All their iniquities: or “the punishment for all their guilt” (see also verses 16 and 21).

To a solitary land: literally “to a land of separation (or, cutting).” The Hebrew word for “separation” or “cutting” used here is found nowhere else in the Old Testament, so its origin and exact meaning are uncertain. It has been understood in different ways by scholars. New Jerusalem Bible translates “an inaccessible region”; New American Bible “an isolated region”; New Jerusalem Bible “some desolate place.” In this case it is synonymous with the word wilderness, which has as its main component of meaning the fact that no human beings live in the area. Good News Translation has, in fact, shortened and combined the two parts of this verse into a single statement, taking a solitary land and the wilderness together.

He shall let the goat go: this provides added support for the argument that the animal is led away rather than driven from the camp. Both Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Good News Translation have omitted this detail. Some versions take this last sentence as a temporal clause introducing the following verse. It is set off as a new paragraph in Bible en français courant and translated “As soon as the goat has been sent into the desert….”

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .