστεία) and was characterized by the practice of
prolonged fasting in the Second Temple period. Only Matthew explicitly states
that Jesus proactively “fasted” (νηστεύω) in his temptation narrative (Matt
4:2; cf. Luke 4:2), recalling the hallmark abstinence from food and other forms
of self-denial performed on Yom Kippur.
Fifth, the Day of Atonement was
also associated with Israel’s wilderness afflictions, specifically Deuteronomy
8:3 and the tradition concerning manna. Having cited Deut 8:3, Philo then
writes, “This affliction is propitiation; for on the tenth day also by
afflicting our souls He makes propitiation [cf. Lev 16:30].” This connection is
striking, given that Matthew (4:4) quotes the entirety of Deut 8:3b LXX,
whereas Luke (4:4) only quotes half of this passage. Deuteronomy 8:3 also
speaks about manna, which Philo, 1Q22, and the Festival Prayers relate to the
fasting performed on the Day of Atonement.153 Jesus’s reliance on God’s
heavenly sustenance (Matt 4:3–4; cf. Luke 4:3–4) evokes the anticipation of
divine mercy on Yom Kippur.
In light of these points, Yom
Kippur has likely influenced Matthew’s baptism- temptation narrative. The
evangelist foreshadows Jesus as the goat for YHWH at his baptism and the goat
for Azazel at his temptation. In the context of an elimination ritual, the
priestly baptizer symbolically identifies Jesus with sinful Israel, which leads
to Jesus’s immediate expulsion “into the wilderness.” There, Jesus fasts for
forty days and nights and suffers Israel’s wilderness afflictions, recalling
the great “Fast” of Yom Kippur performed in anticipation of God’s forgiveness.
This association of Jesus with both goats of Leviticus 16 mirrors the Barabbas
and Roman-abuse episodes (Matt 27:15–26, 27–31), where Jesus is respectively
designated as goat for YHWH and goat for Azazel. It also seems to parallel the
death-resurrection scene (Matt 27:50–54), where Jesus’s identity as both goats
may also be assumed. The link between Matthew’s temptation and passion
narratives is strengthened by the fact that, in his crucifixion account,
Matthew uniquely has the passersby utter the phrase, εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ (Matt
27:40), the same phrase by which the Devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness (Matt
4:3, 6).
Finally, the parallel between
Jesus’s temptation and descent to Hades narratives suggests a connection
between the underworld and the Devil/ Satan/Azazel in Matthew’s thought (cf.
Matt 4:1, 5, 8, 10, 11). But does the Gospel betray this connection elsewhere?
The following points possibly suggest it does: (1) The Devil seems to subsume
Azazel’s role in Matt 25:41 (cf. 1 En. 55.4). (2) There appears to be an
association between Hades and the Azazel tradition in the evangelist’s
Caesarea-Philippi narrative (Matt 16:13– 28). (3) According to Fletcher-Louis,
Jesus’s rebuke, ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου σατανᾶ (Matt 16:23; also Mark 8:33), “may put
Peter in the position not just of Satan, but of the demon Azazel,” as the
scapegoat is verbally banished in m. Yoma 6:4 and Apoc. Ab. 13.12; 14.5. Only
Matthew has Jesus repeat a nearly identical phrase at the end of his temptation
narrative (ὕπαγε, σατανᾶ, Matt 4:10), which again seems to recall the expulsion
of Azazel/the scapegoat.
Jesus’s descensus ad inferos
may therefore plausibly be conceived as a journey “to the Devil/Satan/Azazel,”
who apparently holds captive the righteous- dead in the underworld (Matt 12:29;
16:18; 27:52–53). Here, divergent paradigms of the atonement may converge in
the evangelist’s thought, either intentionally or coincidentally. On the one
hand, Matthew’s scapegoat typology might lead one to understand Jesus as
bearing the world’s sins to the realm of the cosmos that is furthest away from
God’s heavenly sanctuary. On the other hand, Matthew’s descent narrative seems
to be connected to Jesus’s release of prisoners from Sheol and usurping cosmic
authority from the Devil (Matt 4:8–10; 27:52–53; 28:16–20). Unfortunately, the
evangelist does not tell the reader how these strands relate. One is left to
speculate that, in Matthew’s thinking, Satan’s authority over the kingdoms of
the world is linked to the world’s burden of sins that Jesus effectively
eliminates, thereby destroying the means of Satan’s authority in the cosmos. (Jans
M. Moscicke, The New Day of Atonement: A Matthean Typology [Wissenschaftliche
Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 517; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020], 212-16)
On the association between Hades and the Azazel tradition in
the Caesarea-Philippi narrative in Matt 16:
(1) Caesarea Philippi is located
at the southern slope of Mount Hermon, where the Watchers bound themselves by
an oath to corrupt humankind (1 En. 6.1–8). Whereas Mark (8:27) places Peter’s
confession “on the way” to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, “Matthew [16:13]
states that the incident occurred when Jesus and his disciples had come into
the district of Caesarea Philippi, thus associating the event more closely with
the setting of our tradition [i.e., Mount Hermon]” (Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi,
and Peter,” 591). (2) Caesarea Philippi was the locale of a grotto to the half-goat
god Pan (ibid., 583, 590–91). Fletcher-Louis remarks, “Given the veneration
of the half-goat and half-human god Pan from the beginning of the second
century BC onwards, Jews must have seen a connection with the binding of
Azazel, a goat-like demon at the same place” (“Sacral Son of Man,” 280). (3)
Nickelsburg notes that, at Caesarea Philippi, “the eastmost headwaters of the
Jordan welled up from a bottomless cave sacred to the god Pan” (Nickelsburg,
“Enoch, Levi, and Peter,” 590). The dark abyss reminds of the place of Asael’s
infamous punishment (1 En. 10.4–6). Josephus describes the abyss at Caesarea
Philippi as “a horrible precipice that descends abruptly to a vast depth” (J.W.
1.405), as a “cave in a mountain, under which there is a great cavity in the earth,
and the cavern is abrupt, and prodigiously deep, and full of still water” (Ant.
15.364). According to Nickelsburg, Matthew’s unique “reference to the gates of
Hades finds a counterpart in the subterranean waters of the grotto” (“Enoch,
Levi, and Peter,” 598). (4) Fletcher-Louis observes that the Hebrew equivalent
of πύλαι ᾅδου, שער י שא ו ל (cf. Isa 38:10), may be a pun on the word ש י ע ר ,
the Hebrew term for “goat-demon” (Lev 17:7; Isa 13:21; 34:14; 2 Chr 11:15)
(“Sacral Son of Man,” 281). (5) He also posits that Jesus’s rebuke, “Depart
from me, Satan” (Matt 16:23; Mark 8:33) evokes the figure Azazel. This allusion
is strengthened by the clause, “For you are setting your mind not on divine
things but on human things,” since this could also broadly summarize the fallen
Watcher’s transgression. (Ibid., 215-16 n. 155)
