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
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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 ( ַ‫יע‬ ִ‫ר‬ְ‫ז‬ ַ‫)תּ‬ seed and bear a boy, she shall be unclean seven days as in the days
of the uncleanness of her (monthly) sickness.” ‫ה‬ ָ‫דּ‬ִ‫,נ‬ from ‫ד‬ ַ‫ָד‬‫נ‬ to flow, lit., that which is to
flow, is applied more especially to the uncleanness of a woman's secretions (Lev_15:19).
‫הּ‬ ָ‫ת‬ ְ‫,דּ‬ inf. of ‫ָה‬‫ו‬ ָ‫,דּ‬ to be sickly or ill, is applied here and in Lev_15:33; Lev_20:18, to the
suffering connected with an issue of blood.
COFFMAN, "Verse 1
This 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
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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).
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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 1-2
2. 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
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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 BEARING
Leviticus 12:1-8
THE 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.
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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 1-8
EXPOSITION
UNCLEANNESS DERIVED FROM CHILDBIRTH.
As there is a natural disgust felt for some kinds of food, which serves as a
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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 developments
The 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
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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 circumcision
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 (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

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-birth
The 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

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

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

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

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

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

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 12:2-4
She 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

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 3
3. 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

EBC, "THE ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION
Leviticus 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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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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
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places.
EBC, "Verses 4-8
PURIFICATION AFTER CHILD BIRTH
Leviticus 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
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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

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
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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

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

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

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

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
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importance of purification from uncleanness.
PULPIT, "Leviticus 12:5
If 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
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