📖 Biblical Definition
The goat is a horned ruminant — both a clean Levitical sacrificial animal and, in Christ’s eschatological parable, a sobering negative type. As sacrifice: goats were offered as sin offerings (Leviticus 4:23-28; 5:6), as peace offerings, and most notably as the two goats of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) — one slain for the people’s sins, one driven into the wilderness as the scapegoat bearing iniquity away. In Christ’s parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), the goats are separated from the sheep at the final judgment and sent into eternal punishment: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire". Two destinies in one animal-type — the goat sacrificed for sin, and the goat judged for unbelief.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
GOAT, n.
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An animal of the genus Capra, having horns and a beard. The goat in scripture often signifies a leader; in Matt. 25, those who shall be condemned at the last judgment.
📖 Key Scripture
Leviticus 16:21 — "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel."
Matthew 25:33 — "He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."
Hebrews 9:12 — "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place."
Hebrews 10:4 — "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity flattens sheep and goats into “everyone is welcome”; Matthew 25 keeps the line.
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The Day of Atonement (Lev 16) used two goats: one slain for sin offering, one sent alive into the wilderness as scapegoat — the iniquities of Israel confessed over its head and carried away. Christ fulfills both: He is the slain goat whose blood enters the holy place, and the scapegoat who carries our iniquity outside the camp. Two halves of one work, finished in one Lord.
Matthew 25, however, keeps the line between sheep and goats sharp at the end. The Son of Man returning in glory separates them as a shepherd does — sheep on the right inherit the kingdom; goats on the left depart into everlasting fire. Modern universalist drift would erase the line; the parable refuses. The Lord who absorbed the goats' sins for sheep also separates the sheep from the goats at the end. Both truths stand.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew ez (H5795); Greek tragos (G5131).
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Usage
"Two goats on the Day of Atonement; both fulfilled in one Lord."
"The line between sheep and goats stands at the end — Matthew 25 refuses universalism."
"Christ absorbed the goats' sin for the sheep; the same Christ separates the sheep from the goats at His return."