DAY OF ATONEMENT. - Solemn day of penance in the religion of Israel, called hippâr.
There is disagreement of views on the meaning of the verb hipper, which some, following J. Wellhausen and E. König, relate to the Arabic kafara "to cover"; others refer it to the Hebrew hippârn, which means to remove sin by means of a rite of lustration; in this case the meaning of the verb would be: to pray and by praying to cancel. In the Old Testament hipper has two distinct acceptations: one "to cover", in a particular way "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 practice e., that is, to make expiation. When the verb refers to the Lord it means: to grant pardon. The priest can practice hipper even for himself, while he practices e. on someone. One can also exercise e. on an object, for example, the altar, for the purpose of purification, an action which is then followed by anointing with oil.
E. is practiced by pouring the blood of the victim on the altar. In other cases purification is exercised, as, for example, the consecration of priests, by putting some of the victim's blood on the right lobe, on the right thumb and on the right big toe of the priest; in this case it is probably a question of an action of a spotropaic character. It is not excluded that the acceptation "to cover" belongs rather to the sphere of law and from there probably passed into the ritual and liturgical sphere, in which however the concept of: "by praying to cancel" fundamentally prevails.
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. apt to remove from all the people every sin which for any reason or circumstance had not been expiated during the year. On such an occasion the priest shall wear a sacred linen vestment, with linen breeches upon his flesh, a linen girdle and a linen mitre around his head. The priest performs a purification bath and subsequently receives from the Israelite community two goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. Having offered his own young bull in e. and completed the act of e. for himself and for his house, the priest takes the two goats, stations them at the door of the sanctuary and by lot assigns one to the Lord and the other to âzâ'âl. The goat for the Lord becomes a sin offering.
After completing the offering of incense and of the blood of the victims of e., for himself and for the people, thus purifying the sanctuary and Israel itself, the priest lays his hands upon the head of the live goat to confess over it all the guilt and all the sins of the Israelites, thus causing the sins to pass onto the head of the scapegoat. In this way the scapegoat, led by a man appointed for this, carries the sins of the people toward the desert. The priest e. takes off the linen vestments, performs a ritual washing and then performs other sacrificial rites. The man who has accompanied the goat destined for âzâ'âl shall leave his clothes and bathe his whole body in water; only after completing this rite may he re-enter the camp. The young bull and the goat immolated in the holy place for expiatory purposes are to be brought outside the camp and burned entirely, and he also who has burned them shall take off his clothes and bathe, after which he may re-enter the camp.
These operations therefore have as their object to purify, that is, to renew the state of holiness of the Sancta Sanctorum and of the other parts of the sanctuary and principally the altar. The sins of the people are in a certain sense annulled by their transfer, by means of confession, onto the head of the scapegoat.