ESPIAZIONE, GIORNO dell'. — A solemn day of penance in the religion of Israel, called hippâr.
There is a divergence of opinion concerning the meaning of the verb hipper. Some, following J. Wellhausen and E. König, relate it to the Arabic kafara, “to cover”; others refer it to the Assyrian hippârn, which means to remove sin by means of a lustral rite. In the latter case, the meaning of the verb would be: to pray and, by praying, to erase. In the Old Testament, hipper has two distinct meanings: one is “to cover,” particularly “to cover the face” (Gen. 32:21); “to cover,” “to avert,” in Is. 47:11. Kipper refers to the action of e. on the part of the officiating priest, so that the word means: to perform e., that is, to make expiation. When the verb refers to the Lord, it means: to grant forgiveness. The priest may perform hipper also for himself, while performing e. on behalf of someone. E. may also be performed upon an object, for example, the altar, for the purpose of purification, an action that is subsequently followed by anointing with oil.
E. is performed by pouring the blood of the victim upon the altar. In other cases purification is carried out, for example, at the consecration of priests, by placing some of the victim’s blood on the priest’s right earlobe, right thumb, and right big toe; in this case it is probably an action of an apotropaic character. It cannot be excluded that the meaning “to cover” belongs rather to the sphere of law and from there probably passed into the ritual and liturgical sphere, in which, however, the fundamental concept is: “to erase by praying.”
Lev. 16 deals with the rite of e. on the day of hippâr.
The high priest must prepare himself with an extraordinary sacrificial rite in order to enter the Sancta Sanctorum and perform there, once a year, on the tenth day of the month of tîrî, the rite of e. intended to remove from the entire people every sin that, for whatever reason or circumstance, had not been expiated during the year. On this occasion the priest shall wear a sacred linen garment, with linen breeches next to the flesh, a linen sash, and a linen tiara around his head. The priest undergoes a purification bath and subsequently receives from the Israelite community two male goats for an expiatory sacrifice and a ram for a holocaust. Having offered his own bullock as an e. and performed the act of e. for himself and his household, the priest takes the two goats, stations them at the entrance of the sanctuary, and by lot assigns one to the Lord and the other to âzâ'âl. The goat assigned to the Lord becomes an expiatory sacrifice.
After offering the incense and the blood of the victims of e., for himself and for the people, thereby purifying the sanctuary and Israel itself, the priest places his hands upon the head of the living goat in order to confess over it all the iniquities and all the sins of the Israelites, thereby transferring the sins onto the head of the scapegoat. In this way the scapegoat, led by a man appointed for this purpose, carries the sins of the people into the desert. The priest removes his linen garments, performs a ritual washing, and then carries out other sacrificial rites. The man who has accompanied the goat destined for âzâ'âl shall leave his garments and bathe his entire body in water; only after performing this rite may he return to the camp. The bullock and the goat slaughtered in the holy place for the purpose of expiation must be carried outside the camp and burned completely; and the one who has burned them shall also remove his garments and bathe, after which he may return to the camp.
These operations therefore have as their object the purification, that is, the restoration of the state of holiness, of the Sancta Sanctorum and of the other parts of the sanctuary, and chiefly of the altar. The sins of the people are, in a certain sense, annulled by their transfer, through confession, onto the head of the scapegoat.