On the Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ. By Rev. William Symington [pp. 201-233]

Symington on the atonement.
ment and reconciliation were considered synonymes by our
translators, for as in the former passage they used atonement
instead of reconciliation; here, they use reconciliation
where atonement was the proper word. The word ixaaxglov
is also twice read in the New Testament, and in one of these
(Rom. iii. 25) should be translated atonement, byv rgos86To o
~s;; cxa~zgov, whom God hath setforth to be an atonement.
In the other passage (Heb. ix. 5) this word retains the sense
in which it is uniformly used by the LXX. for the mercy-seat
or cover of the ark of the covenant, and would be well rendered by the word propitiatory, or place of atonement.
As the phrase to make atonement as the translation of
the Hebrew and Greek words before mentioned occurs
nearly eighty times in the Old Testament, it may aid our
investigation to endeavour to ascertain its precise meaning;
and there is no passage which furnishes us with a better opportunity of accomplishing this object, than the account of
the transactions of the day of atonement which is recorded
in the 16th of Leveticus. It has frequently been asserted that
the literal, radical sense of the Hebrew verb is to cover; but
as the word is seldom used in a literal sense, probably but
once, where Noah is commanded to pitch the ark without
and within with pitch, we think that there is but slight
ground for this opinion. In the figurative use of the word,
though often thus employed, there is no clear allusion to this
idea of covering. If we might infer the literal from the uniform
figurative use, we should say, that the radical meaning was
to cleanse or to purify. It appears from the passage referred
to, and from other texts, that an atonement, though usually
made with blood, consisted sometimes of other things. Thus
in Exodus xxx. 15. the half shekel paid by every Israelite,
is called an offering unto the Lord to mnake atonement
for your souls. And in Lev. xvi. o10, the scape-gcat is
called an atonement. But the goat on which the lot fell to
be the scape-goat shall be presented alive before the Lord
to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a
scape-goat into the wilderness. But commonly atonements
were made with bloody sacrifices; so on the day when the
scape-goat was made an atonement by symbolically carrying
off the sins of the people which had been confessed over his
head, another goat and a bullock were sacrificed as sin-offerings, the one for the whole congregation, the other for the
priest and his family. "And Aaron shall bring the bullock
of the sin-offering which is for himself and his house, and
1836.]
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