Leviticus 12:7

_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...

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...

WHO SHALL OFFER IT BEFORE THE LORD,.... Upon the altar of burnt offering: AND MAKE AN ATONEMENT FOR HER; for whatsoever sin in connection with or that attended childbearing; as typical of the atonement by Christ both for sin original and actual: AND SHE SHALL BE CLEANSED FROM THE ISSUE OF HER BLOOD; in a ceremonial sense, and according to that law be pure and clean: THIS [IS] THE LAW FOR HER THAT HATH BORN A MALE OR A FEMALE; enjoined her, and to be observed by her; and though now with the rest of the ceremonial law it is abolished, yet it has this instruction in it; that it becomes women in such circumstances to bring the freewill offerings of their lips, their sacrifices of praise, and in a public manner signify their gratitude and thankfulness for the mercy and goodness of God vouchsafed to them, in carrying them through the whole time of childbearing, and saving them in the perilo...

ATONEMENT (_ See Scofield) - (Exodus 29:33). _...

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...

OFFER IT. bring it near. Hebrew. _karab._ App-43. MAKE. Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Syriac read, "and the priest shall make", as in Leviticus 12:8. MAKE AN ATONEMENT. See note on Exodus 29:33. ISSUE. fount [discharge]....

b. THE OFFERINGS PRESCRIBED FOR CEREMONIAL CLEANSING 12:6-8 TEXT 12:6-8 6 And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb a year old for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest: 7 and he shall offer it before Jehovah, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the fountain of her blood. This is the law for her that beareth, whether a male or a female. 8 And if her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtle-doves, 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. THOUGHT QUESTIONS 12:6-8 234. Why prescribe a burnt offering and a sin offering? 235. Is there any appropriateness in a lamb and dove for...

12:7 flux (b-20) Lit. 'fountain.' see ch.20.18....