The identification of the scapegoat also involved the meaning of the word "Azazel" (ibid., pp. 234–237). On this point many non-Adventist scholars, such as Jenks, Spencer, Charles Beecher, and Matthew Henry, were quoted extensively. It was pointed out that both the Hebrews and the early Christians considered Azazel as the name of the devil, or a demon, and that the Syriac Azzail paralleled this usage. It was pointed out, further, that the use of the preposition "for," in the Hebrew of Lev. 16:8, implies that the lots were cast for a person—one for YHWH and one for Azazel. This would rule out Azazels being an impersonal name for evil. Also, it was pointed out that the Targums treated Azazel as a proper name, and that the Septuagint rendered it by apopompaios, a Greek word applied to a malign deity. This was also the position of the early Church Fathers. Origen said, "He who is called in the Septuagint apopompaios, and in the Hebrew Azazel, is no other than the devil."
In the Review and Herald for July 3, 1883 (60:424), Uriah Smith develops the subject at considerable length, listing reasons for considering Azazel as Satan: "The scape-goat having once been selected, it never after performed any office involving dignity or honour, or calling for any thing which would symbolise perfection of life or character. . . . The atonement is all made, sins are remitted, the records of the evil deeds of God’s people are blotted out, and they are forever freed from them, and these sins are all borne from the sanctuary, before ever Satan is called into requisition at all. God then simply uses him as the vehicle by which to make a final disposition of these sins in the lake of fire. Thus, so far as the work of atonement itself is concerned, the plan and work of mercy by which God’s people are forgiven their sins, Satan has no part to act."
