Top Banner
LEVITICUS 12 COMMENTARY EDITED BY GLENN PEASE Purification After Childbirth 1 The Lord said to Moses, BARNES, "This chapter would more naturally follow the 15th chapter of Leviticus. See the note to Lev_15:1. GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... The laws in the preceding chapter were delivered both to Moses and Aaron, but what follows in this only to Moses; but inasmuch as the priest had a concern in it, it being his business to offer the sacrifices required by the following law, it was no doubt given to Moses, to be delivered to Aaron, as well as to the people. R. Semlai remarks, that as the creation of man was after that of the beasts, fowls, fishes, &c. so the laws concerning the uncleanness of men are after those relating to beasts, &c, and they begin with the uncleanness of a new mother, because, as Aben Ezra observes, the birth is the beginning of man: saying: as follows. HENRY 1-5, " The law here pronounces women lying-in ceremonially unclean. The Jews say, “The law extended even to an abortion, if the child was so formed as that the sex was distinguishable.” 1. There was some time of strict separation immediately after the birth, which continued seven days for a son and fourteen for a daughter, Lev_12:2, Lev_12:5. During these days she was separated from her husband and friends, and those that necessarily attended her were ceremonially unclean, which was one reason why the males were not circumcised till the eighth day, because they participated in the mother's pollution during the days of her separation. 2. There was also a longer time appointed for their purifying; thirty-three days more (forty in all) if the birth were a male, and double that time if a female, Lev_12:4, Lev_12:5. During this time they were only separated from the sanctuary and forbidden to eat of the passover, or peace-offerings, or, if a priest's wife, to eat of any thing that was holy to the Lord. Why the time of both those was double for a female to what it was for a male I can assign no reason but the will of the Law-maker; in Christ Jesus no difference is made of male and female, Gal_ 3:28; Col_3:11. But this ceremonial uncleanness which the law laid women in child-bed under was to signify the pollution of sin which we are all conceived and born in, Psa_ 51:5. For, if the root be impure, so is the branch, Who can bring a clean thing out of an 1
43

Leviticus 12 commentary

Apr 15, 2017

Download

Spiritual

GLENN PEASE
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Page 1: Leviticus 12 commentary

LEVITICUS 12 COMMENTARYEDITED BY GLENN PEASE

Purification After Childbirth1 The Lord said to Moses,

BARNES, "This chapter would more naturally follow the 15th chapter of Leviticus. See the note to Lev_15:1.GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... The laws in the preceding chapter were delivered both to Moses and Aaron, but what follows in this only to Moses; but inasmuch as the priest had a concern in it, it being his business to offer the sacrifices required by the following law, it was no doubt given to Moses, to be delivered to Aaron, as well as to the people. R. Semlai remarks, that as the creation of man was after that of the beasts, fowls, fishes, &c. so the laws concerning the uncleanness of men are after those relating to beasts, &c, and they begin with the uncleanness of a new mother, because, as Aben Ezra observes, the birth is the beginning of man: saying: as follows.HENRY 1-5, "

The law here pronounces women lying-in ceremonially unclean. The Jews say, “The law extended even to an abortion, if the child was so formed as that the sex was distinguishable.” 1. There was some time of strict separation immediately after the birth, which continued seven days for a son and fourteen for a daughter, Lev_12:2, Lev_12:5. During these days she was separated from her husband and friends, and those that necessarily attended her were ceremonially unclean, which was one reason why the males were not circumcised till the eighth day, because they participated in the mother's pollution during the days of her separation. 2. There was also a longer time appointed for their purifying; thirty-three days more (forty in all) if the birth were a male, and double that time if a female, Lev_12:4, Lev_12:5. During this time they were only separated from the sanctuary and forbidden to eat of the passover, or peace-offerings, or, if a priest's wife, to eat of any thing that was holy to the Lord. Why the time of both those was double for a female to what it was for a male I can assign no reason but the will of the Law-maker; in Christ Jesus no difference is made of male and female, Gal_3:28; Col_3:11. But this ceremonial uncleanness which the law laid women in child-bed under was to signify the pollution of sin which we are all conceived and born in, Psa_51:5. For, if the root be impure, so is the branch, Who can bring a clean thing out of an 1

Page 2: Leviticus 12 commentary

unclean? If sin had not entered, nothing but purity and honour had attended all the productions of that great blessing, Be fruitful and multiply; but now that the nature of man is degenerated the propagation of that nature is laid under these marks of disgrace, because of the sin and corruption that are propagated with it, and in remembrance of the curse upon the woman that was first in the transgression. That in sorrow (to which it is here further added in shame) she should bring forth children. And the exclusion of the woman for so many days from the sanctuary, and all participation of the holy things, signified that our original corruption (that sinning sin which we brought into the world with us) would have excluded us for ever from the enjoyment of God and his favours if he had not graciously provided for our purifying.

JAMISON, "Lev_12:1-8. Woman’s uncleanness by childbirth.

K&D, "Uncleanness and Purification after Child-Birth. - Lev_12:2-4. “If a woman bring forth seed and bear a boy, she shall be unclean seven days as in the days (ַּתְזִריעַ )of the uncleanness of her (monthly) sickness.” ִנָּדה, from ָנַדד to flow, lit., that which is to flow, is applied more especially to the uncleanness of a woman's secretions (Lev_15:19). ָתּה to be sickly or ill, is applied here and in Lev_15:33; Lev_20:18, to the ,ָּדָוה inf. of ,ְּדsuffering connected with an issue of blood.

COFFMAN, "Verse 1This little chapter is big in the difficulty of its interpretation. We have discovered practically no help from any source whatever in our efforts to unravel the mysteries of this remarkable chapter."And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman conceive seed, and bear a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of the impurity of her sickness shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. But if she bear a maid-child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her impurity; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days."The appearance here of the "forty" and "double forty" time periods is interesting. To each of the Numbers 33 days (Leviticus 12:4) and 66 days (Leviticus 12:5), one must add the seven days of Leviticus 12:2 and the fourteen days of Leviticus 12:5, making totals of 40,80. When a male child was circumcised on the "eighth day," that day was reckoned with the 33. The highly symbolical meaning of the number "forty" is frequently apparent in the Bible. There were forty-day fasts by Elijah, Moses and Christ. There were forty years of penalty inflicted upon Israel in the

2

Page 3: Leviticus 12 commentary

matter of their wilderness sojourn. "Forty" days and nights of rain brought the Great Deluge upon mankind.However, the matter of surpassing interest in this passage is the question of WHY double the days of purification were required for the mother of a female child, contrasting with only half that time for the mother of a man-child! A number of commentators such as Clements, Noth, and Gordon mentioned the diminished values that ancient societies placed upon girl children. Yes, it is true that ancient societies downgraded and despised female children, but there is no way to persuade a believer in Jesus Christ that Almighty God approved of such gross errors and honored them in the establishment of the rules mentioned here. No! That cannot be the case at all.This is true, first of all, because the text itself forbids such a view. There was no difference in God's sight between the value of a male or female child. Why? Exactly the same offering was to be brought to God for either, a lamb a year old, or in cases of poverty, two-turtle doves, or two young pigeons. This equality in the required offering (Leviticus 12:6) proves that God held male and female children EQUALLY PRECIOUS in His holy sight!In view of the naturalness, necessity, beauty and joy of childbirth, the question arises as to WHY any purification at all was required of the mother. Such a requirement must be lodged in the general sinfulness of mankind, who, in every pivotal relationship of life has always been required to acknowledge his sin and need of forgiveness from God. Note that in the purpose of the offering of the lamb, or the turtle-doves, that the object was not that of forgiving the infant, but of forgiving the mother (Leviticus 12:7). Failure to understand this vital fact has led to all kinds of wild speculations about ORIGINAL SIN. McGee and Kellogg, as well as others, have erred by their acceptance of such ideas. No sin of any kind attaches either to the female, or to the male child in this passage.Although there is no trace whatever here of original sin, there is nevertheless, a connection and a remembrance of the original transgression, namely, that of the Fall of Mankind, and of the leading part taken in that primeval disaster by our mother Eve. It will be remembered that a part of the double curse placed upon Eve had to do with the pains of childbirth, and the 80-day period of purification here (twice that for a male child) required for purification of the mother in case of the birth of a female child, is merely an effective and perpetual reminder of the penalty executed upon Eve and upon her gender. Was it appropriate that this penalty should thus have been in remembrance throughout the days of the Mosaic law? Certainly, because when it was forever removed in Jesus Christ, the contrast would appear glorious. It is the glory of the Son of God that he was "born of woman," "born under the law." The shorter period of purification for the male child was an eloquent manner of speaking to all generations of that salvation which would still come to humanity through the birth of that One referred to in Revelation as "a son, a He-Man child!" (Revelation 12:5).

3

Page 4: Leviticus 12 commentary

Efforts to de-sex the Bible have appeared in the current era, but the possibility of such efforts ever proving successful is nil. Sex is that of which life comes, and getting rid of it is impossible as long as life exists. The law of childbirth has not changed throughout the life of the race of Adam, and it is a safe postulation that it will never change."As in the days of the impurity of her sickness ... as in her impurity ..." These expressions in Leviticus 12:3 and Leviticus 12:5, are reference to the woman's menstrual cycle which also imposed upon her a period of uncleanness, and the double reference to it here indicates the connection between these ceremonies and the whole subject of childbearing.BENSON, "Leviticus 12:1. From uncleanness contracted by the touching or eating of external things, he now comes to that uncleanness which ariseth from ourselves.ELLICOTT, "(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—As the reason why God graciously addressed the regulation about the clean and unclean animals to Moses and Aaron conjointly (see Leviticus 11:1), no longer operates here, the Lord now addresses the laws of purification to the Lawgiver alone. The laws of defilement contracted from without by eating or coming in contact with unclean objects are naturally followed by precepts about defilement arising from within the human body itself. The spiritual guides in the time of Christ, however, account for the sequence of these laws by declaring that the arrangement follows the order of the Creation, Just as at the Creation God made the animals first, and then formed man, so in the laws of purity the animals take the precedence of man, and are treated of first.TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.Ver. 2. If a woman have conceived seed.] Or yielded seed, as Genesis 1:11. Urgendum hoc adversus Anabaptistas; qui, ut suos de humanae Christi naturae origine errores stabiliant, faeminas semen habere praefracte negant. {a} Hebraeorum magistri, ex eodem loco, [Genesis 1:11-12] colligunt marem edi quoties mulier semen mittere prior coeperit; foeminam, ubi vir. (b)Then she shall be unclean.] This signified that corruption of man’s nature wherein he is conceived, [Psalms 51:5] being condemned as soon as conceived, Damnatus antequam natus, (c) and the remedy we have in Christ. whedon, "Verse 1-22. She shall be unclean — It is a mystery that marriage, a sacrament of love, prefiguring the oneness of Christ and the Church, should attain its divinely

4

Page 5: Leviticus 12 commentary

appointed end only by entailing ceremonial impurity. But nothing more impressively teaches the depravity of the human race than the early announcement that both conception (Leviticus 15:16-18) and birth are inevitably attended by pollutions which imperatively demand purgation before the person of the parent can be acceptable to the holy Jehovah. This suggests the strong assertion of David respecting the moral corruption of his nature while in embryo, Psalms 51:5. When Richard Watson was asked for the strongest proof text of inherited depravity, or original sin, he quoted John 3:6.Seven days — This number of days makes the period of uncleanness the same length with the menstrual days of the separation. See Leviticus 15:19.EBC, "THE UNCLEANNESS OF CHILD BEARINGLeviticus 12:1-8THE reference in Leviticus 12:2 to the regulations given in Leviticus 15:19, as remarked in the preceding chapter, shows us that the author of these laws regarded the circumstances attending child birth as falling under the same general category, in a ceremonial and symbolic aspect, as the law of issues. As a special case, however, the law concerning child birth presents some very distinctive and instructive features.The period during which the mother was regarded as unclean, in the full comprehension of that term, was seven days, as in the analogous case mentioned in Leviticus 15:19, with the remarkable exception, that when she had borne a daughter this period was doubled. At the expiration of this period of seven days, her ceremonial uncleanness was regarded as in so far lessened that the restrictions affecting the ordinary relations of life, as ordered, Leviticus 15:19-23, were removed. She was not, however, yet allowed to touch any hallowed thing or to come into the sanctuary, until she had fulfilled, from the time of the birth of the child, if a son, forty days; if a daughter, twice forty, or eighty days. At the expiration of the longer period, she was to bring, as in the law concerning the prolonged issue of {Leviticus 15:25-30} a burnt offering and a sin offering unto the door of the tent of meeting, wherewith the priest was to make an atonement for her; when first she should be accounted clean, and restored to full covenant privileges. The only difference from the similar law in chapter 15 is in regard to the burnt offering commanded, which was larger and more costly, -a lamb, instead of a turtle dove, or a young pigeon. Still, in the same spirit of gracious accommodation to the poor which was illustrated in the general law of the sin offering, it was ordered (Leviticus 12:8): "If her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering." The law then applied, according to Leviticus 15:29-30. A gracious provision this was, as all will remember, of which the mother of our Lord availed herself, {Luke 2:22-24} as being one of those who were too poor to bring a lamb for a burnt offering.

5

Page 6: Leviticus 12 commentary

To the meaning of these regulations, the key is found in the same conceptions which we have seen to underlie the law concerning issues. In the birth of a child, the special original curse against the woman is regarded by the law as reaching its fullest, most consummate and significant expression. For the extreme evil of the state of sin into which the first woman, by that first sin, brought all womanhood, is seen most of all in this, that now woman, by means of those powers given her for good and blessing, can bring into the world only a child of sin. And it is, apparently, because we here see the operation of this curse in its most conspicuous form, that the time of her enforced separation from the tabernacle worship is prolonged to a period either of forty or eighty days.It has been usual to speak of the time of the mother’s uncleanness, and subsequent continued exclusion from the tabernacle worship, as being doubled in the case of the birth of a daughter; but it were, perhaps, more accurate to regard the normal length of these periods as being respectively fourteen and eighty days, of which the former is double of that required in Leviticus 15:28. This normal period would then be more properly regarded as shortened by one half in the case of a male child, in virtue of his circumcision on the eighth day.PETT, "Verse 1‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,’Once again it is stressed that this command came from Yahweh through Moses. But when we consider Leviticus 11:1 and Leviticus 13:1 we must ask, why only to Moses? The answer is probably because in this case the priests are not called on to judge anything. No one is required in order to declare that there has been a birth, the midwives would declare on the sex of the baby, and all would know the position with regard to cleanness and uncleanness. The expertise of the priests was not required.Again we have to note that the only limit on this section timewise is the death of Moses. But whenever it was given the mention of circumcision, which was not practised in the wilderness, was seen as preparation for a future in the land of Canaan (as specifically with houses later (Leviticus 14:34)). As the people waited in Kadesh almost on the border of the land, they still lived in expectancy of finally entering the land, and the Law was designed to encourage them in their expectation. PULPIT, "Verses 1-8EXPOSITIONUNCLEANNESS DERIVED FROM CHILDBIRTH.As there is a natural disgust felt for some kinds of food, which serves as a

6

Page 7: Leviticus 12 commentary

foundation for the precepts of the last chapter, so there is an instinct which regards some of the concomitants of childbirth, and some diseases, as foul and defiling. In accordance with these instincts, purifying rites are commanded for the restoration of those affected to ceremonial cleanness. These instincts and consequent regulations respecting women in childbirth are found in very many different nations. "The Hindoo law pronounced the mother of a newborn child to be impure for forty days, required the father to bathe as soon as the birth had taken place, and debarred the whole family for a period from religious rites, while they were 'to confine themselves to an inward remembrance of the Deity;' in a Brahmin family this rule extended to all relations within the fourth degree, for ten days, at the end of which they had to bathe. According to the Parsee law, the mother and child were bathed, and the mother had to live in seclusion for forty days, after which she had to undergo other purifying rites. The Arabs are said by Burekhardt to regard the mother as unclean for forty days. The ancient Greeks suffered neither childbirth nor death to take place within consecrated places; both mother and child were bathed, and the mother was not allowed to approach an altar for forty days. The term of forty days, it is evident, was generally regarded as a critical one for both the mother and the child. The day on which the Romans gave the name to the child—the eighth day for a girl, and the ninth for a boy—was called lustrieus dies, 'the day of purification,' because certain lustral rites in behalf of the child were performed on the occasion, and some sort of offering was made. The amphidromia of the Greeks was a similar lustration for the child, when the name was given, probably between the seventh and tenth days" (Clark).BI 1-8, "She shall Be unclean.Birth-sin and its developmentsThe theme of the chapter is the same as that of the one preceding and the one following. The subject is sin, portrayed by symbols. In the division of the animals into clean and unclean we had the nature of sin in its general character and outward manifestations. It is a brutalisation of humanity. It has its type in all sorts of savage, noxious, vile, annoying creatures. But this chapter presents another and still more affecting phase of man’s corruption. Surveying those masses of sin and vileness which hang about our world, the question arises, Whence comes it? How are we to account for it? It is useless to attribute it to errors in the structure of society, for society itself is the mere aggregate of human life, feelings, opinions, intercourse, agreement, and doings. It is man that corrupts society, and not society that corrupts man. The one may react very powerfully upon the other, but the errors and corruptions in both must have a common source. What is that seat? Penetrating to the moral signification of this chapter, we have the true answer. Sin is not only a grovelling brutality assumed or taken upon a man from without. It is a manifestation which comes from within. It is a corruption which cleaves to the nature, mingles with the very transmissions of life, and taints the vital forces as they descend from parent to child, from generation to generation. We are unclean, not only practically and by contact with a bad world, but innately. We were conceived in sin; we were shapen in iniquity. And it is just this that forms the real subject of this chapter. It is the type of the source and seat of human vileness. The uncleanness here spoken of is no more a real uncleanness than that attributed to certain animals in the preceding

7

Page 8: Leviticus 12 commentary

chapter. The whole regulation is ceremonial, and not at all binding upon us. It is an arbitrary law, made only for the time then present, as a figure of spiritual truths. Its great significance lies in its typical nature. And a more vivid and impressive picture can hardly be conceived. It imposes a special legal disability upon woman, and so connects with the fact that “the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1Ti_2:14). It is a vivid remembrancer of the occurrences in Eden. It tells us that we all have come of sinful mothers. It portrays defilement as the state in which we receive our being; for “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one” (Job_14:4). You may plant a good seed, and surround it with all the conditions necessary to a goodly plant; but it may put forth so eccentrically, or meet with some mishap in the incipient stages of its development, in consequence of which all its subsequent growth will be marred, and all its fruits give evidence of the adversities that befell it in the beginning. You may open a pure fountain, giving forth nothing but pure, good water; yet the issuing stream may touch upon poison and take up turbid corn-mixtures at its first departure from its source, and so carry and show pollution whithersoever it goes. And so it has been with humanity. It was created pure and good, but by that power of free choice which necessarily belongs to a moral being some of its first movements were eccentric and detrimental to its original qualities. It absorbed vileness at its very beginning; and hence all its subsequent develop-merits have upon them the taint of that first mishap and contagion. It is worse in some lines than in others. The operations of Divine grace in the parent doubtless help to enfeeble it in the child. Now it is just to this universal taint of human nature, derived from the defection of Adam, that the whole outgrowth of this world’s iniquity is to be traced. By virtue of our relation to an infected parentage we come into the world with more or less affinity for evil. The presentation of the objects to which this proclivity leans awakens those biases into activity. This awakening of the power of lust is what we call temptation. There is an innate taint or bias, the presentation to which of the objects of evil desire involuntarily excites lust; and from this has flown out the flood of evil which has deluged all the earth. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

In the eighth day the flesh . . . shall be circumcised.The ordinance of circumcisionAlthough the rite of circumcision here receives a new and special sanction, it had been appointed long before by God as the sign of His covenant with Abraham (Gen_17:10-14). Nor was it, probably, even then a new thing. That the ancient Egyptians practised it is well known; so also did the Arabs and Phoenicians; in fact, the custom has been very extensively observed, not only by nations with whom the Israelites came in contact, but by others who have not had, in historic times, connection with any civilised peoples, as, e.g., the Congo negroes and certain Indian tribes in South America. The fundamental idea connected with circumcision by most of the peoples who have practised it appears to have been physical purification; indeed, the Arabs call it by the name tatur, which has this precise meaning. And it deserves to be noticed that for this idea regarding circumcision there is so much reason in fact that high medical authorities have attributed to it a real hygienic value, especially in warm climates. No one need feel any difficulty in supposing that this common conception attached to the rite also in the minds of the Hebrews. Rather all the more fitting it was, if there was a basis in fact for this familiar opinion, that God should thus have taken a ceremony already known to the surrounding peoples, and in itself of a wholesome physical effect, and constituted it for

8

Page 9: Leviticus 12 commentary

Abraham and his seed a symbol of an analogous spiritual fact, namely, the purification of sin at its fountain-head, the cleansing of the evil nature with which we all are born. When the Hebrew infant was circumcised it was an outward sign and seal of the covenant of God with Abraham and with his seed to be a God to him and to his seed after him; and it signified further that this covenant of God was to be carried out and made effectual only through the putting away of the flesh, the corrupt nature with which we are born, and of all that belongs to it, in order that, thus circumcised with the circumcision of the heart, every child of Abraham might indeed be an Israelite in whom there should be no guile. And the law commands, in accord with the original command to Abraham, that the circumcision should take place on the eighth day. This is the more noticeable, that among other nations which practised or still practise the rite the time is different. The Egyptians circumcised their sons between the sixth and tenth years, the modern Mohammedans between the twelfth and fourteenth. What is the significance of this eighth day? In the first place, it is easy to see that we have in this direction a provision of God’s mercy; for if delayed beyond infancy or early childhood, as among many other peoples, the operation is much more serious, and may even involve some danger, while in so early infancy it is comparatively trifling, and attended with no risk. Further, by the administration of circumcision at the very opening of life it is suggested that in the Divine ideal the grace which was signified thereby, of the cleansing of nature, was to be bestowed upon the child, not first at a late period of life, but from its very beginning, thus anticipating the earliest awakening of the principle of inborn sin. But the question still remains, Why was the eighth day selected, and not rather, e.g., the sixth or seventh, which weald have no less perfectly represented these ideas? The answer is to be found in the symbolic significance of the eighth day. As the old creation was completed in six days, with a following Sabbath of rest, so that six is ever the number of the old creation, as under imperfection and sin, the eighth day, the first of a new week, everywhere in Scripture appears as the number symbolic of the new creation, in which all things shall be restored in the great redemption through the Second Adam. The thought finds its fullest expression in the resurrection of Christ, as the Firstborn from the dead, the Beginning and the Lord of the new creation, who in His resurrection body manifested the firstfruits in physical life of the new creation, rising from the dead on the first, or, in other words, the day after the seventh, the eighth day. (S. H. Kellogg, D. D.)

Her purifying.—Purification after child-birthThe teaching of this law is twofold: it concerns, first, the woman, and, secondly, the child which she bears. As regards the woman, it emphasises the fact that, because “first in the transgression,” she is under special pains and penalties in virtue of her sex. The capacity of motherhood, which is her crown and glory, though still a precious privilege, has yet been made, because of sin, an inevitable instrument of pain, and that because of her relation to the first sin. We are thus reminded that the specific curse denounced against the woman (Gen_3:16) is no dead letter, but a fact. No doubt the conception is one which raises difficulties which in themselves are great, and to modern thought are greater than ever. Nevertheless, the fact abides unaltered that even to this day woman is under special pains and disabilities inseparably connected with her power of motherhood. But why should all the daughters of Eve suffer because of her sin? Where is the justice in such an ordinance? A question this is to which we cannot yet give any satisfactory answer. But it does not follow that because in any proposition there are difficulties which at present we are unable to solve therefore the proposition is false.

9

Page 10: Leviticus 12 commentary

And, further, it is important to observe that this law, under which womanhood abides, is after all only a special case under that law of the Divine government by which the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children. It is most certainly a law which, to our apprehension, suggests great moral difficulties, even to the most reverent spirits; but it is no less certainly a law which represents a conspicuous and tremendous fact, which is illustrated, e.g., in the family of every drunkard in the world. And it is well worth observing that while the ceremonial law, which was specially intended to keep this fact before the mind and the conscience, is abrogated, tile fact that woman is stiff under certain Divinely-imposed disabilities because of that first sin is reaffirmed in the New Testament, and is by apostolic authority applied in the administration of Church government (1Ti_2:12-13). But, in the second place, we may also derive abiding instruction from this law concerning the child which is of man begotten and of woman born. It teaches us that not only has the curse thus fallen on the woman, but that, because she is herself a sinful creature, she can only bring forth another sinful creature like herself; and if a daughter, then a daughter inheriting all her own peculiar infirmities and disabilities. The law, as regards both mother and child, expresses in the language of symbolism those words of David in his penitential confession (Psa_51:5). Men may contemptuously call this “theology,” or even rail at it as “Calvinism”; but it is more than theology, more than Calvinism; it is a fact, to which until this present time history has seen but one exception, even that mysterious Son of the Virgin, who claimed, however, to be no mere man, but the Christ, the Son of the Blessed! And yet many, who surely can think but superficially upon the solemn facts of life, still object to this most strenuously, that even the new-born child should be regarded as in nature sinful and unclean. Difficulty here we must all admit—difficulty so great that it is hard to overstate it—regarding the bearing of this fact on the character of the holy and merciful God, who in the beginning made man; and yet, surely, deeper thought must confess that herein the Mosaic view of infant nature—a view which is assumed and taught throughout Holy Scripture—however humbling to our natural pride, is only in strictest accord with what the admitted principles of the most exact science compel us to admit. For whenever, in any case, we find all creatures of the same class doing, under all circumstances, any one thing, we conclude that the reason for this can only lie in the nature of such creatures, antecedent to any influence of a tendency to imitation. If, for instance, the ox everywhere and always eats the green thing of the earth, and not flesh, the reason, we say, is found simply in the nature of the ox as he comes into being. So when we see all men everywhere, under all circumstances, as soon as ever they come to the time of free moral choice, always choosing and committing sin, what can we conclude—regarding this not as a theological, but merely as a scientific question—but that man, as he comes into the world, must have a sinful nature? And this being so, then why must not the law of heredity apply, according to which, by a law which knows of no exceptions, like ever produces its like? Least of all, then, should those object to the view of child-nature which is represented in this law who accept these commonplaces of modern science as representing facts. Wiser it were to turn attention to the other teaching of the law, that, notwithstanding these sad and humiliating facts, there is provision made by God, through the cleansing by grace of the very nature in which we are born and atonement for the sin which without our fault we inherit, for a complete redemption from all the inherited corruption and guilt. And especially should Christian parents with joy and thankfulness receive the manifest teaching of this law, that God our Father offers to parental faith Himself to take in hand our children, even from the earliest beginning of their infant days, and, purifying the fountain of their life through “a circumcision made 10

Page 11: Leviticus 12 commentary

without hands,” receive the little ones into covenant relation with Himself, to their eternal salvation. (S. H. Kellogg D. D.).

2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.

CLARKE, "If a woman have conceived - In the extent mentioned here the ordinances of this chapter have little relation to us: and to inquire into their physical reasons, as far as they related to the Jews, could afford but little edification; and to make such a subject sufficiently plain would require such minute examination and circumstantial detail as could scarcely be proper for several readers. All that is necessary to be said the reader will find on Lev_12:4.

GILL, "Speak unto the children of Israel,.... For this law only concerned them, and not other nations of the world: if a woman have conceived seed; by lying with a man, and so becomes pregnant, and goes on with her pregnancy until she brings forth a child. The Jews from hence gather, that this law respects abortions; that if a woman has conceived and miscarries, eighty one days after the birth of a female, and forty one after a male, she must bring her offering (m); but the law seems only to regard such as are with child, and proceed to the due time of childbirth, whether then the child is born alive or dead: and born a man child; which is, generally speaking, not only matter of joy to the mother, but to the whole family, see Joh_16:21 then she shall be unclean seven days; be separate from all company, except those whose presence is necessary to take care of her in her circumstances, and do what is proper for her, and even these became ceremonially unclean thereby; yea, her husband was not permitted to sit near her, nor to eat and drink with her: according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean; the same number of days, even seven, she was unclean on account of

11

Page 12: Leviticus 12 commentary

childbirth, as she was for her monthly courses, called here an infirmity or sickness, incident to all females when grown up, at which time they were separate from all persons; and the case was the same with a new mother; see Lev_15:14. JAMISON, "If a woman, etc. — The mother of a boy was ceremonially unclean for

a week, at the end of which the child was circumcised (Gen_17:12; Rom_4:11-13); the mother of a girl for two weeks (Lev_12:5) - a stigma on the sex (1Ti_2:14, 1Ti_2:15) for sin, which was removed by Christ; everyone who came near her during that time contracted a similar defilement. After these periods, visitors might approach her though she was still excluded from the public ordinances of religion [Lev_12:4].CALVIN, "2.If a woman have conceived seed. This ceremony had reference to two points; for, first, the Jews were reminded by it of the common corruption of our nature; and secondly, the remedy of the evil was set before them. There is little difficulty in understanding why a woman who has conceived and given birth to a child, should be pronounced unclean; viz., because the whole race of Adam is polluted and defiled, so that the woman already contracts uncleanness from the offspring which she bears in the womb, and is further contaminated by giving it birth. Hence it appears how foul and disgusting in God’s sight is our condition, since at our birth, and even before it, we infect our mothers. It has been almost universally, but very absurdly, considered that nothing is here condemned but libidinous intercourse between male and female; whereas the purification is not required except there be offspring; and to this the word תזריע, thazriang, refers, which can only be properly translated by insemination, and therefore it must be carefully observed that impurity in intercourse is not generally condemned here, but in generation. For the cohabitation of man and woman in itself, without reference to offspring, is a matter of shame and indecency; but here the procreation of children, which should remove this indecency, is accounted the cause of pollution, because the whole race of Adam is full of contagion. Hence the error of Pelagius (341) is clearly refuted, who denied that the sin of Adam was propagated among his descendants, and pretended that we contracted sin from our parents not by origin, but by imitation. For the mother would not be unclean if the children were pure and free from all defilement. Therefore God would by this rite teach His ancient, people that all men are born accursed, and bring into the world with them an hereditary corruption which pollutes their very mothers. If any object that holy matrimony is thus brought into disgrace and disrepute, the reply is easy, that if the marriage couch is free from stain, it is due to the indulgence of God. When therefore the husband and wife procreate children in lawful wedlock, it is not to be considered simply permitted, as if the generation were altogether without impurity, but by special privilege and indulgence; because the sanctity of marriage covers what otherwise might be imputed to blame, and purifies the very defilements of our guilty nature. Whence it is plain that marriage, through which the procreation of children becomes lawful, has nothing disgraceful about it. Yet it does not follow that the children who are thus engendered are holy and free from stain; for those who are born to unbelievers, remain under the guilt of the curse; and those who owe their birth to believers, are delivered from the common perdition by supernatural grace,

12

Page 13: Leviticus 12 commentary

and special adoption. And this God desired openly and distinctly to testify, by requiring a sacrifice for their purification. For although Moses seems only to speak of the mother, St. Luke, (342) his faithful interpreter, includes also the infant. If it be asked whether circumcision would not suffice to remove the stain of corrupt nature, I reply that hence it more clearly appears how great is our impurity, since God was not content with one symbol for its expurgation, but in order that He might exercise His people in continual meditation upon it, added another subsidiary sign, and did this especially because He knew how profound is men’s hypocrisy, with what self-complacency they flatter themselves in vice, how difficult it is to humble their pride, and, when they are forced to acknowledge their miseries, how easily forgetfulness creeps over them. Wherefore, when circumcision is expressly mentioned here, I presume it is by anticipation, lest the Israelites should object that circumcision was given them for the very purpose of altogether removing the curse; and therefore God signifies that, although circumcision should precede it, still the purification which He here enjoins would not be superfluous. The foolish comments of the Rabbins on this passage respecting seed, are both ridiculous in themselves, and unfitted by their filthiness for modest ears; since, as we have said, the simple intention of Moses was that the woman should undergo purification, if offspring should follow her intercourse. Now, since the Son of God, although He was not only pure, but purity itself, still was the representative of the human race, He subjected himself to the Law; and (as Paul teaches) submitted Himself to the Law, “to redeem them that were under the Law.” ( Galatians 3:13) And, by this His voluntary submission to it, He abrogated the old rite; so that it is not now necessary to bring infants to the visible tabernacle with the sacrifices, but all purity is to be sought in Himself. BENSON, "Leviticus 12:2. Seven days — Not for any filthiness which was either in the conception, or in bringing forth, but to signify the universal and deep pollution of man’s nature, even from the birth, and from the conception. Seven days, or thereabouts, nature is employed in the purgation of most women. Her infirmity — Her monthly infirmity. And it may note an agreement therewith not only in the time, (Leviticus 15:19,) but in the degree of uncleanness.ELLICOTT, " (2) If a woman have conceived seed.—Rather, if a woman bringeth forth seed, that is, is delivered of a child. (See Genesis 1:11-12; Genesis 1:29.) This general statement is afterwards specified by the phrases “and born a man child,” and “bear a maid child,” in the verse before us, and in Leviticus 12:5. Thus the regulations about impurity naturally begin with the beginning of life. According to the administrators of the law during the second Temple, the regulations here set forth with regard to the deliverance are in force even when it is an untimely birth, or when the child is born dead, provided it has a perfect shape, which it assumes after forty days of its conception. Amongst the Hindoos, too, the mother in case of a miscarriage remains in a state of defilement as many nights as months have elapsed since her conception.And born a man child.—Better, and giveth birth to a male child. The expression

13

Page 14: Leviticus 12 commentary

rendered here in the Authorised Version by “a man child” is translated in Leviticus 12:7 simply “male.” In so short a paragraph discussing the same enactment it is important that words identical in the original should be translated uniformly in English.She shall be unclean seven days.—Though the issue of blood which succeeds child-birth generally only lasts three or four days, yet the period of uncleanness is extended to seven days to include exceptional cases.According to the days . . . . —Better, as in the days of the uncleanness of her monthly courses, that is, her uncleanness is to be of the same duration, and she is to observe the same rules, and be subjected to the same restraints as during the period of her menstruation. (See Leviticus 15:19.) The fact that reference is here made to the regulations about the periodical impurity of women which have not as yet been laid down shows that, like other laws, this law was already known to and generally practised by the Jews before it was finally fixed in the Levitical code.PETT, "Verse 2“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If a woman conceive seed, and bear a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days, as in the days of the impurity of her sickness shall she be unclean.”Firstly it is emphasised that the woman who gave birth was to be seen as unclean ‘for seven days’, as she was in the case of menstruation (the days of her impurity -see Leviticus 15:19, another case where a sacrifice was also required). After all similar blood flows came from her in both cases. The flow of blood was a constant reminder of the woman’s mortality. It also rendered her untouchable at the time, especially by men.Whether it was seen as a reminder of prospective death, only averted by the later intended sacrifice, or whether rather it was seen as indicating that the woman was in an ‘imperfect’ and life diminishing state, and therefore at the time a blemished state, is something that cannot be demonstrated. But clearly she was seen as at that time ‘not her whole self’, and in no condition to approach God. Through childbirth she was undergoing the consequences of the fall afresh. She was unclean.So a divinely perfect period, seven days (or for a girl twice seven days), the number of days connected with creation, was to be allowed for her first recovery. It was a period of severe uncleanness. She was enduring all the consequences of the fall. The number seven was a number used of divinely perfect and completed activity, and ‘seven days’ was the period of creation, Thus it may here have been seen as being in order that God might do His re-creating work in restoring her. Or it may simply be because seven was for all nations seen as a divine number of completeness. And it was after all in a sense already prescribed for in the covenant of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14). It fitted in with circumcising a boy child on the eighth day.

14

Page 15: Leviticus 12 commentary

This period then emphasised man’s fallen state. During this period of serious uncleanness the woman would be left relatively alone, helped only by those women (such as her mother) who were prepared to become unclean by helping her. And the child too would be unclean, if only because of contact with its mother. But at the end of the seven days, in the case of a boy, the severe uncleanness would be seen as at an end, to be followed on the eighth day with a ceremony in which blood was spilt, and in which the child was welcomed into the people of God. Hopefully by this stage the blood flow would have ceased, to be followed by the continuing discharge of lockia which would not be seen as outwardly as serious, and therefore was seen as occurring in a period of lesser uncleanness. PULPIT, "Leviticus 12:2-4She shall be unclean seven days. The mother is to be unclean seven days, and after that to be in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days (Leviticus 12:4). The difference between these two states maybe seen by looking on to Le Leviticus 15:19-28, and comparing that passage with Leviticus 15:4 of this chapter. In the first stage, during the seven days, she made all that she touched unclean; in the second stage, during the thirty-three days, she was only required to touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, as she was progressing towards cleanness. The number of days during which she is to be altogether unclean is to be according to the days of the separation for her infirmity, that is, seven days, as in the case of her monthly courses (see Le Leviticus 15:19). In the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. The Levitical legislation recognizes the regulation as to the day of the circumcision made at the time of the covenant with Abraham. "And he that is eight days old (or a son of eight days) shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations" (Genesis 17:12). Until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. "When in a state of impurity, the Hebrews were forbidden to enter the sanctuary, to keep the Passover, and to partake of holy food, whether of sacrificial meat, of sacred offerings and gifts, or of shew-bread, because the clean only were fit to approach the holy God and all that appertains to him (Leviticus 7:19-21; Leviticus 22:3; Numbers 9:6; Numbers 18:11; 1 Samuel 21:5)' (Kalisch).

3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised.

BARNES, "On circumcision, see Gen_17:5 note.

15

Page 16: Leviticus 12 commentary

CLARKE, "And in the eighth day - Before this time the child could scarcely be considered as having strength sufficient to bear the operation; after this time it was not necessary to delay it, as the child was not considered to be in covenant with God, and consequently not under the especial protection of the Divine providence and grace, till this rite had been performed. On circumcision see Clarke’s note on Gen_17:10. Circumcision was to every man a constant, evident sign of the covenant into which he had entered with God, and of the moral obligations under which he was thereby laid. It was also a means of purity, and was especially necessary among a people naturally incontinent, and in a climate not peculiarly favorable to chastity. This is a light in which this subject should ever be viewed, and in which we see the reasonableness, propriety, expediency, and moral tendency of the ceremony.

GILL, "And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.Or the foreskin of his flesh, that is, of the man child born according to the law, Gen_17:12 and this seems to furnish out a reason why a male child was not circumcised before the eighth day, and why it was then, because before that its mother was in her separation and uncleanness, and then was freed from it; and so the Targum of Jonathan. The circumcision of a male child on the eighth day was religiously observed, and even was not omitted on account of the sabbath, when the eighth day happened to be on that; see Gill on Joh_7:22, Joh_7:23. It is an observation of Aben Ezra on this place, that the wise men say "in the day", and not in the night, lo, he that is born half an hour before the setting of the sun is circumcised after six days and a half, for the day of the law is not from time to time.ELLICOTT, "(3) And in the eighth day.—When the seven days had passed by during which the mother remained un clean, the boy is to be circumcised, since on the eighth day the first period of her extreme state of impurity ceases, and she no more imparts defilement to whomsoever or to whatsoever she touches. For the rite of circumcision, see Genesis 17:10; Genesis 17:13.WHEDON, "Verse 33. Foreskin… circumcised — The sign of the covenant (Genesis 17:11) in the excision of a portion of the genitals, expresses with painful emphasis the fact that impurity presides over the very fountain of humanity and taints all its issues. Circumcision implies depravity and symbolizes spiritual regeneration, (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4,) as does water-baptism, which takes its place in the new covenant. Colossians 2:11-12. While all are born sinful, none are born guilty, because our race is propagated under the dispensation of mercy extending from the first gospel promise (Genesis 3:15) to the day of judgment. As every Hebrew male child inherited a right to the sign of the first covenant, so, now that the middle wall is broken down (Ephesians 2:14, note) and the disabilities of sex are abolished, (Galatians 3:28, note,) every infant has a right to the seal of the new covenant, through which he is saved until he wilfully rejects it. Under both covenants God designed that grace should flow down the ages in the family relation.

16

Page 17: Leviticus 12 commentary

EBC, "THE ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISIONLeviticus 12:3"And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."Although the rite of circumcision here receives a new and special sanction, it had been appointed long before by God as the sign of His covenant with Abraham. {Genesis 17:10-14} Nor was circumcision, probably, even then a new thing. That the ancient Egyptians practised it is well known; so also did the Arabs and Phoenicians; in fact, the custom has been very extensively observed, not only by nations with whom the Israelites came in contact, but by others who have not had, in historic times, connection with any civilised peoples; as, for example, the Congo negroes, and certain Indian tribes in South America.The fundamental idea connected with circumcision, by most of the peoples who have practised it, appears to have been physical purification; indeed, the Arabs call it by the name tatur, which has this precise meaning. And it deserves to be noticed that for this idea regarding circumcision there is so much reason in fact, that high medical authorities have attributed to it a real hygienic value, especially in warm climates.No one need feel any difficulty in supposing that this common conception attached to the rite also in the minds of the Hebrews. Rather all the more fitting it was, if there was a basis in fact for this familiar opinion, that God should thus have taken a ceremony already known to the surrounding peoples, and in itself of a wholesome physical effect, and constituted it for Abraham and his seed a symbol of an analogous spiritual fact; namely, the purification of sin at its fountainhead, the cleansing of the evil nature with which we all are born. It should be plain enough that it makes nothing against this as the true interpretation of the rite, even if that be granted which some have claimed, that it has had, in some instances, a connection with the phallic worship so common in the East, or that it has been regarded by some as a sacrificial ceremony. Only the more noteworthy would it thus appear that the Hebrews should have held strictly to that view of its significance which had a solid basis in physical fact, -a fact, moreover, which made it a peculiarly fitting symbol of the spiritual grace which the Biblical writers connect with it. For that it was so regarded by them will not be disputed. In this very book {Leviticus 26:41} we read of an "uncircumcised heart"; as also in Deuteronomy, the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and other books of Scripture.All this, as intimating the signification of circumcision as here enjoined, is further established by the New Testament references. Of these the most formal is perhaps that in Colossians 2:10-11, where we read that believers in Christ, in virtue of their union with Him in whom the unclean nature has been made clean, are said to be "circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the

17

Page 18: Leviticus 12 commentary

body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ"; so that Paul elsewhere writes to the Philippians: {Philippians 3:3} "We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."And that God, in selecting this ancient rite to be the sign of His covenant in the flesh of Abraham and his seed, {Genesis 17:13} had regard to the deep spiritual meaning which it could so naturally carry is explicitly declared by the Apostle Paul, {Romans 4:11} who tells us that this sign of circumcision was "a seal of the righteousness of faith," even the righteousness and the faith concerning which, in the previous context, he was arguing; and which are still, for all men, the one, the ground, and the other, the condition, of salvation. It is truly strange that, in the presence of these plain words of the Apostle, any should still cling to the idea that circumcision had reference only to the covenant with Israel as a nation, and not, above all, to this profound spiritual truth which is basic to salvation, whether for the Jew or for the Gentile.And so, when the Hebrew infant was circumcised, it signified for him and for his parents these spiritual realities. It was an outward sign and seal of the covenant of God with Abraham and with his seed, to be a God to him and to his seed after him; and it signified further that this covenant of God was to be carried out and made effectual only through the putting away of the flesh, the corrupt nature with which we are born, and of all that belongs to it, in order that, thus circumcised with the circumcision of the heart, every child of Abraham might indeed be an Israelite in whom there should be no guile.And the law commands, in accord with the original command to Abraham, that the circumcision should take place on the eighth day. This is the more noticeable, that among other nations which practised, or still practise, the rite, the time is different. The Egyptians, for example, circumcised their sons between the sixth and tenth years, and the modern Mohammedans between the twelfth and fourteenth year. What is the significance of this eighth day?In the first place, it is easy to see that we have in this direction a provision of God’s mercy; for if delayed beyond infancy or early childhood, as among many other peoples, the operation is much more serious, and may even involve some danger; while in so early infancy it is comparatively trifling, and attended with no risk.Further, by the administration of circumcision at the very opening of life, it is suggested that in the Divine ideal the grace which was signified thereby, of the cleansing of nature, was to be bestowed upon the child, not first at a late period of life, but from its very beginning, thus anticipating the earliest awakening of the principle of inborn sin. It was thus signified that before ever the child knew, or could know, the grace that was seeking to save him, he was to be taken into covenant relation with God. So even under the strange form of this ordinance we discover the same mind that was in Him who said concerning infant children: {Luke 18:16} "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such

18

Page 19: Leviticus 12 commentary

is the kingdom of God." Thus we may well recollect, in passing, that, although the law has passed away in the Levitical form, the mind of the Lawgiver concerning the little children of His people is still the same.But the question still remains, Why was the eighth day selected, and not rather, for instance, the sixth or the seventh, which would have no less perfectly represented these ideas? The answer is to be found in the symbolic significance of the eighth day. As the old creation was completed in six days, with a following Sabbath of rest, so that six is ever the number of the old creation, as under imperfection and sin; the eighth day, which is the first day of a new week, everywhere in Scripture appears as the number symbolic of the new creation, in which all things shall be restored in the great redemption through the Second Adam. The thought finds its fullest expression in the resurrection of Christ, as the Firstborn from the dead, the Beginning and the Lord of the new creation, who in His resurrection body manifested the first fruits in physical life of the new creation, rising from the dead on the first, or, in other words, the day after the seventh, the eighth day. This gives the key to the use of the number eight in the Mosaic symbolism. Thus in the law of the cleansing of the man or the woman that had an issue, the sacrifices which effectuated their formal deliverance from the curse under which, through the weakness of their old nature, they had suffered, were to be offered on the eighth day; {Leviticus 15:14; Leviticus 15:29} the priestly cleansing of the leper from the taint of his living death was also effected on the eighth day; {Leviticus 14:10} so also the cleansing of the Nazarite who had been defiled by the dead. {Numbers 6:10} So also the holy convocation which closed the feast of tabernacles or ingathering - the feast which, as we shall see, typically prefigured the great harvest of which Christ was the First fruits-was ordained, in like manner, for the eighth day. {Leviticus 23:36} With good reason, then, was circumcision ordered for the eighth day, seeing that what it symbolically signified was precisely this: the putting off of the flesh with which we are born through the circumcision of Christ, and therewith the first beginning of a new and purified nature-a change so profound and radical, and in which the Divine efficiency is so immediately concerned, that Paul said of it that if any man was in Christ, in whose circumcision we are circumcised, {Colossians 2:11} "there is a new creation". {2 Corinthians 5:17, margin, R.V}PETT, "Verse 3“And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.”At the stage in fact when this law was first communicated, circumcision could not take place. It would have been unwise while constantly on the move. The instructions were thus in the final analysis for when they settled in the land. They were in the light of the soon anticipated entry into Canaan. (These instructions may have been given prior to the disobedience that cancelled that entry, thus with its full application being delayed, or it may have been shortly before Moses’ death, and used as an incentive to press the people to go forward).

19

Page 20: Leviticus 12 commentary

Looked at in practical terms the seven days would also be necessary because time had to be given to her for recovery before she attended at the circumcision of a male child (see Genesis 17:10-14; Genesis 21:4). While circumcision was mainly seen as the father’s responsibility, unless he was too ill for it (Exodus 4:24-26), God graciously provided so that the woman could be fit enough to be present. He was her son too.The circumcision would be performed, usually by the father, using a flint knife, by removing the foreskin. It was the shedding of covenant blood to seal the child in the covenant. It is probable that it was also seen as acting as a kind of blood offering, declaring the redemption of the child, and thus lessening the time needed for recovery in the case of a male child. They would have noticed that discharges of lochia did not occur for so long a period in the case of a male child.The use of a flint knife for circumcision, following ancient tradition (see Exodus 4:25), was in fact much safer than using a metal knife, for the flint was naturally sterilised. It is also an interesting medical fact that the eighth day was probably the best and most painless period after birth for carrying out this operation. Up to about the fifth day the newborn babe was susceptible to haemorrhage, later the nerves would have become more sensitive.Circumcision was a sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 17. Every male child who was to be seen as a true born Israelite had to be circumcised, and by it he became a member of the covenant people. It was also open to ‘strangers’ who wished to eventually become ‘true born Israelites’ (Exodus 12:48). But it was not carried out during the travels in the wilderness, presumably precisely because they were travelling, and it would be inconvenient, and then because of the breach with God which resulted in the stay at the oases around Kadesh. In one sense the covenant was seen as pending.This non circumcision of the people may have been significant even though it is never explained, especially as it continued in the long period at Kadesh. It would seem that it was linked with the future hope. At first it was probably practical. Circumcision could be tricky while on the move. But it then probably became theological. They would be circumcised once they entered the land of Promise. And until that they were not worthy. The covenant was temporarily partly in suspense until contempt had been purged by the dying out of those who had refused to obey God’s command to enter the land (Numbers 14).All the people who entered the Promised Land who had not been circumcised in Egypt (including the mixed multitude of Exodus 12:38) would in fact be circumcised on reaching it (Joshua 5:2-9). And the blood that was shed in the act of circumcision would almost certainly have been seen in sacrificial terms as making atonement. It was certainly seen as vital for a servant of God (compare Exodus 4:24-26). And from that day on these provisions would apply at every birth.

20

Page 21: Leviticus 12 commentary

So the childbearer was through this law of uncleanness going through a repeat of the curse. And that is why sacrifices would have to be offered. Then God would normally give back to her the gift of life, and she would be clean, and her ordeal would be over. So was it indicated that in every birth a sinner was born, affected by the fall, and so was it revealed that he/she would be graciously received by God and be made ‘clean’, restored to the state intended for God’s people. And so would it also be revealed that she was delivered by God in her childbearing (compare 1 Timothy 2:15).

4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.

BARNES, "The Levitical law ascribed impurity exclusively to the mother, in no degree to the Child.

CLARKE, "The blood of her purifying - A few words will make this subject sufficiently plain.

1. God designs that the human female should bring forth children.2. That children should derive, under his providence, their being, all their solids and all their fluids, in a word, the whole mass of their bodies, from the substance of the mother.3. For this purpose he has given to the body of the female an extra quantity of blood and nutritious juices.4. Before pregnancy this superabundance is evacuated at periodical times.5. In pregnancy, that which was formerly evacuated is retained for the formation and growth of the fetus, or the general strengthening of the system during the time of pregnancy.6. After the birth of the child, for seven or fourteen days, more or less according to certain circumstances, that superabundance, no longer necessary for the growth of the child as before, continues to be evacuated: this was called the time of the female’s purification among the Jews.7. When the lacerated vessels are rejoined, this superfluity of blood is returned into the general circulation, and, by a wise law of the Creator, becomes principally

21

Page 22: Leviticus 12 commentary

useful to the breasts, and helps in the production of milk for the nourishment of the new-born infant.8. And thus it continues till the weaning of the child, or renewed pregnancy takes place. Here is a series of mercies and wise providential regulations which cannot be known without being admired, and which should be known that the great Creator and Preserver may have that praise from his creatures which his wonderful working demands.The term purifying here does not imply that there is any thing impure in the blood at this or the other times referred to above; on the contrary, the blood is pure, perfectly so, as to its quality, but is excessive in quantity for the reasons above assigned. The idle tales found in certain works relative to the infectious nature of this fluid, and of the female in such times are as impious as they are irrational and absurd.

GILL, "And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days,.... That is, so many more, in all forty; for though at the end of seven days she was in some respects free from her uncleanness, yet not altogether, but remained in the blood of her purifying, or in the purifying of her blood, which was more and more purified, and completely at the end of forty days: so with the Persians it is said, a new mother must avoid everything for forty days; when that time is passed, she may wash and be purified (n); and which perhaps Zoroastres, the founder of the Persian religion, at least the reformer of it, being a Jew, as is by some supposed, he might take it from hence: she shall touch no hallowed thing; as the tithe, the heave offering, the flesh of the peace offerings, as Aben Ezra explains it, if she was a priest's wife: nor come into the sanctuary; the court of the tabernacle of the congregation, or the court of the temple, as the same writer observes; and so with the Greeks, a pregnant woman might not come into a temple before the fortieth day (o), that is, of her delivery: until the days of her purifying be fulfilled; until the setting of the sun of the fortieth day; on the morrow of that she was to bring the atonement of her purification, as Jarchi observes; See Gill on Lev_12:6. (n) Lib. Shad-der, port. 86. apud Hyde Hist. Relig. Vet. Pers. p. 478. (o) Censorinus apud Grotium in loc.K&D, "And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days,.... That is, so many more, in all forty; for though at the end of seven days she was in some respects free from her uncleanness, yet not altogether, but remained in the blood of her purifying, or in the purifying of her blood, which was more and more purified, and completely at the end of forty days: so with the Persians it is said, a new mother must avoid everything for forty days; when that time is passed, she may wash and be purified (n); and which perhaps Zoroastres, the founder of the Persian religion, at least the reformer of it, being a Jew, as is by some supposed, he might take it from hence:

22

Page 23: Leviticus 12 commentary

she shall touch no hallowed thing; as the tithe, the heave offering, the flesh of the peace offerings, as Aben Ezra explains it, if she was a priest's wife: nor come into the sanctuary; the court of the tabernacle of the congregation, or the court of the temple, as the same writer observes; and so with the Greeks, a pregnant woman might not come into a temple before the fortieth day (o), that is, of her delivery: until the days of her purifying be fulfilled; until the setting of the sun of the fortieth day; on the morrow of that she was to bring the atonement of her purification, as Jarchi observes; See Gill on Lev_12:6. (n) Lib. Shad-der, port. 86. apud Hyde Hist. Relig. Vet. Pers. p. 478. (o) Censorinus apud Grotium in loc.CALVIN, "4.And she shall then continue. The uncleanness of seven days in the case of a male, and fourteen days for a female, has reference to the hemorrhage, as we shall also see elsewhere of the menstrual discharge. For the remainder of the time she is forbidden to take part in religious services, and to approach the sanctuary, (by which word the court is here meant,) and thus is accounted unholy, not only that she should herself lament her condition, but that her husband also, admonished by the sight, should learn to abhor and detest original sin. For this was a serious exhortation to repentance, when they acknowledged that they were contaminated in their offspring, wherein otherwise God’s blessing manifests itself. The question now arises, why the time of purification is double for a female child? Some ascribe this to a natural cause, viz., because the hemorrhage is then of longer continuance; and in truth it was a part of chastity and continence, that husbands should not then come near their wives. But inasmuch as the object of this ceremony was different, viz., as an indication of the curse on the whole human race, we must look more attentively in this direction. I know not whether the view is sound which some take, that the mother is more defiled by female offspring, because there is more disposition to vice in this sex. Perhaps, it is more probable, as some think, that it was because the woman was the beginning of the rebellion, when, being deceived by the serpent, she destroyed her husband with her, and drew her posterity into the same ruin. But it seems more correct to me that the punishment in regard to males was lightened and diminished by circumcision. For although in that symbol God consecrated both sexes, yet He honored males with special favor, by engraving His covenant on their flesh.Wherefore, also, He expressly mentions their circumcision, whereby a dignity was imparted to them, which rendered them superior to females. At the end of the chapter; regard is had to the poor, lest, being burdened by too great an expense, they might be rendered less ready to obey the Law: whence we gather that God has no care for outward pomp and wealth, since the humble sacrifice of the poor, according to the measure of their poverty, is no less grateful to Him than the more valuable one of the rich. BENSON, "Verse 4

23

Page 24: Leviticus 12 commentary

Leviticus 12:4. In the blood of her purifying — In her polluted and separated estate; for the word blood, or bloods, signifies both guilt and uncleanness, as here and elsewhere. And it is called the blood of her purifying, because by the expulsion or purgation of that blood, which is done by degrees, she is purified. No hallowed thing — She shall not eat any part of the peace- offerings which she or her husband offered, which otherwise she might have done; and, if she be a priest’s wife, she shall not eat any of the tithes or first-fruits, or part of the hallowed meats, which at other times she, together with her husband, might eat.ELLICOTT, "(4) Continue in the blood of her purifying.—Better, continue in the blood of purification, that is, pure blood. Though the discharge consequent upon the birth ceases after two or three weeks, the period in this case, as in the former instance, is nearly doubled, to include exceptional cases. During these thirty-three days, which constituted the second stage, the mother was only debarred from touching holy things, such as first tithes, the flesh of thank- and peace-offerings, &c, and from entering the sanctuary. Having bathed at the end of the seven days which constituted the first and defiling period, she could now partake of the second tithes, and resume conjugal intercourse, since any blood that might now appear was regarded as pure blood, in contradistinction to the (dam nidah) blood of monthly courses. Her proximity, therefore, no longer defiled. The Sadducees and the Samaritans during the second Temple, and their followers, the Karaite Jews, interpreted this law more rigidly. Though admitting that there is a difference of degree in the two periods, they maintained that the woman was too unclean for conjugal intercourse even during the second period. They therefore pointed the text differently so as to yield the rendering “blood of her purifying.” The Authorised Version, which, in this instance, follows the opinion of the Sadducees, departs from the received text.TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:4 And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.Ver. 4. She shall touch no hallowed thing.] Preparation must go before participation of holy ordinances. [Haggai 2:13]WHEDON, "4. Thirty-three days — At the end of seven days she ceased to be unclean, in the sense of ceremonially defiling by her contact, but she is for more than a month longer forbidden to touch any hallowed thing and to come into the sanctuary — court of tabernacle or temple. She was competent to perform secular but not religious duties. Obstetrical science suggests that the seclusion of seven days relates to the lochia rubra, the red discharge, and that of thirty-three days to the lochia alba, the white issue. Mosaism makes no discrimination against the sex in respect to public worship. The Hindoos, Parsees, and Arabs require the mother to be secluded forty days, and then to be purified by bathing. The ancient Greeks had a similar usage. They suffered neither childbirth nor death to pollute consecrated

24

Page 25: Leviticus 12 commentary

places.EBC, "Verses 4-8PURIFICATION AFTER CHILD BIRTHLeviticus 12:4-8"And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her impurity: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest: and he shall offer it before the Lord, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the fountain of her blood. This is the law for her that beareth, whether a male or a female. And if her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean."Until the circumcision of the newborn child, on the eighth day, he was regarded by the law as ceremonially still in a state of nature, and therefore as symbolically unclean. For this reason, again, the mother who had brought him into the world, and whose life was so intimately connected with his. life, was regarded as unclean also. Unclean, under analogous circumstances, according to the law of Leviticus 15:19, she was reckoned doubly unclean in this case, -unclean because of her issue, and unclean because of her connection with this child, uncircumcised and unclean. But when the symbolic cleansing of the child took place by the ordinance of circumcision, then her uncleanness, so far as occasioned by her immediate relation to him, came to an end. She was not indeed completely restored; for, according to the law, in her still continuing condition, it was impossible that she should be allowed to come into the tabernacle of the Lord, or touch any hallowed thing; but the ordinance which admitted her child, admitted her also again to the fellowship of the covenant people.The longer period of forty-or, in the case of the birth of a female child, of twice forty-days must also be explained upon Symbolical grounds. Some have indeed attempted to account for these periods, as also for the difference in their length in the two cases, by a reference to beliefs of the ancients with regard to the physical condition of the mother during these periods; but such notions of the ancients are not justified by facts; nor, especially, would they by any means account for the greatly prolonged period of eighty days in the case of the female child. It is possible that in the forty, and twice forty, we may have a reference to the forty weeks during which the life of the unborn child had been identified with that of the mother, -a

25

Page 26: Leviticus 12 commentary

child which, it must be remembered, according to the uniform Biblical view, was not innocent, but conceived in sin; for each week of which connection of life, the mother suffered a judicial exclusion of one, or, in the case of the birth of a daughter, of two days; the time being doubled in the latter case with allusion to the double curse which, according to Genesis, rested upon the woman, as "first in the transgression." But, apart from this, however difficult it may be to give a satisfactory explanation of the fact, it is certain that throughout Scripture the number forty appears to have a symbolic meaning; and one can usually trace in its application a reference, more or less distinct, to the conception of trial or testing. Thus for forty days was Moses in the mount, -a time of testing for Israel, as for him: forty days, the spies explored the promised land; forty years, Israel was tried in the wilderness; forty days, abode Elijah in the wilderness; forty days, also, was our Lord fasting in the wilderness; and forty days, again, He abode in resurrection life upon the earth.The forty (or eighty) days ended, the mother was now formally reinstated in the fulness of her privileges as a daughter of Israel. The ceremonial, as in the law of issues, consisted in the presentation of a burnt offering and a sin offering, with the only variation that, wherever possible, the burnt offering must be a young lamb, instead of a dove or pigeon; the reason for which variation is to be found either in the fact that the burnt offering was to represent not herself alone, but also her child, or, possibly, as some have suggested, it was because she had been so much longer excluded from the tabernacle service than in the other case.The teaching of this law, then, is twofold: it concerns, first, the woman; and, secondly, the child which she bears. As regards the woman, it emphasises the fact that, because "first in the transgression," she is under special pains and penalties in virtue of her sex. The capacity of motherhood, which is her crown and her glory, though still a precious privilege, has yet been made, because of sin, an inevitable instrument of pain, and that because of her relation to the first sin. We are thus reminded that the specific curse denounced against the woman, as recorded in the book of Genesis, is no dead letter, but a fact. No doubt, the conception is one which raises difficulties which in themselves are great, and to modern thought are greater than ever. Nevertheless, the fact abides unaltered, that even to this day woman is under special pains and disabilities, inseparably connected with her power of motherhood. Modern theorists, men and women with nineteenth-century notions concerning politics and education, may persist in ignoring this; but the fact abides, and cannot be got rid of by passing resolutions in a mass meeting, or even by Act of Parliament or Congress.And so, as it is useless to object to facts, it is only left to object to the Mosaic view of the facts, which connects them with sin, and, in particular, with the first sin. Why should all the daughters of Eve suffer because of her sin? Where is the justice in such an ordinance? A question this is to which we cannot yet give any satisfactory answer. But it does not follow that because in any proposition there are difficulties which at present we are unable to solve, therefore the proposition is false. And, further, it is important to observe that this law, under which womanhood abides, is

26

Page 27: Leviticus 12 commentary

after all only a special case under that Jaw of the Divine government which is announced in the second commandment, by which the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children. It is most certainly a law which, to our apprehension, suggests great moral difficulties, even to the most reverent spirits; but it is no less certainly a law which represents a conspicuous and tremendous fact, which is illustrated, for instance, in the family of every drunkard in the world. And it is well worth observing, that while the ceremonial law, which was specially intended to keep this fact before the mind and the conscience, is abrogated, the fact that woman is still under certain Divinely imposed disabilities because of that first sin, is reaffirmed in the New Testament, and is by apostolic authority applied in the administration of Church government. For Paul wrote to Timothy: {1 Timothy 2:12-13} "I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man For Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression." Modern theorists, and so-called "reformers" in Church, State, and society, busy with their social, governmental, and ecclesiastical. novelties, would do well to heed this apostolic reminder.All the more beautiful, as against this dark background of mystery, is the word of the Apostle which follows, wherein he reminds us that, through the grace of God, even by means of those very powers of motherhood on which the curse has so heavily fallen, has come the redemption of the woman; so that "she shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety"; {1 Timothy 2:15, R.V} seeing that "in Christ Jesus," in respect of the completeness and freeness of salvation, "there can be no male and female". {Galatians 3:28, R.V}But, in the second place, we may also derive abiding instruction from this law, concerning the child which is of man begotten and of woman born. It teaches us that not only has the curse thus fallen on the woman, but that, because she is herself a sinful creature, she can only bring forth another sinful creature like herself; and if a daughter, then a daughter inheriting all her own peculiar infirmities and disabilities. The law, as regards both mother and child, expresses in the language of symbolism those words of David in his penitential confession: {Psalms 51:5} "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Men may contemptuously call this "theology," or even rail at it as "Calvinism"; but it is more than theology, more than Calvinism; it is a fact, to which until this present time history has seen but one exception, even that mysterious Son of the Virgin, who claimed, however, to be no mere man, but the Christ, the Son of the Blessed!And yet many, who surely can think but superficially upon the solemn facts of life, still object to this most strenuously, that even the newborn child should be regarded as in nature sinful and unclean. Difficulty here we must all admit, -difficulty so great that it is hard to overstate it-regarding the bearing of this fact on the character of the holy and merciful God, who in the beginning made man. And yet surely, deeper thought must confess that herein the Mosaic view of infant nature-a view which is assumed and taught throughout Holy Scripture-however humbling to our

27

Page 28: Leviticus 12 commentary

natural pride, is only in strictest accord with what the admitted principles of the whenever, in any case, we find all creatures of the same class doing, under all circumstances, any one thing, we conclude that the reason for this can only lie in the nature of such creatures, antecedent to any influence of a tendency to imitation. If, for instance, the ox everywhere and always eats the green thing of the earth, and not flesh, the reason, we say, is found simply in the nature of the ox as he comes into being. So when we see all men, everywhere, under all circumstances, as soon as ever they come to the time of free moral choice, always choosing and committing sin, what can we conclude-regarding this, not as a theological, but merely as a scientific question-but that man, as he comes into the world, must have a sinful nature? And this being so, then why must not the law of heredity apply, according to which, by a law which knows of no exceptions, like ever produces its like?Least of all, then, should those object to the view of child nature which is represented in this law of Leviticus, who accept these commonplaces of modern science as representing facts. Wiser it were to turn attention to the other teaching of the law, that, notwithstanding these sad and humiliating facts, there is provision made by God, through the cleansing by grace of the very nature in which we are born, and atonement for the sin which without our fault we inherit, for a complete redemption from all the inherited corruption and guilt.And, last of all, especially should Christian parents with joy and thankfulness receive the manifest teaching of this law, -teaching reaffirmed by our blessed Lord in the New Testament, -that God our Father offers to parental faith Himself to take in hand our children, even from the earliest beginning of their infant days, and, purifying the fountain of their life through "a circumcision made without hands," receive the little ones into covenant relation with Himself, to their eternal salvation. And thus is the word of the Apostle fulfilled. "Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."PETT, "Verse 4-5“And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are fulfilled.”Then would follow a period, in the case of a male child of a further thirty three days, making forty days in all (see above), probably seen as a period of lesser uncleanness. But she was certainly seen as unclean for she was excluded from the tabernacle and could not touch any hallowed thing. Thus she could not partake of peace sacrifices. These were the days of her purifying when hopefully the discharges would eventually cease. Most women would be grateful for this period during which they could rest and recover.Thirty and three may conveniently have been seen as intended to signify ‘intensive

28

Page 29: Leviticus 12 commentary

three’ (compare Genesis 4:24), indicating the perfectly complete period provided by God for purification.The lesson that comes over sharply in all this is the emphasis on the sinfulness of man as a result of the fall. It stressed that even when born into the world a baby comes, not into an innocent world, but into a world of sin. It is, of course, a great joy, but because of sin in the human race it is born to labour in the sweat of its brow, and it must be redeemed. The other lesson is God’s goodness in looking after the woman’s wellbeing. No husband would dare to force his wife back to work or to engage in intercourse during this period of uncleanness.

5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.

BARNES, "Some have thought that this doubling of each of the two periods was intended to remind the people of the fact that woman represents the lower side of human nature, and was the first to fall into temptation. 1Ti_2:13-15; 1Pe_3:7. The ancients had a notion that the mother suffers for a longer time after the birth of a girl than after the birth of a boy. The period required for the restoration of her health in the one case was thirty days, and in the other, it was 40 or 42 days. This notion may have been connected with a general custom of observing the distinction as early as the time of Moses.GILL, "But if she bear a maid child,.... A daughter, whether born alive or dead, if she goes with it her full time: then she shall be unclean two weeks; or fourteen days running; and on the fifteenth day be free or loosed, as the Targum of Jonathan, just as long again as for a man child: as in her separation; on account of her monthly courses; the sense is, that she should be fourteen days, to all intents and purposes, as unclean as when these are upon her:

29

Page 30: Leviticus 12 commentary

and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying sixty and six days; which being added to the fourteen make eighty days, just as many more as in the case of a male child; the reason of which, as given by some Jewish writers, is, because of the greater flow of humours, and the corruption of the blood through the birth of a female than of a male: but perhaps the truer reason may be, what a learned man (p) suggests, that a male infant circumcised on the eighth day, by the profusion of its own blood, bears part of the purgation; wherefore the mother, for the birth of a female, must suffer twice the time of separation; the separation is finished within two weeks, but the purgation continues sixty six days; a male child satisfies the law together, and at once, by circumcision; but an adult female bears both the purgation and separation every month. According to Hippocrates (q), the purgation of a new mother, after the birth of a female, is forty two days, and after the birth of a male thirty days; so that it should seem there is something in nature which requires a longer time for purifying after the one than after the other, and which may in part be regarded by this law; but it chiefly depends upon the sovereign will of the lawgiver. The Jews do not now strictly observe this. Buxtorf (r) says, the custom prevails now with them, that whether a woman bears a male or a female, at the end of forty days she leaves her bed, and returns to her husband; but Leo of Modena relates (s), that if she bears a male child, her husband may not touch her for the space of seven weeks; and if a female, the space of three months; though he allows, in some places, they continue separated a less while, according as the custom of the place is. BENSON, "Leviticus 12:5. Threescore and six days — The time in both particulars is double to the former; the law, as some think, being adapted to a received opinion that women are sooner purified after the birth of males than of females; an opinion which, however questioned, Grotius shows to be supported by no less authority than that of Aristotle and Hippocrates. Others, however, suppose that this difference was made to put an honour on the ordinance of circumcision, which, being administered to the males, put an end to that pollution sooner than otherwise would have been the case.ELLICOTT, " (5) But if she bear a maid child.—Better, but if she giveth birth to a female child. (See Leviticus 12:2.)As in her separation.—Better, as in the time of her monthly courses. (See Leviticus 12:2.) In the case of a daughter the days of purification in both stages is exactly double that prescribed at the birth of a son. The reason for this difference is probably owing to the fact that the ancients believed that the physical derangement of the system is far greater at the birth of a girl than at the birth of a boy, and that it requires a longer time for the effects to pass away. Similar laws obtained among other nations of antiquity, and exist to this day among many Eastern tribes. The Greeks held that the man who had been near a woman in childbirth defiled the altar if he approached it. One of the means adopted during the Peloponnesian war for purifying the island of Delos was to proscribe women keeping their confinement on the island. The Hindoos go so far as to regard all the relations of a new-born child as impure; the father has to undergo lustrations, and the mother remains unclean till the tenth day, when the child receives its name. Among the Arabs the mother

30

Page 31: Leviticus 12 commentary

continues unclean for forty days.In the blood of her purifying.—Better, in the blood of purification, that is, pure blood. (See Leviticus 12:4.) It will be seen that the law here only legislates for ordinary cases, and that it passes over in silence cases of twins. The administrators of the law during the second Temple had therefore, in this instance, as in many other points, to supplement the Mosaic legislation. They therefore enacted that when a mother had twins, and if they were a boy and a girl, the two stages of her uncleanness were those for a girl. If one of the twins was a boy and the other sexless, or bi-sexual, she continued unclean for both male and female. If, on the contrary, one was a female and the other of neither sex, or bi-sexual, her separation was only for a female.TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.Ver. 5. But if she bear a maid child.] To intimate, it may be, the woman’s being first in the transgression. [1 Timothy 2:14]WHEDON, "5. Maid child… threescore and six days — It has not pleased God to disclose the ground of this different legislation for the sexes by doubling the period of purification after the birth of a female child. The sexes are equally honoured in the decalogue. Though woman was first in transgression, sin is not thereby more deeply ingrained in her nature, for St. Paul implies that Eve’s sin was less heinous than Adam’s, inasmuch as she was deceived, while he transgressed with his eyes wide open to the character and consequences of his act. 1 Timothy 2:14. We are not satisfied with Keil’s theory, that the ancients supposed that the impure discharges continued longer after the birth of a girl. Since this is an attested physiological fact, the all-wise God did not inflict a needless disability of forty additional days. It may also have been that both mother and daughter required double time for purification as all equivalent to the circumcision of the male child.PETT, "Verse 5“But if she bear a maid-child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her impurity; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.”However, in the case of a female child she would first be severely unclean for two sevens. And then her purifying was to take twice as long. This last period does in fact reflect the fact that the discharges in the case of a female baby would invariably be longer than for a male, and may then indeed become confused with her first menstruation after childbirth.A number of reasons have been suggested for why girls should require a longer

31

Page 32: Leviticus 12 commentary

period for being made clean than males.1). Some have based it on the idea that women were supposedly subject to stronger attacks by evil spiritual forces (see Genesis 6:1-4), and therefore required longer purification. But there is little evidence for the idea in Scripture.2). Others have looked at it on the basis that it reflects the woman’s role as the first to transgress in the garden of Eden, and therefore as being more blameworthy. The idea was that when the baby was identified as a girl it was a solemn reminder that once more there had been born into the world one of those who were responsible for the original sin. She represented the one who was deceived and who became the transgressor (1 Timothy 2:14). Thus double purification was required. But this is not supported by the fact that the Scripture elsewhere tends to firmly fix the blame on Adam (Romans 5:12 onwards). It is in Adam that men die, not Eve.3). Others have seen it as a provision that took notice of the fact that baby girls might be less welcome than boys and might otherwise receive inferior care from dismissive husbands. She was therefore to be doubly pampered.4). Others have seen it as indicating that circumcising the male baby on the eighth day would somehow reduce the attendant uncleanness. Although even if that were so it could not apply until circumcision actually began again, which reduces the force of the argument.5). Others have suggested that the distinction reflects the lower social status of women in ancient Israel. There is probably some truth in this, but it is doubtful if this is the full explanation.6). Others have suggested that it indicates that girls are destined to become a source of menstrual and maternal uncleanness in the future, and therefore required more intensive purification. Or that there was a tendency in women to lead men astray which had to be guarded against by longer purification. Furthermore uncleanness in birth and sexual activity would have been a strong riposte to cultic prostitution. It could not claim to be ‘holy’ when it rendered ‘unclean’.7). Others have suggested that the natural longer puerperal discharges after the birth of a girl, as compared with those for a boy, and the periodic vaginal bleeding of baby girls themselves, (for the withdrawal of maternal hormones at birth causes roughly one in ten female babies to experience vaginal bleeding), demanded a longer period of uncleanness, especially if the combination of the mother’s vaginal bleeding and the daughter’s possible vaginal bleeding was seen as requiring double purification.It is possible that we have to recognise that a combination of some of these is the most likely. Thoughts on this matter would have been extremely complicated and it may well have been seen in a number of ways. But everything points finally to the

32

Page 33: Leviticus 12 commentary

importance of purification from uncleanness. PULPIT, "Leviticus 12:5If she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks;… and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. The reason why the duration of the mother's uncleanness is twice as long at a girl's birth as at a boy's, would appear to be that the uncleanness attached to the child as well as to the mother, but as the boy was placed in a state of ceremonial purity at once by the act of circumcision, which took place on the eighth day, he thereupon ceased to be unclean, anti the mother's uncleanness alone remained; whereas in the case of a girl, both mother and child were unclean during the period that the former was "in the blood of her purifying," and therefore that period had to be doubly long. See Luke 2:20, where the right reading is, "When the days of their purification, according to the Law of Moses, were accomplished." For eight days the infant Saviour submitted to legal uncleanness in "fulfilling all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15), and therefore the whole forty days were spoken of as "the days of their purification."

6 “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.[a]

BARNES, "The sacrificial act expressed an acknowledgment of sin and a dedication of herself to Yahweh. See Lev_8:14.Lev_12:6

Of the first year - literally, as in the margin, “a son of his year.” This expression is supposed to mean one less than a year old, while the “son of a year” is one that has just completed its first year.CLARKE, "When the days of her purifying - It is not easy to account for the

difference in the times of purification, after the birth of a male and female child. After the birth of a boy the mother was considered unclean for forty days; after the birth of a girl, four-score days. There is probably no physical reason for this difference, and it is difficult to assign a political one. Some of the ancient physicians assert that a woman is 33

Page 34: Leviticus 12 commentary

in the order of nature much longer in completely recovering after the birth of a female than after the birth of a male child. This assertion is not justified either by observation or matter of fact. Others think that the difference in the time of purification after the birth of a male and female is intended to mark the inferiority of the female sex. This is a miserable reason, and pitifully supported.She shall bring - a burnt-offering, and - a sin-offering - It is likely that all these ordinances were intended to show man’s natural impurity and original defilement by sin, and the necessity of an atonement to cleanse the soul from unrighteousness.

GILL, "And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter,.... For a son forty days, and for a daughter eighty; but the ancient Jews formerly, that they might not break it, ordered, that the offering enjoined as follows should not be brought until the next day after the time was up: their canon runs thus (t),"a new mother does not bring her offering on the fortieth day for a male, nor on the eightieth day for a female, but after her sun is set; and she brings her offering on the morrow, which is the forty first for a male, and the eighty first for a female; and this is the day of which it is said, "when the days", &c. Lev_12:6."

HENRY 6-8, "A woman that had lain in, when the time set for her return to the sanctuary had come, was not to attend there empty, but must bring her offerings, Lev_12:6. 1. A burnt-offering; a lamb if she was able, if poor, a pigeon. This she was to offer in thankfulness to God for his mercy to her, in bringing her safely through the pains of child-bearing and all the perils of child-bed, and in desire and hopes of God's further favour both to her and to the child. When a child is born there is joy and there is hope, and therefore it was proper to bring this offering, which was of a general nature; for what we rejoice in we must give thanks for, and what we are in hopes of we must pray for. But, besides this, 2. She must offer a sin-offering, which must be the same for poor and rich, a turtle-dove or a young pigeon; for, whatever difference there may be between rich and poor in the sacrifices of acknowledgment, that of atonement is the same for both. This sin-offering was intended either, (1.) To complete her purification from that ceremonial uncleanness which, though it was not in itself sinful, yet was typical of moral pollution; or, (2.) To make atonement for that which was really sin, either an inordinate desire of the blessing of children or discontent or impatience under the pains of child-bearing. It is only by Christ, the great sin-offering, that the corruption of our nature is done away, and to that it is owing that we are not for ever excluded by it from the sanctuary, and from eating of the holy things. According to this law, we find that the mother of our blessed Lord, though he was not conceived in sin as others, yet accomplished the days of purification, and then presented her son to the Lord, being a first-born, and brought her own offering, a pair of turtle-doves, Luk_2:22-24. So poor were Christ's parents that they were not able to bring a lamb for a burnt-offering; and so early was Christ made under the law, to redeem those that were under it. The morality of this law obliges those women that have received mercy from God in child-bearing with all thankfulness to own God's goodness to them, acknowledging themselves unworthy of it, and (which is the best purification of women that have been saved in child-bearing, 1Ti_2:15) to continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety;for this shall please the Lord better than the turtle-doves or the young pigeons.

34

Page 35: Leviticus 12 commentary

JAMISON 6-8, "the days of her purifying — Though the occasion was of a festive character, yet the sacrifices appointed were not a peace offering, but a burnt offering and sin offering, in order to impress the mind of the parent with recollections of the origin of sin, and that the child inherited a fallen and sinful nature. The offerings were to be presented the day after the period of her separation had ended - that is, forty-first for a boy, eighty-first for a girl.

K&D 6-8, "After the expiration of the days of her purification “with regard to a son or a daughter,” i.e., according as she had given birth to a son or a daughter (not for the son or daughter, for the woman needed purification for herself, and not for the child to which she had given birth, and it was the woman, not the child, that was unclean), she was to bring to the priest a yearling lamb for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin-offering, that he might make atonement for her before Jehovah and she might become clean from the course of her issue. ְׁשָנת lit., son of his year, which ,ֶּבןis a year old (cf. Lev_23:12; Num_6:12, Num_6:14; Num_7:15, Num_7:21, etc.), is used interchangeably with ָׁשָנה ֶּבן (Exo_12:5), and with ָׁשָנה ְּבֵני in the plural (Lev_23:18-19; Exo_29:38; Num_7:17, Num_7:23, Num_7:29). ָּדִמים ר fountain of bleeding (see at ,ָּדִמGen_4:10), equivalent to hemorrhage (cf. Lev_20:18). The purification by bathing and washing is not specially mentioned, as being a matter of course; nor is anything stated with reference to the communication of her uncleanness to persons who touched either her or her couch, since the instructions with regard to the period of menstruation no doubt applied to the first seven and fourteen days respectively. For her restoration to the Lord and His sanctuary, she was to come and be cleansed with a sin-offering and a burnt-offering, on account of the uncleanness in which the sin of nature had manifested itself; because she had been obliged to absent herself in consequence for a whole week from the sanctuary and fellowship of the Lord. But as this purification had reference, not to any special moral guilt, but only to sin which had been indirectly manifested in her bodily condition, a pigeon was sufficient for the sin-offering, that is to say, the smallest of the bleeding sacrifices; whereas a yearling lamb was required for a burnt-offering, to express the importance and strength of her surrender of herself to the Lord after so long a separation from Him. But in cases of great poverty a pigeon might be substituted for the lamb (Lev_12:8, cf. Lev_5:7, Lev_5:11).

COFFMAN, "Verse 6"And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb a year old for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest: and he shall offer it before Jehovah, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the fountain of her blood. This is the law for her that beareth, whether a male or a female. And if her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt-offering, and the other for a

35

Page 36: Leviticus 12 commentary

sin-offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean."The fulfillment of the Mosaic requirements here listed were meticulously observed by Mary the blessed Mother of Jesus. Luke gives the account thus: "And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord), and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons." (Luke 2:22-24)The very fact that the exact words of this chapter are quoted in the Lukan version of the Nativity proves that the ceremonies here were in some way prophetic of the eventual revelation of Jesus Christ to mankind. For countless generations, women, in case of the birth of a male child, were granted a bonus, so to speak, in the shorter period of purification, suggesting the ultimate time when the True Deliverer would be born, and that he would be a man. And then, in the case of Mary and her son Jesus Christ, there suddenly appeared the One who would abolish all of those rules forever! Sure enough, Simeon, under the power of the Holy Spirit, was on hand to shout, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation!" (Luke 2:30).THE RICHES OF CHRISTYou know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). The chapter before us, along with the N.T. account of Mary and Joseph's careful observance of it puts a mighty emphasis upon the poverty of Jesus Christ who was born into a family so POOR that they could not even afford a lamb to redeem their firstborn. Our Lord never, during his whole life, moved outside that circle of poverty. He grew up in an ancient carpenter shop. He was familiar with patching old clothes, attempting to use old wineskins, and with many other devices of the poor (as proved by his parables). There is no proof that Jesus ever even possessed such a thing as a coin. He once said, plaintively, "The Son of Man hath nowhere to lay his head." And when he died upon Calvary, only a single item of his clothes was worth a throw of the dice to see who would have it.In this light, therefore, what could Paul have meant in the bold declaration, "Though he was rich?" The riches of Christ consist of only one thing - HIS STATUS "in the beginning, with God" (John 1:1). The command of an innumerable host of angels, the splendors of heaven, "The glory," as Jesus put it, "that I had with thee (God), before the world was!" That was the riches of Christ, all of which Jesus forsook to bring mankind "through his poverty" the eternal riches of life everlasting! Therefore, Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 8:9 takes its place along with Ephesians 4:9 and Philippians 2:6-9 as a member of that matchless triad of Great Parabolas reaching from infinity in the past to the brief earthly ministry of Christ, and then again reaching all the way to infinity in the future!

36

Page 37: Leviticus 12 commentary

COKE, "Leviticus 12:6. For a burnt-offering—for a sin-offering— The burnt-offering was by way of gratitude to God for her safe deliverance; the sin-offering to complete her purification, and to gain her perfect re-admission to the tabernacle-service. See ch. Leviticus 15:30. While the Israelites remained in the wilderness, it is probable the women brought these offerings immediately after the days of their separation were over. When they were settled in the land of Canaan, and lived at a distance from the temple, convenience, no doubt, was consulted. See 1 Samuel 1:21; 1 Samuel 1:28 and Allix on the Pentateuch. BENSON, "Leviticus 12:6. For a son or a daughter — For the birth of either; but the purification was for herself, as appears from the following verses. A sin-offering — Because of her ceremonial uncleanness, which required a ceremonial expiation.ELLICOTT, " (6) And when the days . . . —Having described in the previous verses the conditions of defilement arising from childbirth, the legislator now prescribes the offerings to be brought for the purification of the woman. The offerings were brought at the expiration of the fortieth day in the case of a boy, and at the end of the eightieth day in the case of a girl, that is, on the forty-first and on the eighty-first respectively.For a son, or for a daughter.—That is, with regard to a son or a daughter, to either of which she had given birth. The purification was for herself, and was owing to the defiling discharges connected with childbirth, and not for the child to which she gave birth, since the baby was not unclean.She shall bring a lamb of the first year.—Or, as the Margin has it, a son of his year, that is, a lamb which was within the year of its birth. This burnt offering was an expression of gratitude for the Divine mercy vouchsafed to her in the hours of sorrow and danger, or, as some ancients suggest, it was designed as a confession of impatient and reproachful thoughts harboured by the mother during her pregnancy and the time of parturition (comp. Genesis 25:22); whilst the sin offering was to atone for sinful and violent expressions which she may have heedlessly uttered in the hours of labour and agony. Though when the two sacrifices are mentioned together, the sin offering generally precedes the burnt offering (see Leviticus 5:7; Leviticus 14:31; Leviticus 15:15; Leviticus 15:30; Leviticus 16:3; Leviticus 16:5, &c.), here the burnt offering takes precedence, because it is the more costly of the two. Besides the mother after child-birth (Leviticus 12:6; Leviticus 12:8), there were three other unclean persons who had to bring a sin offering for their uncleanness: the leper (Leviticus 14:19; Leviticus 14:31), the woman that had an issue (Leviticus 15:15), and the man that had an issue (Leviticus 15:30).Unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.—Better, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. (See Leviticus 1:3.) During the time of the second Temple these sacrifices were brought to the eastern gate, called the Gate of Nicanor. Here the

37

Page 38: Leviticus 12 commentary

lying-in women were purified and the lepers cleansed. (See Leviticus 14:13.)TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:6 And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:Ver. 6. And when the days of her purifying.] The Virgin Mary also observed this law, [Luke 2:21] not in conscience of any particular sin, which in the conception of our Saviour she was free from; nor in show, to satisfy the law, much less upon hypocrisy; but in conscience of her natural corruption, which by this oblation, according to the law, she did confess holily and religiously before God and his congregation, as one well observeth.WHEDON, "6. Burnt offering — Although the self-dedicatory offering is mentioned first, the real order is after the sin offering, see Introduction, (5.) We are not to suppose that a sense of guilt was in the mind of the offerer, but only the fact of ceremonial impurity, which required purgation before the woman could be an accepted worshipper. Hence the smallest of the sin offerings was required. Yet this requirement of both mother and child teaches the doctrine of original, or birth sin. On the fortieth day after his birth Jesus, in his sinless humanity, was presented at the earthly temple; on the fortieth day after his resurrection he was presented in his glorified body in the heavenly sanctuary.PETT, "Verse 6-7“And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb a year old for a whole burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a purification for sin offering, to the door of the tent of meeting, to the priest, and he shall offer it before Yahweh, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from her blood-flow. This is the law for her who bears a child, whether a male or a female.”Once the woman had safely reached the end of her period of purification she was then to bring a one year old lamb (as for the daily sacrifice) and a young pigeon or turtledove to the priest for him to offer on the altar before Yahweh, ‘to make atonement for her’. This makes clear the connection with required atonement. And note the emphasis on her blood-flow. It is that primarily that has to be cleansed. By giving birth she has released blood, and that has made her unclean. But what it signified was also in mind.The lamb was for a whole burnt offering. It was an act of gratitude, tribute, dedication and atonement. The bird was for a purification of sin offering. She needed forgiveness and reconciliation with God. By bringing her child into the world she had introduced further sin into the world and increased the burden of sin. She shared the responsibility of Eve.

38

Page 39: Leviticus 12 commentary

PULPIT, "Leviticus 12:6, Leviticus 12:7The previous verses having stated the conditions and the term of continuance of the uncleanness arising from childbirth, the three final verses describe the offerings to be made by the woman for her purification. She shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering. Two things are noticeable here: first, that the burnt offering, symbolizing self-devotion, is far more costly and important than the sin offering, which had not to be offered for any individual personal sin, but only for human sin, "which had been indirectly manifested in her bodily condition" (Keil); and secondly, that in this one case the sin offering appears to succeed the burnt offering instead of preceding it. No doubt the changed order is owing to the cause just mentioned; the idea of sin, though it may not be altogether put aside (Genesis 3:16), is not to be prominent, as though it were peculiar to the special woman who was purified.

7 He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.“‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl.

GILL, "Who shall offer it before the Lord,.... Upon the altar of burnt offering: and make an atonement for her; for whatsoever sin in connection with or that attended childbearing; as typical of the atonement by Christ both for sin original and actual: and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood; in a ceremonial sense, and according to that law be pure and clean: this is the law for her that hath born a male or a female; enjoined her, and to be

39

Page 40: Leviticus 12 commentary

observed by her; and though now with the rest of the ceremonial law it is abolished, yet it has this instruction in it; that it becomes women in such circumstances to bring the freewill offerings of their lips, their sacrifices of praise, and in a public manner signify their gratitude and thankfulness for the mercy and goodness of God vouchsafed to them, in carrying them through the whole time of childbearing, and saving them in the perilous hour.ELLICOTT, " (7) Who shall offer it.—Better, and he shall offer it, that is, the priest shall offer the sin offering. Though two sacrifices were brought—a burnt offering and a sin offering—yet stress is laid on the sin offering, for on it depended the purification and atonement of the mother. Even if the mother gave birth to twins, the administrators of the law during the second Temple decided that the one sin offering here prescribed sufficed.TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:7 Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This [is] the law for her that hath born a male or a female.Ver. 7. And make an atonement.] Whereby her faith was confirmed, that by Christ her sin was remitted and the curse removed. [1 Timothy 2:15]WHEDON, "7. Atonement… cleansed — Expiation for the soul and cleansing for the body are accomplished by the same act. Hebrews 10:22. Jehovah requires physical as well as spiritual sanctification. 2 Corinthians 7:1.

8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”

BARNES, "Lev_12:8A lamb - Rather, one of the flock; either a sheep or a goat; it is not the same word as in Lev_12:6.

40

Page 41: Leviticus 12 commentary

Two turtles, or two young pigeons - See the note at Lev_1:14. The Virgin Mary availed herself of the liberty which the Law allowed to the poor, and offered the inferior burnt-offering Luk_2:24.

CLARKE, "And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons - As the Virgin Mary brought only the latter, hence it is evident that she was not able, i. e., she was not rich enough to provide the former; for such a holy woman would not have brought the less offering had she been capable of bringing the greater. How astonishing is this! The only heir to the throne of David was not able to bring a lamb to offer in sacrifice to God! How abominable must sin be when it required him who was in the form of God thus to empty and to humble himself, yea, even to the death of the cross, in order to make an atonement for it, and to purify the soul from all defilement!

The priest shall make an atonement for her - Every act of man is sinful, but such as proceed from the influence of the grace and mercy of God. Her sorrow in conception, and her pain in bringing forth children, reminded the woman of her original offense; an offense which deserved death, an offense which she could not expiate, and for which a sacrifice must be offered: and in reference to better things the life of an animal must be offered as a ransom for her life. And being saved in childbed, though she deserved to die, she is required, as soon as the days of her separation were ended, to bring a sacrifice according to her ability to the priest, that he might offer it to God as an atonement for her. Thus, wherever God keeps up the remembrance of sin, he keeps up also the memorial of sacrifice, to show that the state of a sinner, howsoever deplorable, is not hopeless, for that he himself has found out a ransom. Every where, in the law and in the Gospel, in every ordinance and in every ceremony, we may see both the justice and the mercy of God. Hence, while we have the knowledge of our sin we have also the knowledge of our cure. Reader, whilst thou art confessing thy own misery do not forget the Lord’s mercy; and remember, be saves to the uttermost all that come through Christ unto him.

GILL, "And if she be not able to bring a lamb,.... As everyone was not in circumstances sufficient to be at the expense of buying a lamb for this purpose, having none of their own: then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; which was a kind and merciful provision for the poorer sort; since it was necessary that by them the favour received should be acknowledged, as well as the sin attending them in such circumstances should be atoned for. This being the offering brought by the mother of our Lord, shows the state of poverty in which she was; and by this, and the circumcision of her child, and the presentation of it before the Lord at the time of her purification, it appears that they were both under the law, and obedient to it: the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering; Jarchi observes, that in oblations the sin offering goes before the burnt offering, for sin being atoned for, the gift was accepted; but here the burnt offering went first, the reason is not very apparent:

41

Page 42: Leviticus 12 commentary

and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean; equally the same as if she had brought a lamb, instead of young pigeons, or turtledoves.COKE, "Verse 8Leviticus 12:8. If she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles— See note on ch. Leviticus 5:7, &c. The mother of our blessed LORD was in so humble a state of life as to be able only to bring this offering, mercifully ordained for those in that state. Learn we hence how much our Redeemer humbled himself for our salvation! BENSON, "Leviticus 12:8. The morality of this law obliges women who have received mercies from God in child-bearing, with all thankfulness to acknowledge his goodness to them, owning themselves unworthy of it, and (which is the best purification) to continue in faith, and love, and holiness, with sobriety.ELLICOTT, "(8) And if she be not able.—As a merciful provision for those who were too poor to bring a lamb, the law permits them to bring a turtle-dove or a pigeon for a burnt offering, provided only it is the same kind of bird as the one brought for a sin offering; that is, they must either be both turtle-doves or both pigeons, and not one turtle-dove and one pigeon. Turtle-doves and pigeons were plentiful and cheap in Palestine (see Leviticus 1:14). It was therefore the poor woman’s sacrifice which the mother of our Lord offered, when, in accordance with this commutation, she offered a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons, on presenting herself for purification at the Temple with the child Jesus, on the expiration of the prescribed term of uncleanness (Luke 2:24), and the priest, after sprinkling her with the blood of the humble sacrifice, declared her cleansed.TRAPP, "Leviticus 12:8 And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean.Ver. 8. And if she be not able.] As the blessed Virgin was not. [Luke 2:22; Luke 2:24] Who now can despise any one for want, when the mother of our Lord was not rich enough to bring a lamb for her purification? We may be as happy in russet (a), as in tissue. WHEDON, " 8. If she be not able — The law of God adjusts itself to our natural and gracious ability. Nevertheless, where grace has been slighted and withdrawn, the demand of the law continues after ability had ceased. The mother of our Lord in her poverty availed herself of this concession to the poor. Luke 2:22-24.Turtles or pigeons — For the supply of these in the wilderness and in Palestine, see Introduction, (4.)

42

Page 43: Leviticus 12 commentary

PETT, "Verse 8“And if her means do not suffice for a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, the one for a whole burnt offering, and the other for a purification for sin offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”However provision was made for a lesser whole burnt offering for those who were unable to afford a lamb, a bird could be offered as a replacement (see Leviticus 1:14-17). It was this that Mary offered for Jesus (Luke 2:24), but there is reason to think that by New Testament times that had become the standard offering.It should be noted finally that neither the woman or the child were seen as ‘unclean’ in themselves. (We are not talking about sin but about ritual uncleanness). They were unclean because of the processes through which they went. But the requirement for sacrifices demonstrates that in uncleanness sin was also in mind. PULPIT, "Leviticus 12:8If she be not able to bring a lamb. A concession is made to poverty, which in later times appears to have been largely acted on. It was, as we know, taken advantage of by the mother of our Lord (Luke 2:24).

43