Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 12

And the Lord spoke to Moses. — As the reason why God graciously addressed the regulation about the clean and unclean animals to Moses and Aaron conjointly no longer operates here, the Lord now addresses the laws of purification to the Lawgiver alone.

The laws of defilement contracted from outside 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 precedence over man and are treated first.

If a woman has conceived seed. —Rather, if a woman brings forth seed, that is, is delivered of a child (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 set forth here regarding 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. Among the Hindus, 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 gives birth to a male child. The expression rendered here in the Authorized 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 childbirth 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 . The fact that reference is made here to the regulations about the periodical impurity of women which have not yet been laid down shows that, like other laws, this law was already known to and generally practiced by the Jews before it was finally fixed in the Levitical code.

And in the eighth day. —When the seven days had passed during which the mother remained unclean, the boy is to be circumcised, since on the eighth day the first period of her extreme state of impurity ceases, and she no longer imparts defilement to whoever or whatever she touches. For the rite of circumcision, see Genesis 17:10; Genesis 17:13.

Continue in the blood of her purifying. —Better, continue in the blood of purification, that is, pure blood. Though the discharge following 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 prohibited from touching holy things, such as first tithes, the flesh of thank offerings and peace offerings, etc., 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 contrast 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 to produce the rendering “blood of her purifying.” The Authorized Version, which, in this instance, follows the opinion of the Sadducees, departs from the received text.

But if she bear a maid child. —Better, but if she gives birth to a female child .

As in her separation. —Better, as in the time of her monthly courses . In the case of a daughter, the days of purification in both stages are 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 existed among other nations of antiquity and exist to this day among many Eastern tribes.

The Greeks held that a 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 prohibit women from undergoing their confinement on the island. Hindus go so far as to regard all the relatives of a newborn child as impure; the father has to undergo purification rites, and the mother remains unclean until the tenth day, when the child receives its name. Among the Arabs, the mother 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.) The law here legislates only for ordinary cases and makes no mention of cases involving twins.

The administrators of the law during the Second Temple, therefore, had to supplement the Mosaic legislation in this instance, as in many other points. They therefore enacted that if a mother had twins, 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 bisexual, she continued unclean for both male and female. If, on the contrary, one was a female and the other of neither sex or bisexual, her separation was only for a female.