I believe, every year—when there is a Tabernacle or
a Temple—the Head Kohen’s duty on Yom Kippur to offer a bull for purity (the
Messiah), and two goats (the two thieves) are also offered. The Head Kohen
turns one goat (the repenting thief) toward HaShem, and another goat (the
thief that doesn’t repent) is turned away from HaShem. Supernaturally, the Head
Kohen is to ascribe all the sins of the Hebrew Nation on to goat the chosen for Azazel,
the wilderness goat demon, and then that goat is lead out into the wilderness
to be dashed on a cliff about ten miles away.
Who or what is Azazel?
If you’re one of the rare people that have read my
book, Azazel, a man half-goat and half-man, is introduced as my primary
nemesis, ahead of the Antichrist. According to the Bible, Azazel has been our
nemesis for thousands of years. In my mind’s eye, the Antichrist will only reign
in terror for a short period—three and a half years; whereas, Azazel will be
the evil spirit that will possess the Beast of Revelation. Azazel is the wicked spirit past, present,
and [near] future.
My point in my book is that we should begin to see
odd wilderness manifestations of Azazel. On the pagan calendar, New Year’s Day
is one day we should watch closely for chimeras. 
From: Azazel http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0002_0_01741.html
There have been efforts to compare the ritual of the
goat to several customs of the ancient world. In Babylonia, for instance, it
was customary on the festival of Akītu (the New Year) to give a goat as a
substitute for a human being (pūḫ) to Ereshkigal (the goddess of the abyss). In
an Akkadian magical inscription from the city of Assur which deals with the
cure for a man who is unable to eat and drink, it is prescribed that a goat
should be tied to his bed and that thus the sickness will pass to the goat. On
the following morning, the goat is to be taken to the desert and decapitated.
Its flesh is then cooked and put in a pit together with honey and oil, perhaps
as an offering to the demons. During plagues, the Hittites used to send a goat
into enemy territory in order that it should carry the plague there. On the
head of the goat they would bind a crown made of colored wool, comparable
perhaps to the thread of crimson wool which was tied to the head of the goat in
the Second Temple period (Yoma 4:2). In the Hellenistic world there were also
"scapegoat" rituals, but they had the custom to take a man as
"scapegoat" and not an animal. In some places these rituals were
performed in times of trouble, in others at fixed appointed times of the year.
However, in the Hellenistic world the important part of the ceremony was not the
killing of the "scapegoat," but its being sent out of the city and
indeed, in some places, it was not even killed.
Who or What was the biblical Azazel? By Joel Hendonhttp://www.examiner.com/article/who-or-what-was-the-biblical-azazel-leviticus-16-8-10-26
There are numerous people, even some devout Bible
reading Christians who have never heard the term “Azazel”. If you are one who
reads only the King James Version of the Bible, you probably have not heard the
term. Or some of the other versions either. The word is not found in the King
James, the New King James, the New American Standard Version or the Revised
Standard Version. It is however, found in the American Standard Version and the
New Revised Standard Version.
It is used 3 times in the book of Leviticus, chapter
16, verses 8, 10 and 26 in at least those two versions, the ASV and the NRSV.
The first letter is upper-case as if it is a proper name, in those versions.
Looking back and checking the name in about any
source one may think of, offers very little help. So let us consider a few
points.
In the Hebrew writings the term is written 3 times
in the book of Leviticus as עזאזל. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:
Later Azazel was considered by some Jewish sources
to be a supernatural being mentioned in connection with the ritual of the Day
of Atonement (Lev. 16.). After Satan, for whom he was in some degree a
prototype, Azazel enjoys the distinction of being the most mysterious
extra-human character in Jewish sacred literature. (Wikipedia-Azazel)
There you have one explanation of the word, but bear
in mind this entry says “was considered by some Jewish sources”. Nothing
authoritative about that.
The term is found in several other writings, almost
all with a different meaning at least in some respects. A brief quote taken
from the deliriumsrealm.com refers to the Hebrew word lasseirim as follows:
Azazel is the chief of the Se'irim, or goat-demons,
who haunted the desert and to whom most primitive Semitic (most likely
non-Hebrew) tribes offered sacrifices. The Old Testament states that Jeroboam
appointed priests for the Se'irim. But Josiah destroyed the places of their
worship, as the practices accompanying this worship involved copulation of
women with goats.
The Se'irim, or hairy demons as the word itself
means, are mentioned in Leviticus 17:7 and 2 Chronicles 11:15 as
"goat-demons". Isaiah 34:14 says that the "goat-demons"
greet each other amoung the ruins of Edom along with Lilith and other wild
beasts.
This also seems to be an unfounded reasoning. Simply
to say that Azazel is the chief of the Se’irim, is simply to bring in pagan
superstition, whose names did not have to have any base at all.
You can find numerous listings of the term Azazel,
but each one has it’s mythology attached to it. It is reported to appear in at
least two of the apocryphal writings, the Book of Enoch and the Apocalypse of
Abraham. But when all things are considered, none of these references are of
inspired writers and in fact, the factual origin of the word itself is not known.
The book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, infers that
Azazel was the leader of the fallen angels which are referred to in 2 Peter
2:4….
Shalom!
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