1530, Tyndale's transliteration of Hebrew Tetragrammaton YHWH using vowel points of Adhonai "my lord" (see Yahweh). Used for YHWH (the full name being too sacred for utterance) in four places in the Old Testament in the KJV where the usual translation the lord would have been inconvenient; taken as the principal and personal name of God.
The vowel substitution was originally made by the Masoretes as a direction to substitute Adhonai for "the ineffable name." European students of Hebrew took this literally, which yielded Latin JeHoVa (first attested in writings of Galatinus, confessor to Leo X, 1516). Jehovah's Witnesses "member of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society" first attested 1933; the organization founded c. 1879 by Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916); the name from Isaiah xliii.10.
annual Jewish feast instituted to commemorate the escape from Egypt, 1530, coined by Tyndale from verbal phrase pass over, to translate Hebrew ha-pesah "Passover," from pesah (see paschal), in reference to the Lord "passing over" the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he killed the first-born of the Egyptians (Exodus xii). By extension including the following seven days during which the Israelites were permitted to eat only unleavened bread.
1530, "goat sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement as a symbolic bearer of the sins of the people," coined by Tyndale from scape, a shortening of escape (see scape (v.)) + goat; the whole word translating Latin caper emissarius, itself a translation in Vulgate of Hebrew 'azazel (Leviticus xvi.8, 10, 26), which was read as 'ez ozel "goat that departs," but which others hold to be the proper name of a devil or demon in Jewish mythology (sometimes identified with Canaanite deity Aziz).
Jerome's reading was followed by Martin Luther (der ledige Bock), Symmachus (tragos aperkhomenos), and others (compare French bouc émissaire), but the question of who, or what (or even where) is meant by 'azazel is a vexed one. The Revised Version (1884) simply restores Azazel. But the old translation has its modern defenders:
Azazel is an active participle or participial noun, derived ultimately from azal (connected with the Arabic word azala, and meaning removed), but immediately from the reduplicate form of that verb, azazal. The reduplication of the consonants of the root in Hebrew and Arabic gives the force of repetition, so that while azal means removed, azalzal means removed by a repetition of acts. Azalzel or azazel, therefore, means one who removes by a series of acts. ... The interpretation is founded on sound etymological grounds, it suits the context wherever the word occurs, it is consistent with the remaining ceremonial of the Day of Atonement, and it accords with the otherwise known religious beliefs and symbolical practices of the Israelites. [Rev. F. Meyrick, "Leviticus," London, 1882]
The transferred meaning "one who is blamed or punished for the mistakes or sins of others" is recorded by 1824; the verb is attested by 1884. Related: Scapegoated; scapegoating.
For the formation, compare scapegrace (which is perhaps modeled on this word), also scape-gallows "one who deserves hanging," scapethrift "spendthrift" (mid-15c.).
1530, Tyndale's word (Exodus xxv:30), based on or influenced by German schaubrot (in Luther), literally "show-bread," translating Latin panes propositiones, from Greek artai enopioi, from Hebrew lechem panim, the 12 loaves placed every Sabbath "before the Lord" on a table beside the altar of incense, from lechem "bread" + panim "face, presence." Old English translations used offring-hlafas.
