What Is the Day of Atonement, and What Does It Ask?
What Is the Day of Atonement, and What Does It Ask?
In short
The Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus 16 and 23, commands four things: gather, do no work, rest from evening to evening, and humble your soul. Fasting is not one of them. The Hebrew phrase is anah nephesh, to bring your whole inner self low before God, and the fast became the customary way to do it. Hebrews 9 shows Christ as the high priest who made that atonement once for all, cleansing the conscience to serve, not to sit down.
Ask a room of kids what they think about on the Day of Atonement and you will get the honest answer the adults are too polite to give. Starving. No food. A caffeine headache thirty minutes after getting out of bed. A long, slow, hard day to get through.
I will admit something. For most of my life I was so wrapped up in the physical practice of this day that I completely missed how holy it is.
So let me submit this plainly. If you enter this day and the only difference between today and yesterday is that you are hungry and your head hurts, you are doing it wrong.
What does the Bible actually command on this day?
Four things, and fasting is not one of them.
Leviticus 23:27-32 lays it out. It is a holy convocation, so you gather. You do no work at all. It is a Sabbath of complete rest, from evening to evening. And you humble your souls. Leviticus 16:29-31 says the same, and adds the purpose in verse 30.
“On this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. You will be clean from all your sins before Yahweh.”
Leviticus 16:30
Now here is the part that surprised me when I studied it. The Hebrew word for fasting is tsom. It means a deliberate abstaining from food, sometimes water, for a set period, in order to humble yourself before God, intensify prayer, express grief, or seek His intervention. It is a real biblical practice and Scripture speaks well of it. That word is not used in connection with this day.
The phrase used instead is anah nephesh. Anah means to be bowed down or afflicted. Nephesh means the soul, the self, the desire, the appetite, the emotion. Humble your soul. Ezra 8:21 shows both ideas side by side, calling a fast in order to humble ourselves. Two separate words doing two separate jobs.
I am not telling you to go have a cheeseburger. The fast became the practice early, and Acts 27:9 already refers to this day simply as the Fast. Fasting is a good servant of humility. It is a poor substitute for it.
Why is a hungry day not the same as a humbled day?
Because we default to the path of least resistance, and God knows it.
Any deer hunter can tell you this. Walk a fence line and you will find one spot where the top wire sits lower than the rest. A hunter put it there. The deer will cross at that spot rather than jump six inches higher two feet down the line. Every time. So will we. Give us a checklist and a minimum standard and we will find the low spot in the wire and call it obedience.
Isaiah 58 is God’s own commentary on this. The people ask why they have fasted and God has not noticed. God answers that on the day of their fast they pursue their own desire and drive their workers, that they fast for quarreling and to strike with a wicked fist. Then He asks whether bowing your head like a reed and lying in sackcloth is really the fast He chose. What He wants is a humble and broken heart.
Jesus described the same posture in the temple. One man announces that he fasts twice a week and tithes on everything he has. The other will not lift his eyes and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Only one of them went home justified (Luke 18:9-14).
The question for this day is not whether you ate. It is whether your heart broke.
What is the difference between atonement and repentance?
Repentance is the action you take. Atonement is the action God already took.
Repentance is what you do when you are convicted of sin. You turn away from it and you turn toward a holy God. Atonement is what God did in advance to cover those sins, so that when you come in repentance there is already a covering waiting for you. Break the word apart and you can nearly read it. At-one-ment. God wants you at one with Him.
Hebrews explains what changed. The old system ran on repetition. Daily offerings, and once a year the high priest entering the holy of holies. He had to sacrifice a bull for his own sin first, in front of everyone, and the whole tribe knew exactly why. Even the holiest man in Israel needed covering.
“When Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
Hebrews 9:11-12
If animal blood could sanctify the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ “cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14).
Read the end of that verse again. Cleansed to serve. Not cleansed to sit down.
Why does “I am struggling with this sin” deserve a second look?
Because of what the phrase quietly permits.
In common use, saying you are struggling with a sin can soften the blow to the ego while leaving the practice intact. Hebrews 9:14 speaks of repentance from dead works as a turning away, not a negotiation. Scripture lists behaviors and says plainly that those who practice them will not inherit the kingdom.
I am not handing you a magnifying glass to use on the person next to you. Hebrews 10:24-25 says to consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, encouraging one another all the more as you see the Day drawing near. That is the assignment. Not a hall monitor writing tickets. In love, in compassion, in the same grace and mercy extended to you.
And the warning sits next to a door standing open.
“Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”
Hebrews 10:19-22
“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17). Confidence. That is the word Scripture uses.
How do you actually keep this day?
Six moves. The first one is the one most people skip.
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1
Clear the day before it arrives. The command is no work at all. If you are answering email at noon, humbling your soul was never going to happen.
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2
Write it down. Not a vague sense of unworthiness. Actual names, actual moments, actual things you did. Specific confession humbles a person in a way general regret never does.
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3
Read Leviticus 16 and Hebrews 9 back to back, in that order. Same day, one covering that had to be repeated and one that never does.
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4
Name one thing you have been calling a struggle. Ask honestly whether you have been turning from it or budgeting for it.
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5
Fast if it helps you humble yourself, and stop pretending the hunger is the point. If the hunger has become the whole of the day, drop it and go find the humility instead.
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6
End the day by drawing near, not by eating. Hebrews 10:22 is the closing instruction. Come close, with confidence, because the way is open.
There is a reason people have worn white on this day. You have been cleansed. The whole point of atonement, in Leviticus and in Hebrews both, is to bring you back into relationship with the God who made you.
Oak Stone keeps this day together as a church body. If it is new to you, start with what we believe and why.
One question worth sitting with
If the physical practice of this day were taken away from you entirely, would anything about the day still be different?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Day of Atonement?
The Day of Atonement is the holy day described in Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 23, observed on the tenth day of the seventh month. Scripture calls for a holy gathering, complete rest from work, and humbling of the soul. Leviticus 16:30 states its purpose: cleansing from sin before God.
Does the Bible command fasting on the Day of Atonement?
The Hebrew word for fasting, tsom, does not appear in the commands for this day. The text says to humble or afflict your souls, using the phrase anah nephesh. Fasting became the customary practice early, and Acts 27:9 refers to the day as the Fast, but the command itself is about humility.
What does “afflict your souls” mean?
The phrase is anah nephesh. Anah means to be bowed down or brought low. Nephesh means the soul, self, appetite, or desire. Together they call for a person to bring their whole inner life low before God, which is broader and harder than skipping meals.
What is the difference between atonement and repentance?
Repentance is the turning a person does when convicted of sin. Atonement is the covering God provided in advance so that repentance has somewhere to land. One is human action, the other is divine action, and the divine action came first.
Why did the high priest offer a sacrifice for himself first?
Because he sinned too, and everyone knew it. Leviticus 16 required the high priest to make atonement for his own household before making it for the people. Hebrews contrasts this with Jesus, who needed no sacrifice for himself and entered once for all.
What does Hebrews say about the Day of Atonement?
Hebrews 9 presents Jesus as the high priest who entered the true holy place with his own blood, obtaining eternal redemption rather than a covering repeated each year. Hebrews 9:14 says this cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Keep going
This post comes from an Oak Stone sermon.
Adam Clark works through more of this passage than there was room for here. Oak Stone Christian Church meets in Allen, Texas, and you do not need to have this figured out before you walk in. Nobody here does.