‘A scapegoat’
The Book of Leviticus describes the proper ceremonies to be observed on the Jewish Day of Atonement, when the land of Israel would be ritually cleansed of its sins. The procedure was that one goat would be offered to God as a sacrifice, while the other—the ‘scapegoat’ — would be symbolically loaded with all the misdeeds of the nation before being driven into the wilderness.
This ceremony was said to have been carried out each year since the Exodus from Egypt. It did, however, acquire one important modification after an unfortunate incident in which the scapegoat wandered out of the wilderness and merrily back towards Jerusalem.
To prevent a repeat of this extremely bad omen, subsequent priests arranged that the scapegoat’s journey to the wilderness should start with a headlong plunge down a local cliff.
