Desolate place/ forsaken place/ exile

Figuratively: a hard and bad place. A place of punishment (originally: the place where the scapegoat was sent to Azazel. 'Eretz Gezerah' originally means a desolate land).

("And the goat shall bear upon it all their iniquities unto a land of cutting off; and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness"—Leviticus 16:22, and also: "As if you would extend as far as the goat of Azazel / and how could you escape from a land of cutting off"—Yehuda Alharizi (12th century) / The marriage of an ugly woman, and also: "I know, my daughter, that I deserve to be sent to a land of cutting off, I am a husband to a wife and a father to a daughter, and I do not provide for them"—Agnon, Simple Story, 56)

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