For the wages of sin is... banishment: An unexplored substitutionary motif in Leviticus 16 and the ritual of the scapegoat.

The ritual of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16 has often been understood through the lens of substitution .Whereas substitution is typically thought of in terms of death, I wish to argue for a different kind of substitution - substitutionary banishment. By highlighting banishment as a consequence for sin, the scapegoat ritual can be read as a substitutionary act in which the goat receives the consequences meant for the Israelites - not death but banishment. Furthermore, using the categories of 'psychological' and 'ontological', I wish to show that God's reasoning for the consequences is not related to an emotional wrath but is instead necessitated by his holy nature and the assumption that holy and unholy cannot coexist thus requiring the removal of one or the other. Instead of the removal of the Israelites, the scapegoat is removed - and along with it, the sins of Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]