Forgiving Debt on Yom Kippur
According to Leviticus, all the sins of Israel were purged away on the Day of Atonement—in Hebrew, Yom Kippur (יוֹם כִּפּוּר). In the language of Scripture, “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonements (יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים; yom ha’kippurim)” (Lev 23:27). The mechanism for this atonement was the blood of sacrificial animals (see Lev 16:14-19): “For it is the blood that makes atonement” (Lev 17:11). Through this ritual, the priest would “make atonement” for sinners and they “would be forgiven” (see Lev 4-5). But why was this blood offering necessary? Why couldn’t God just snap the divine fingers, as it were, and forgive the people of their annual infractions?
The reason that atonement needed to precede forgiveness is because, in ancient Jewish theology, sin was understood to be a debt; when Israel committed sins, it would go into debt before God. Since “sin” (חַטָּאָה; hattah) and “iniquity” (עָוֹן; avon) were conceived of as physical entities, the debts that they created were very real, and they had to be paid down in some way. This is why Jesus prays to God, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:13). Long before Yeshua made this prayer, his ancestors had suffered exile as a means to pay down the debt of their sins. Isaiah conveys the financial problem that lands Israel in the hands of the Babylonians, when God asks through him, “Which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? No, because of your sins you were sold” (Isaiah 50:1). The Day of Atonement was established to pay down all the debt “for the people of Israel once in the year because of all their sins” (Lev 16:34).
This financial framework also appears in later rabbinic tradition. According to the homiletical commentary Pesiqta deRav Kahana (ca. 5th century CE), Moses prays to God, saying, “Master of the worlds, when Israel has merit (זכות; zakhut), forgive them. But when Israel does not have merit, extend a loan (הנשה; hinshah), so to speak, once a year, so that Yom Kippur will come and atone for them” (PRK 2:7). Here, the rabbis assume the notion that sin causes debt, and they understand the Day of Atonement as the means of squaring the books. Yom Kippur allows the people of Israel to clear past debts and begin afresh in the new year.
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