Leviticus 12:6

_AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES, SAYING,_ Mankind are not only liable to defilement from without, but have internal causes of pollution lying deep in their nature. And hence, the laws which were given to restrain the Israelites from eating unclean animals, or coming in contact with those which died a natural death, were followed by a series of statutes relating to impurity connected with their own persons. These impurities are illustrated in a variety of instances in the following chapters, and traced through the successive stages of life to the period of death. The principle which underlies the legal processes of purification appears to be to awaken a lively sense of sin, by showing how deeply it has infected the whole nature of man-its influence and penal effects appearing in procreation, at birth, in the state of the body during life and at death; insomuch that the flesh, which, when c...

Verse Leviticus 12:6. _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 in the order of nature much longer in completely recovering after the birth of a female than after the birth of a male child. This assertion is not justified either by observation or matter of fact. Others think that the difference in the time of purification after the birth of a male and female is intended to mark the _inferiority_ of the _female_ sex. This is a miserable reason, and pitifully...

This chapter would more naturally follow the 15th chapter of Leviticus. See the note to Leviticus 15:1....

EXPOSITION UNCLEANNESS DERIVED FROM CHILDBIRTH. As there is a natural disgust felt for some kinds of food, which serves as a 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 t...

AND WHEN THE DAYS OF HER PURIFYING ARE FULFILLED, FOR A SON, OR FOR A DAUGHTER,.... For a son forty days, and for a daughter eighty; but the ancient Jews formerly, that they might not break it, ordered, that the offering enjoined as follows should not be brought until the next day after the time was up: their canon runs thus t, "a new mother does not bring her offering on the fortieth day for a male, nor on the eightieth day for a female, but after her sun is set; and she brings her offering on the morrow, which is the forty first for a male, and the eighty first for a female; and this is the day of which it is said, "when the days", c. Leviticus 12:6.'' SHE SHALL BRING A LAMB OF THE FIRST YEAR the Septuagint adds, without blemish, as all sacrifices should be, if not expressed; "or the son of his year" u; some distinguish between "the son of a year", as the

2. CHILDBIRTH LAWS AND INHERITED SIN CHAPTER 12 _ 1. The man-child (Leviticus 12:1)_ 2. The maid-child (Leviticus 12:5) 3. The offerings (Leviticus 12:6) The childbirth laws as contained in this chapter are full of meaning. The woman is constituted unclean by the birth of a child. When a man-child was born, she was to be unclean for seven days, and her purification was to end thirty-three days after that; forty days after childbirth. (A. Bonar, in his work on Leviticus, makes the following conjecture: “May it have been the case that Adam and Eve remained only forty days unfallen! These forty days would thus be a reminiscence of that holy time on earth. The last Adam was forty

LEVITICUS 12. UNCLEANNESS AFTER CHILDBIRTH AND CIRCUMCISION. The period of uncleanness lasts twice as long after the birth of a girl (see on Leviticus 11). After the first week, when the uncleanness may be said to be milder, the child, if a boy, must be circumcised. At the end of the period of her purifying, for a child of either sex, sacrifices are to be offered, a combination of burnt and sin offering, to make atonement for her; a lamb, and a pigeon or a dove, except in case of poverty, when two pigeons or doves may be substituted. These provisions go back as far as those of Leviticus 9. Birth, like menstruation, is naturally regarded as uncanny, and sometimes as demon-caused. Hence, the woman must be set apart. The results are doubtless hygienic, though the emotional effect must often have been dangerous in early times; the code, which keeps up the restriction, says nothing about the...

SHE SHALL BRING. As Mary did. Luke 2:22. DOOR. entrance. TABERNACLE. tent. Hebrew. _'ohel_. App-40....

At the end of her purification she was to bring an offering. The alternative of a pigeon for the lamb of the Burnt-Offering is allowed in Leviticus 1:14 and also in the Sin-Offering (Leviticus 5:7-10), but the further alternative of a Meal-Offering (Leviticus 5:11-13) is not found here. The Virgin Mary (Luke 2:24) offered the sacrifices of one whose -means suffice not for a lamb....

FOR A BURNT-OFFERING—FOR A SIN-OFFERING— The _burnt-offering_ was by way of gratitude to God for her safe deliverance; the _sin-offering_ to complete her purification, and to gain her perfect re-admission to the tabernacle-service. See ch. Leviticus 15:30. While the Israelites remained in the wilderness, it is probable the women brought these offerings immediately after the days of their separation were over. When they were settled in the land of Canaan, and lived at a distance from the temple, convenience, no doubt, was consulted. See 1 Samuel 1:21; 1 Samuel 1:28 and Allix on the Pentateuch....