“But the goat, on which the lot fell for ‘azazel, shall be set alive before Yahweh, to make atonement for him, to send him away for ‘azazel into the wilderness.”
The second he-goat, a part of the purification for sin offering, is to be sent live into the wilderness where it would be left with God for Him to do with as He will. It is given into His hands. For it is part of the purification for sin offering and makes atonement. It is probable therefore that we are to see the two he-goats as ‘one', and to see the second as having been ‘sacrificed' in its clone, the first he-goat, for it is the blood that makes atonement, and then being dismissed with all the sins of Israel as a visual evidence of the sins of the whole of the sins and uncleannesses of Israel having gone. It was intended to be as close a picture as was obtainable of the effects of purification for sin on this one great day of the year.