Goat

Goat is both a source of food and a prescribed sacrificial animal in the Torah. Its role is defined through concrete ritual procedures: goats may be selected for certain offerings, their blood and fat are assigned to the altar, and a young female goat is prescribed for an individual who sins inadvertently.

Food and Ritual Boundaries

The dietary law lists the goat among the animals that may be eaten, placing it alongside the ox and sheep. This permission belongs to a broader system of distinction between clean and unclean foods and marks the goat as an accepted part of the community’s diet.

Sacrificial Uses

In the burnt-offering instructions, a goat from the flock may be offered if it is male and without blemish. The offerer lays a hand on its head and kills it before the Tent of Meeting; Aaron’s sons dash its blood against the altar, and the priest arranges its pieces, head, and fat on the altar fire after washing its entrails and legs. The entire offering is made to smoke.

Goats also serve in peace offerings. A goat is presented before the LORD, and after the offerer lays a hand on its head and kills it, Aaron’s sons apply its blood to the altar. The fat covering the entrails, the other internal fat, the kidneys and their fat, and the lobe of the liver are burned. The text declares all fat to belong to the LORD and prohibits eating fat or blood.

Offerings and Atonement

The offering schedule pairs animal sacrifices with grain and wine. For a ram, it specifies two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a third of a hin of oil and a third of a hin of wine; these accompanying portions are part of the prescribed offering pattern, though this instruction does not designate a goat as the accompanying animal.

For an inadvertent sin by one person, the prescribed sin offering is a female goat in its first year. The priest makes atonement for the person, who is then forgiven. The ritual framework distinguishes such error from deliberate defiance, for which the law prescribes being cut off from the people.

During the Passover, a household may select a lamb from the sheep or goats, or share one with a neighboring household if it is too small. The animal must be an unblemished male in its first year; its blood marks the household’s doorposts and lintel, and its meat is eaten roasted with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.