Definition
The Hebrew verb kipper (כִּפֶּר), usually translated to atone, names the central theological-ritual action of the Levitical system. Its semantic core is debated (to cover, to wipe, or to ransom), but its function is consistent: it is the action by which the consequences of sin and impurity are removed so that YHWH can continue to dwell with Israel. The kapporet (mercy seat) on the ark of the covenant, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) in Leviticus 16, and the New Testament’s vocabulary of propitiation and redemption all come from this root. The framework names how the Hebrew Bible’s atonement theology actually works inside its own categories, before any Christian-tradition layer is added.
Key proponents
Modern
- Jacob Milgrom, the most influential modern advocate of the purgation reading; argues kipper primarily means to wipe clean, with the sanctuary (not the sinner) as the direct object of the verb
- David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Brill, 2011) and Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension (Baker Academic, 2022). Moffitt argues that the kipper-making in Hebrews is located at Christ’s heavenly entry as the risen high priest, not at the cross alone. Following Leviticus 16’s actual structure (the slaughter happens at the outer altar; the kipper happens when the high priest brings the blood inside), the cross corresponds to the offering’s death while the ascension is where the life is brought into the divine presence. Moffitt’s work has substantially reshaped the contemporary scholarly conversation about atonement.
- Christian Eberhart, The Sacrifice of Jesus, situates NT atonement language in Hebrew Bible sacrificial categories
- Michael Heiser (The Unseen Realm; Naked Bible Podcast on Leviticus), reads the Day of Atonement through the divine council lens, especially the scapegoat-to-Azazel motif
- N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, recovers a Hebrew-Bible-grounded atonement theology that resists the medieval transaction model
- Brian Zahnd, develops a cruciform reading of atonement that takes the Levitical-prophetic ethical critique seriously
- Tim Mackie (BibleProject), the Sacrifice and Atonement video series and Day of Atonement podcast episodes
Premodern witnesses
- The Talmud (Mishnah Yoma; Babylonian Yoma tractate), the most extensive premodern treatment of Day of Atonement ritual and theology
- Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed; Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah), the classical Jewish philosophical articulation of atonement and repentance
- Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, the foundational patristic Christ-typological reading of Yom Kippur
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation, develops the recapitulation model of atonement that complements the Levitical purgation reading
- Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, the medieval Western satisfaction model that has dominated much Protestant atonement theology
- Cyril of Alexandria, on John’s gospel, develops the Eastern Christological reading of Christ as the hilasmos (1 John 2:2; 4:10)
See How We Read for the longer lineage of this and the other frameworks on this site.
Core insights
The Hebrew kipper has a sanctuary-centered grammar. In Leviticus, the verb’s most common direct objects are not sin or the sinner but the altar, the holy place, the most holy place. The sacrifices purify the sanctuary, which has been polluted by Israel’s sins and impurities. This is the purgation reading (Milgrom). The deeper logic: YHWH dwells in the camp; sin and impurity build up in the camp; the sanctuary is at the camp’s center and absorbs the pollution; if the sanctuary becomes too polluted, YHWH’s presence will withdraw. The whole later prophetic warning about the kavod leaving the temple (Ezek 8-11) presumes this logic. The atonement system is cleaning the place where God lives.
The verbal root is debated but the function is clear. Kipper may derive from a root meaning to cover (parallel to Arabic kfr) or to wipe (parallel to Akkadian kuppuru) or to ransom (parallel to the Hebrew noun kofer, the redemption price). Each etymology illuminates a different aspect of how atonement works. The Hebrew Bible uses the verb in ways that fit all three. Modern translations have to pick one; readers do not.
The blood is the medium. Leviticus 17:11 states the principle directly: the life of the flesh is in the blood; I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement (le-kapper) for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life. Blood works because blood carries life. The Hebrew Bible’s whole theology of life-for-life exchange runs through this verse.
The Day of Atonement (Lev 16) is the system’s annual reset. Once a year, the high priest enters the most holy place with the blood of a bull (for his own household) and a goat (for the people), and sprinkles the kapporet (mercy seat) with blood. A second goat (the scapegoat, sent to Azazel) carries the people’s iniquities into the wilderness. The whole sanctuary, the whole priesthood, and the whole people are purged in a single ritual day. The chapter is the literary and theological center of Leviticus and the structural foundation of New Testament atonement theology.
The kapporet is the meeting place. The Hebrew kapporet (the gold lid of the ark, decorated with the two cherubim) is built on the same root as kipper. The Septuagint translates it as hilasterion (propitiation, mercy seat). Paul will use the same Greek word at Romans 3:25 to describe Christ: God put forward as a hilasterion. The chapter is teaching that the kipper-place is where YHWH meets Israel; the New Testament’s claim is that Christ has become that place.
The scapegoat carries what cannot be killed. The two goats of Leviticus 16 do different things. The first is slaughtered and its blood purifies the sanctuary. The second is not killed; it bears the iniquities of Israel into the wilderness alive. The chapter is teaching that atonement has two movements: purgation (cleansing the place where God lives) and removal (sending iniquity away). Both are necessary. The two-goat structure resists the modern reductive picture of atonement as a single transactional event.
Hebrews reads the system Christologically without flattening it. The book of Hebrews is the New Testament’s most extensive engagement with Levitical atonement theology. Christ is better priest (Heb 4:14-5:10), better sacrifice (Heb 9:11-14), better tabernacle (Heb 9:11; 10:19-22), and once for all (Heb 9:25-28). The author of Hebrews assumes a reader who knows Leviticus 16 in detail. The chapter’s category-by-category re-reading of the Levitical system is the New Testament’s clearest demonstration that atonement is not a single concept but a multi-stranded reality gathered up in the full Christ-event.
Atonement in Hebrews is located at the ascension, not at the cross alone. This is David Moffitt’s central contribution to the contemporary atonement conversation. In Leviticus 16, the slaughter of the goat happens at the outer altar; the kipper-making itself happens when the high priest brings the blood inside the Most Holy Place and sprinkles it on the kapporet (Lev 16:14-16). The slaughter is the precondition; the kipper is the bringing-of-the-life-into-the-presence. Hebrews follows this structure with precision. The cross corresponds to the slaughter: it provides the blood (the life). But the kipper itself happens when Christ, as the risen high priest, enters the heavenly Most Holy Place and presents his life before the Father (Heb 9:11-12, he entered once for all into the holy places … by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption; Heb 9:24, Christ has entered … into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf). The ascension is not a postscript to a completed atonement; the ascension is the atonement-making moment in Hebrews’s logic. The whole movement (cross-resurrection-ascension) is the full Day of Atonement enactment. The pastoral payoff: a Christian theology that locates atonement only at the cross has lost what Hebrews is actually saying. The resurrection and ascension are not optional features; they are constitutive of the atonement. The Lukan-Pauline emphasis on Christ at the right hand interceding for us (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 1 Jn 2:1) is the Day of Atonement’s high priest inside the sanctuary doing the work of kipper read forward into Christology.
Modern atonement theories all draw on Levitical roots. Christus Victor (Christ defeats the powers) draws on the scapegoat sent to Azazel. Penal substitution (Christ bears our punishment) draws on the chatta’t-as-life-for-life pattern. Satisfaction (Christ pays the debt) draws on the asham-as-reparation pattern. Recapitulation (Christ does as a human what humans failed to do) draws on the priest-as-representative pattern. Moral influence (the cross changes us by what it shows) draws on the prophetic interpretation of sacrifice (Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8). The framework is teaching that no single theory of atonement is sufficient on its own; each one is reading one of the Levitical strands.
Implications. This framework anchors Leviticus 4-7, all of Leviticus 16, the book of Hebrews, Romans 3:21-26 and 5:6-11, 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, the Synoptic passion narratives, and the entire Christian tradition’s debate about the meaning of the cross. To use the word atonement without locating it inside the Hebrew Bible’s specific vocabulary is to risk importing the wrong assumptions; locating it here keeps the conversation tied to what the Bible itself is doing.