“And it shall be a statute for ever to you. In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger who sojourns among you, for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall you be clean before Yahweh.”
It is now stressed that this is a statute to be carried out into the distant future. On the tenth day of the seventh month (the month of Tishri/Ethanim in the Autumn when the early rains were due) the day of Atonement must be observed, and it was so, with a short break after the destruction of the first temple, until the final destruction of the temple in 70 AD for well over a thousand years.
On this day they were to ‘afflict themselves'. This probably represented some form of indicating penitence, although we are not told what it was. It may have been the loosening of the hair, the ritual tearing of clothes, and the covering of the upper lip (Leviticus 13:45). (Compare Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 21:10; Ezekiel 24:17; Ezekiel 24:22; Genesis 37:34; Numbers 14:6; 2 Samuel 1:11; 2Ki 11:14; 2 Kings 19:1; 2 Kings 22:11; 2 Kings 22:19; Ezra 9:5; Micah 3:7). It would later be related to fasting, but there is no hint of that here. In Isaiah 58:3-5 it is related to fasting but rather as something done while fasting, possibly ‘bowing down his head as a rush, and spreading sackcloth and ashes under him'.
They were also to do no manner of work, and this not only applied to Israel but to anyone who was living among them. It was to be a strict sabbath, for on that day atonement was made for them and they were made clean from all their sins as far as Yahweh was concerned. It was a day when all attention must be on God and all must have the opportunity to take part without restrictions of work.