Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
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And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
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And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying:
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Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The law here pronounces women lying-in ceremonially unclean. The…
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 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.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... The laws in…
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.
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Laws concerning the uncleanness of women in child-birth, ver.…
Laws concerning the uncleanness of women in child-birth, ver. 1-5. Concerning their purification, ver. 6-8.
From uncleanness contracted by the touching or eating of external things, he now comes to that uncleanness which ariseth from ourselves.
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Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Ordinances concerning the purification of women after
CHAPTER XII
Ordinances concerning the purification of women after
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child-birth, 1;
after the birth of a son, who is to be circumcised the eighth
day, 2, 3.
The mother to be considered unclean for forty days, 4.
After the birth of a daughter, fourscore days, 5.
When the days of her purifying were ended, she was to bring a
lamb for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove
for a sin-offering, 6, 7.
If poor, and not able to bring a lamb, she was to bring either
two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, 8.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
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Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lev 12:1. From uncleanness contracted by the touching or…
Lev 12:1. From uncleanness contracted by the touching or eating of external things, he now comes to that uncleanness which ariseth from ourselves.
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Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain This chapter would more naturally follow the 15th chapter…
This chapter would more naturally follow the 15th chapter of Leviticus. See the note to Lev 15:1.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain “The purification and cleanness of the human conditions of…
SECOND SECTION
“The purification and cleanness of the human conditions of the offerers. The lying-in women. The leprosy in men, in garments, in houses. Sexual impurities and purifications. Leviticus 12-15”—Lange
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Laws of Purification after Childbirth
Leviticus 12
1And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived1 seed, and born a man child, then she shall be unclean seven days; according to [as2] the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. 3And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. 4And she shall then continue in3 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. 5But 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. 6And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb [sheep4] of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest: 7who shall offer it before the Lord, and5 make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female. 8And if she be not able to bring a lamb [one of the flock6], then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lev_12:2. תַּזְרִיעַ. The Sam. here has the Niphal. Comp. Gen_1:11 for similar use of Hiphil.
Lev_12:2. כִּימֵי. The text institutes a comparison, saying that the one is the same as the other, rather than makes one the law for the other.
Lev_12:4. עַל. There is no distinction in the A. V. between this and the preposition of the preceding verse. Two MSS. read here also בִּדְמֵי as in Lev_12:4.
Lev_12:6. כֶּבֶשׂ. See Textual Note5 on Lev_3:7.
Lev_12:7. One MS., the Sam., LXX., and Syr., here supply the word priest, which is necessarily understood from the connection.
Lev_12:8. שֶׂה a different word from that in Lev_12:6, and used either of sheep or goats, but according to Fürst, only of the young of either.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Here begins a new Parashah of the law extending to Lev_13:59; the parallel section of the prophets is 2Ki_4:42 to 2Ki_5:19, a prominent subject of which is the cleansing of Naaman from his leprosy.
The previous chapter was addressed to Moses and Aaron conjointly, and so is the following, the latter part of Leviticus 14 (beginning at Lev_12:33), and Leviticus 15; the present chapter and the earlier part of Leviticus 14 are addressed to Moses alone. The reason of this difference seems to lie in the fact that the parts addressed to Moses alone are simple commands given to him as the legislator, requiring no exercise of judgment in their application; while those addressed to both called for more or less of a discrimination which was entrusted by the law to the priests.
The previous chapter treated of uncleanness of men arising from the lower animals which, if attended to promptly, in no case required more for its purification than ablutions, and continued only until evening. This and the three following chapters treat of uncleanness arising from the human body, in most cases requiring expiatory sacrifices with various, and often prolonged, periods before the purification became complete. The various sources of this defilement are: child-bearing (12); leprosy (13, 14); and certain secretions (15); to these is added in Num_19:11-16 the most intense of all defilements, that arising from contact with a human corpse. The omission of a vast mass of other sources of impurity, and restriction of rites of purification to these few, certainly indicates (as Keil has shown) that these are not simply regulations for the promotion of cleanliness, or of good morals and decency, but had a higher symbolical and educational meaning. The defilement of child-bearing, which occupies the present chapter, is placed first not only because birth is the natural starting point for the treatment of all that concerns the human body, but also plainly to prevent any possible confusion between this defilement and those mentioned in Lev_15:19-30. There is indeed a certain degree of connection between the two, and this made it all the more necessary that this should be treated by itself, as being a different thing and resting upon different grounds.
In regard to purifications in general, Kalisch says: “Next to sacrifices, purifications were the most important part of Hebrew rituals. Whenever both were prescribed together, the latter appeared indeed as merely preparatory to the former, since sacrifices were deemed the main agency of restored peace or holiness; but purifications, like offerings, were frequently ordained as separate and independent acts of worship: closely entwined with the thoughts and habits of the Hebrews, they formed an essential part of their religious system.…. The Hebrews ‘purified,’ or, as they understood the term, sanctified themselves, whenever they desired to rise to the Deity, that is, before solemn ceremonies and seasons, as sacrifices and festivals (Gen_35:2-4; 1Sa_16:5; comp. 2Ch_30:17); or whenever they expected the Deity to descend to them by some supernatural manifestation, as a disclosure of heavenly wisdom, or a deed of miraculous power and help (Exo_19:10; Exo_19:14-15; Jos_3:5; Jos_7:13). Therefore, when in a state of impurity, they 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 (Lev_7:19-21; Lev_22:3; Num_9:6; Num_18:11; Num_18:13; 1Sa_21:5).” Later he adds: “If compared with the purificatory laws of other nations, those of the Pentateuch appear in a favorable light..... They exhibit no vestige of a dualism; in every detail they are stamped by the monotheistic creed; God alone, the merciful, wise and omnipotent Ruler, sends trials and diseases; and no evil genius has the power of causing uncleanness. They are singular in the noble principles on which they are framed—the perfection and holiness of God; and they are thereby raised above frivolity and unmeaning formalism. Moreover, it would be unjust to deny that they were understood as symbols, or as means of sanctification; to defile oneself and to sin, and also to cleanse and to hallow, are frequently used as equivalents. They must be pronounced simple if considered side by side with those of the Parsees, the Hindoos, the Egyptians, or the Talmud.”
The connection here hinted at between uncleanness and sin, between purity and holiness, is a very important one. It rests partly on a symbolism which finds place in all languages, and is abundantly recognized in the diction of the New Testament; and partly upon that actual connection existing between the soul and the body (spoken of in the last chapter), whereby the one is deeply affected by the state and condition of the other. In both respects the educational value of the Levitical laws of purity to a people in their spiritual infancy were of the utmost value. The importance of the symbolism was further enhanced by the broad distinction made between defilements arising from human and those from other sources, and connecting the sin offering only with the former.
This chapter consists of two parts: Lev_12:1-5 relate to the time of seclusion, Lev_12:6-8 to the means of purification. The following are Lange’s Exegetical Notes on the chapter in full:
“The origin of life makes man unclean in regard to his theocratic right of communion; just as death, or the touch of the dead, and no less that which impairs life—sickness, especially as it is represented by the leprosy, and so also every disturbance of the springs of life. But this surely does not mean that finite life itself was thought of as unclean, and that it must therefore be reconciled to the universal life (Bæhr II., p. 461, opposed to which Sommer and Keil); and it also does not mean that original sin alone has produced all this darkening of life, although the natural condition appears here throughout laden with sinfulness; since we find directions for the purification of lying-in women among the most different nations (see Knobel, p. 466).” [The following brief summary of some of these is given by Clark: “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 Burckhardt to regard the mother as unclean for forty days. The ancient Greeks suffered neither child-birth 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 lustricus 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 (Menu v. 62; Ayeen Akbery, Vol. II., p. 556; Zend Avesta, ap. Bähr; Thucid. III. 104; Eurip. Iph. Taur. 382; Callim. Hym. ad Jov. 16, Hym. ad Del. 123; Censorin. De Die Nat. c. xi., p. 51; Celsus, II. 1; Festus, s. Lustrici Dies with the note in Lindemann, II. 480; Smith, Dict. of Antiq. s. Amphidromia).”—F. G.]—“But, in general, by this establishment of the uncleanness of the natural processes of birth and death, the truth was expressed, that the ideal life of man was already a kind of immortal life, which had to raise itself above the natural conditions of human life—the natural side of his being—and set itself in opposition thereto.”
“If now any one says that all these regulations are not to be considered under the aspect of sanitary or dietetic, but only of typical or religious precepts, we must hold this antithesis to be thoroughly false; there are plain indications that always, from the tree of knowledge down, especially from the circumcision, the one particular was joined with the other.”
“Lev_12:2 ss. In regard to the uncleanness of lying-in women, in the first place there are two conditions to be distinguished: first, the time of their especial sickness; secondly, the time of their recovery through the blood (the issue of blood) of their purification. These times differ according as she has borne a son or a daughter. If the child be a boy, the time of her especial sickness is fixed at seven days, exactly like the regulation in regard to the monthly courses. Then on the eighth day the circumcision of the boy was to follow, and from that time for thirty-three days—the eighth day reckoned in—she was to remain at home with the boy, engaged in a constant process of recovery and purification. But why are the seven days of her especial uncleanness doubled to two weeks by the birth of a girl? It is said that this has its foundation in the belief of antiquity that “the bloody and watery issues last longer after the birth of a female than of a male” (see the citations from Hippocrates [op. ed. Kühn. i. p. 393], Aristotle [Hist. anim. vi. 22; vii. 3], and Burdach [Physiologie III., p. 34] in Keil). Whether this view formed a natural reason for the above regulation or not, there was certainly also a theocratic reason of importance: the boy was circumcised—the girl was not; for this the twice seven days might form an equivalent. The girl was so far a Jewess, but not yet an Israelitess” [i.e. a descendant of Abraham after the flesh, but not yet incorporated with the chosen people.—F. G.]. “It was now moreover the proper consequence that the thirty-three days of recovery were doubled to sixty-six days, wherein, indeed, the law of circumcision is still more strongly reflected. The totality of the forty days of purification at the birth of a boy corresponds to the former explanation of the forty days in the life of Moses and Elijah: it is the symbolical time of purification, of exclusion from the world, as it was extended for the whole people to forty years. And the doubling of the forty days in the case of the new-born girl explains itself, if forty days are reckoned for the girl and forty for the mother; a doubling which could not be applied to the circumcised boy. Moreover, the coöperation of the physical view, already noticed, may be also taken into consideration.” [It is particularly to be noticed that the uncleanness continued only seven or fourteen days. During this time it appears from the analogy of Lev_15:19-24, the woman was unclean in the sense that every person and thing touched by her became itself unclean and capable of communicating defilement. After this period, the woman was no longer unclean, but might perform at home all the ordinary duties of domestic life; only she was forbidden to approach the sanctuary (i.e., the court of the tabernacle) until the time of her purification. The suggestion of Lange (which was also the opinion of Calvin) that the difference in the length of time for the uncleanness and the purification at the birth of a boy or a girl was due to the fact of the boy’s being formally received into the visible Church of God by circumcision, is a complete and satisfactory solution of a long-vexed question; but this solution necessarily carries with it the determination that the law had respect to the child as well as to the mother. To this two objections are proposed: first, the case of still-born children; but this was so exceptional that there was no occasion to provide for it in the law. When it did occur—if the principle above given is correct—there being no child for whom purification was required, the time would probably have been reduced to that which was considered necessary for the mother alone. The other objection arises from the necessity of including the infant Jesus in the purification of the Virgin Mary, Luk_2:22 (where it is very observable that the Evangelist does not hesitate to say τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὑτῶν7), but this is easily disposed of on the principle announced by Himself in regard to His baptism that “thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Mat_3:15). This is the view taken by S. Augustine (Quæst. in Hept. L. III. 40).—F. G.].
“Lev_12:6. The equalization of girls with boys appears again in the appointed completing sacrifice.” [That is, in the time at which it was offered; there was no distinction in the sacrifice itself.—F. G.]. “And in this there is not first a sin offering brought, and then a burnt offering, as in the trespass offerings; but first a costly burnt offering, as the expression of the consecration of the new life;—namely, a year old lamb, and then a sin offering small in proportion, a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove.” [This order of the offerings is a remarkable deviation from the general principle that when the two offerings came together, the sin offering always preceded. The reason of this exception appears to lie in the fact that at the birth of a child feelings of joy and gratitude are naturally uppermost; the thought of the child’s heritage of sinfulness comes afterward.—F. G.]. “Only in case of necessity was the burnt offering reduced and made the same as in the sin offering.” [This necessity seems to have been liberally interpreted by custom, and the smaller offering to have been allowed generally to the humbler classes of society. Comp. Luk_2:22-24. The time of the offering also could not be before the fortieth or the eightieth day, but only a very strict construction of the law could forbid its being deferred to a later period for those living at a distance from the sanctuary, as appears to have been done at the birth of Samuel, 1Sa_1:22-25.—F. G.]. “That bearing and being born, as well as being unclean through sickness and touching the dead, could not be thought of without human complicity in sin, or at least in guilt, was set forth by this law; but how gently was this judgment expressed! If it is now said of this sacrifice from one point of view: for a son, for a daughter [Lev_12:6], and then again so she shall be clean [Lev_12:8], so again is the time, just as much as the sacrifice of purification, designated as common for mother and child. Keil is thus incorrect when he supposes that the woman did not require purification for the child, but only for herself. According to the fundamental principles of the Levitical law, it could not be conceived that a clean child lay on the breast of an unclean mother. In this very community of the Levitical uncleanness, this inner fellowship between mother and child is raised above the supposed separation in their condition. It is evident that the thing here treated of is indefinite sinfulness, but not “sins becoming known indirectly in the corporeal manifestation of them.”
“Upon the laws of purity among other nations in regard to women in childbed, see Knobel, p. 466, and so too on the circumcision, p. 467.”
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
I. “The theocratic law is joined throughout with the sanitary law, without giving up its pre-dominating and symbolical Levitical signification. In the law of lying-in women there comes especially into notice the connection or unity between mother and child, and the difference between the man-child and the woman-child. See the Exegetical.” Lange.
II. “The doctrine, echoed in a hundred creeds, that ‘Purity is, next to life, the highest boon of man,’ was among them also [the Israelites] a truth and a reality.” Kalisch.
III. “The fall casts a shade of impenetrable darkness over the birth of a child of man. All that reason can say is, that this is another child of sin and heir of death.… The mother in Israel is here taught that while there is impurity and guilt connected with the bearer and the born of the fallen race, yet there is a propitiation on which she may rely for herself and for her off-spring, and a purification which she has for herself, and may confidently expect for her child, while she trains him up in the way he should go.” Murphy.
IV. This chapter shows clearly in the difference between the times of uncleanness and of purification at the birth of a boy and of a girl, the difference in relation to the ancient church brought about by circumcision. The Christian church has taken the place of the Jewish, and baptism has taken the place of circumcision; the same relation therefore may be expected to hold between these.
V. Inasmuch as a sin offering was to be presented conjointly for the mother and the new-born child, the doctrine of original sin is plainly taught in this law. Origen (Hom. viii. in Lev., § 3) draws the same conclusion from the fact that baptism is appointed “for the remission of sins,” and yet is administered to infants.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
As the primeval curse on sin fell, for the woman, on child-bearing, so in child-bearing she becomes by the law unclean, and must present for her purification a sin offering. That curse remains and still clings to every child of sin coming into the world; for purification resort must be had to that true Propitiation for sin of which the sin offering was a type.
“As the mother and her child emerge out of the impurity, she learns to hope for the day when both will emerge out of the bondage and corruption of sin; as the child is circumcised on the eighth day, the confiding parents pray and wait and watch and work for the circumcision of the heart, which is hopefully foreshadowed by the outward rite; as the mother offers her burnt sacrifice and sin sacrifice she rejoices in the knowledge that there is a propitiation that is sufficient for her, and for her children, and for her children’s children to all generations.” Murphy.
“The priestly people of God have always a war to wage with the defilements of the natural life. Even the uncleanness which belongs to the natural vigor of a lying-in woman, and to a newborn child, must be taken away and atoned for.” Lange.
In accordance with this law, “on the fortieth I day after His birth from the Blessed Virgin’s womb, Christ, the second Adam, our Emmanuel, was presented in the substance of our flesh; and on the fortieth day after His resurrection, or birth from the grave (Col_1:18; Rev_1:5), He was presented in our flesh in the heavenly sanctuary, and we were presented in Him in the dress of a cleansed and glorified humanity.” Wordsworth.
Footnotes:
[1]Lev_12:2. תַּזְרִיעַ. The Sam. here has the Niphal. Comp. Gen_1:11 for similar use of Hiphil.
[2]Lev_12:2. כִּימֵי. The text institutes a comparison, saying that the one is the same as the other, rather than makes one the law for the other.
[3]Lev_12:4. עַל. There is no distinction in the A. V. between this and the preposition of the preceding verse. Two MSS. read here also בִּדְמֵי as in Lev_12:4.
[4]Lev_12:6. כֶּבֶשׂ. See Textual Note5 on Lev_3:7.
[5]Lev_12:7. One MS., the Sam., LXX., and Syr., here supply the word priest, which is necessarily understood from the connection.
[6]Lev_12:8. שֶׂה a different word from that in Lev_12:6, and used either of sheep or goats, but according to Fürst, only of the young of either.
[7]In note on Luk_2:22 the view taken by Oosterzee is that the plural refers to Mary and Joseph.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 2. She shall be unclean — It is a…
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 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 (Lev_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, Psa_51:5. When Richard Watson was asked for the strongest proof text of inherited depravity, or original sin, he quoted Joh_3:6.
Seven days — This number of days makes the period of uncleanness the same length with the menstrual days of the separation. See Lev_15:19.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. These precepts are addressed to Moses only.
1. These precepts are addressed to Moses only.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.—As the reason…
XII.
(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 Lev_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.
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C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain Leviticus 12
Leviticus 12
This brief section reads out to us, after its own peculiar fashion, the double lesson of "man’s ruin and God’s remedy." But though the fashion is peculiar, the lesson is most distinct and impressive. It is, at once, deeply humbling and divinely comforting. The effect of all scripture, when interpreted to one’s own soul, directly, by the power of the Holy Ghost, is to lead us out of self to Christ. wherever we see our fallen nature - at whatever stage of its history we contemplate it, whether in its conception, at its birth, or at any point along its whole career, from the womb to the coffin, it wears the double stamp of iniquity and defilement. This is, sometimes, forgotten amid the glitter and glare, the pomp and fashion, the wealth and splendour of human life. The mind of man is fruitful in devices to cover his humiliation. In various ways he seeks to ornament and gild, and put on an appearance of strength and glory; but it is all vain. He has only to be seen as he enters this world, a poor helpless creature; or, as he passes away from it, to take his place with the clod of the valley, in order to have a most convincing proof of the hollowness of all his pride, the vanity of all his glory. Those whose path through this world has been brightened by what man calls glory, have entered in nakedness and helplessness, and retreated amid disease and death.
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Nor is this all. It is not merely helplessness that belongs to man - that characterises him as he enters this life. There is defilement also. "Behold," says the psalmist," I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. 51: 5) "How can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25: 4) In the chapter before us, we are taught that the conception and birth of "a man child," involved "seven days" of ceremonial defilement to the mother, together with thirty-three days of separation from the sanctuary; and these periods were doubled in the case of "a maid child." Has this no voice? Can we not read, herein, an humbling lesson? Does it not declare to us, in language not to be misunderstood, that man is "an unclean thing," and that he needs the blood of atonement to cleanse him? Truly so. Man may imagine that he can work out a righteousness of his own. He may vainly boast of the dignity of human nature. He may put on a lofty air, and assume a haughty bearing, as he moves across the stage of life; but if he would just retire for a few moments, and ponder over the short section of our book which now lies open before us, his pride, pomp, dignity, and righteousness would speedily vanish; and, instead thereof, he might find the solid basis of all true dignity, as well as the ground of divine righteousness, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The shadow of this cross passes before us in a double way in our chapter; first, in the circumcision of the "man child," whereby he became enrolled as a member of the Israel of God; and, secondly, in the burnt offering and sin offering, whereby the mother was restored from every defiling influence, rendered fit, once more, to approach the sanctuary, and to come in contact with holy things. "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 turtle dove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest; who shall offer it before the Lord, and make, an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female." (Ver. 6, 7) The death of Christ, in its two grand aspects, is here introduced to our thoughts, as the only thing which could possibly meet, and perfectly remove, the defilement connected with man’s natural birth. The burnt offering presents the death of Christ, according to the divine estimate thereof; the sin offering, on the other hand, presents the death of Christ, as bearing upon the sinner’s need.
"And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean." Nothing but blood-shedding could impart cleanness. The cross is the only remedy for man’s infirmity, and man’s defilement. Wherever that glorious work is apprehended, by faith, there is perfect cleanness enjoyed. Now, the apprehension may be feeble - the faith may be but wavering - the experience may be shallow; but, let the reader remember, for his soul’s joy and comfort, that it is not the depth of his experience, the stability of his faith, or the strength of his apprehension, but the divine value, the changeless efficacy of the blood of Jesus. This gives great rest to the heart. The sacrifice of the cross is the same to every member of the Israel of God, whatever be his status in the assembly. The tender considerateness of our ever gracious God is seen in the fact that the blood of a turtle dove was as efficacious for the poor, as the blood of a bullock for the rich. The full value of the atoning work was alike maintained and exhibited in each. Had it not been so, the humble Israelite, if involved in ceremonial defilement, might, as she gazed upon the well-stocked pastures of some wealthy neighbour, exclaim, "Alas! what shall I do? How shall I be cleansed? How shall I get back to my place and privilege in the assembly? I have neither flock nor herd. I am poor and needy." But, blessed be God, the case of such an one was fully met. A pigeon or turtle dove was quite sufficient. The same perfect and beautiful grace shines forth, in the case of the leper, in Lev. 14: "And if he be poor and cannot get so much, then he shall take, &c . . . . . . . And he shall offer the one of the turtle doves, or of the young pigeons, such as he can get; even such as he is able to get . . . . . This is the law of him in whom is the plague of leprosy, whose hand is not able to get that which pertaineth to his cleansing." (Ver. 21, 30-32)
Grace meets the needy one just where he is, and as he is. The atoning blood is brought within the reach of the very lowest, the very poorest, the very feeblest. All who need it can have it. "If he be poor" - what then? Let him be cast aside? Ah no; Israel’s God could never so deal with the poor and needy. There is ample provision for all such in the gracious expression, "Such as he can get; even such as he is able to get." Most exquisite grace! "To the poor the Gospel is preached." None can say, "the blood of Jesus was beyond me." Each can be challenged with the inquiry, "how near would you have it brought to you?" "I bring near my righteousness." How "near?" So near, that it is "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly." (Rom. 4: 5) Again, "the word is nigh thee." How "nigh? "So nigh "that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Rom. 10: 9) So also that most touching and beautiful invitation," Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money." (Isa. 55: 1)
What matchless grace shines in the expressions, "to him that worketh not," and, "he that hath no money!" They are as like God as they are unlike man. Salvation is as free as the air we breathe. Did we create the air? Did we mingle its component parts? No; but we enjoy it, and, by enjoying it, get power to live and act by Him who made it. So is it in the matter of salvation. We get it without a fraction, without an effort. We feed upon the wealth of another; we rest in the work finished by another; and, moreover, it is by so feeding and resting, that we are enabled to work for Him on whose wealth we feed, and in whose work we rest. This is a grand Gospel paradox, perfectly inexplicable to legality, but beautifully plain to faith. Divine grace delights in making provision for those who are "not able" to make provision for themselves.
But, there is another invaluable lesson furnished by this twelfth chapter of Leviticus. We not only read, herein, the grace of God to the poor, but, by comparing its closing verse with Luke 2: 24, we learn the amazing depth to which God stooped in order to manifest that grace. The Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, the pure and spotless Lamb, the Holy One, who knew no Sin, was "made of a woman," and that woman - wondrous mystery! - having borne in her womb, and brought forth, that pure and perfect, that holy and spotless human body, had to undergo the usual ceremonial, and accomplish the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses. And not only do we read divine grace in the fact of her having thus to purify herself, but also the mode in which this was accomplished. "And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons." From this simple circumstance we learn that the reputed parents of our blessed Lord Jesus were so poor, as to be obliged to take advantage of the gracious provision made for those whose means did not afford "a lamb for a burnt offering." What a thought! The Lord of Glory, the most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth, the One to whom pertained "the cattle upon a thousand hills" - yea, the wealth of the universe - appeared in the world which His hands had made, in the narrow circumstances of humble life. The Levitical economy had made provision for the poor, and the mother of Jesus availed herself thereof. Truly, there is a profound lesson in this for the human heart. The Lord Jesus did not make his appearance, in this world, in connection with the great or the noble. He was pre-eminently a poor man. He took His place with the poor. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. 8: 9)
May it ever be our joy to feed upon this precious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which we have been made rich for time and for eternity. He emptied Himself of all that love could give, that we might be filled. He stripped Himself, that we might be clothed. He died, that we might live. He, in the greatness of His grace, travelled down from the height of divine wealth into the depth of human poverty, in order that we might be raised from the dunghill of nature’s ruin, to take our place amid the princes of His people, for ever. Oh! that the sense of this grace, wrought in our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost, may constrain us to a more unreserved surrender of ourselves to Him, to whom we owe our present and everlasting felicity, our riches, our life, our all!
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain As there is a natural disgust felt for some…
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 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).
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HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-8. The purification of the Church.
At the commencement of his treatise on this Book of Leviticus, Cyril of Alexandria truly says, that as the Word of God came into the world arrayed in flesh, in which bodily appearance he was seen of all, while his divinity was seen only by the elect; so has the written Word a letter, or outward sense, which is obvious to ordinary perception, and an inward meaning which must be spiritually discerned. According to this rule, the purification of the Church is the subject of the text, which is presented under two aspects. It is
I DISTRIBUTIVELY CONSIDERED. The necessity of the spiritual birth may be collected:
1. From the impurity of the natural.
(1) This is expressed in the ceremonial uncleanness of the mother. In case of the birth of a son, she had to remain forty days in a state of impurity. During this period she must not touch any hallowed thing, else it became polluted; and she must not enter the holy place of the temple. In case her child were a daughter, the term of this uncleanness was doubled. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
(2) Her uncleanness is in her blood, which is the same as saying it is in her nature. To be "born of blood" is therefore a periphrasis for a natural birth in depravity, and it is consequently opposed to the spiritual birth. (see Joh_1:13)
(3) This maternal uncleanness is also described as her "infirmity," in allusion to the pain, sorrow, and weakness through which she passes; and calls to remembrance the curse upon the original offense. (Gen_3:16) The birth amidst this "infirmity" shows the utter helplessness and sorrowfulness of our moral state by nature.
(4) No wonder, then, that the child also should be accounted unclean. Until the eighth day he had no sign of the covenant upon him. But an infant could not have "sinned after the similitude of Adam"s transgression;" therefore this exclusion from the covenant from the birth evinces hereditary depravity and guilt. (Psa_51:5 Eph_2:3)
2. From the rite of circumcision.
(1) It was the sign of introduction into the covenant of God. (Gen_17:9-14) This supposes a spiritual birth, since the pollutions of the natural birth excluded the child from the favour of God.
(2) The sign expressed this moral change to be the cutting off all that was forward in fleshly desires. (see Deu_10:16 Rom_2:28, 29 Php_3:3) These, however necessary to the natural man, must not rule us here; for when the seven days of the world are over, they will be no more. (see Mat_22:30 1Co_15:50 2Co_5:2-4; see also Homiletic notes on chapter 9:1-7)
(3) Hence, the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" is another way for expressing the "circumcision of the heart," and therefore it is called the "circumcision of Christ," or of Christianity. (Col_2:11, Col_2:12) By parity of reason, the "baptism of water" corresponds to the "circumcision which is outward in the flesh.
(4) Circumcision was proper to express the necessity of a spiritual birth in the dispensation of the covenant before Christ came, as it figured his sacrificial death (the "cutting off" of the" Holy Seed"), through which we claim the blessings of salvation. Now he has come, the type is fittingly abolished, and the baptismal water introduced, which is the emblem of the purifying spirit of the gospel.
II COLLECTIVELY CONSIDERED.
1. The Church is the mother of the children of God.
a. Every man was intended to be a figure of Christ. The first man was such. (Rom_5:14) This privilege is shared by his male descendants. (Gen_1:26, 27 1Co_11:7) So every woman was intended to be a figure of the Church of God. (1Co_11:7-9) The marriage union, therefore, represents the union between Christ and his Church. (Eph_5:22-32) And the fruit of marriage should represent the children of God. (see Isa_54:1-8 Isa_49:20-23 Gal_4:25-31)
b. But all this may be reversed. Men, through perversity, may come to represent Belial rather than Christ. Women may become idolatrous, and represent an anti-Christian rather than a Christian Church. Thus Jezebel, who demoralized Ahab, became a type of those anti-Christian State Churches which demoralize the kings of the nations. (see Rev_2:20-23 Re 17)
2. In her present state she is impure.
(1) Under the Law she was far from perfect. The elaborate system of ceremonial purifications imposed upon her evinced this. Her history and the judgments she suffered go to the same conclusion. The uncleanness of the mother in the text is not an exaggerated picture,
(2) Nor is she perfect under the gospel. The saints are in her. Many of her children have experienced the circumcision of the heart. But many more have only had that which is outward in the flesh. The "tares hypocrites and unbelievers are mingled with the "wheat," a state of things which is destined to continue "until the harvest". (Mat_13:30, Mat_13:39)
3. But she is in the process of her purification.
(1) The first stage in this process was marked by the rite of circumcision. During the time prior to that event, she was in her "separation," viz. from her husband and friends, and those in necessary attendance upon her were unclean. This indicates the great difference which the cutting off of the Great Purifier of his people makes to the spiritual liberty of the Church Rom_7:1-4).
(2) Still the period of her uncleanness was extended to forty days from the beginning. Her "separation" terminated on the eighth day, but during the whole period she must not eat the Passover, nor the peace offerings, nor come into the sanctuary (verse 4). These forty days may be presumed to be similar in typical expression to the forty years of the Church in the wilderness before it was fit to enter Canaan. (see Deu_8:2, Deu_8:16)
(3) In the case of the birth of a female this period of forty days was doubled. This may be designed to show that under the gospel, where the distinction of male and female is abolished, (Gal_3:28 Col_3:11) still the wilderness state of the Church is continued. Our Lord was forty days upon earth before he entered into his glory, and in that state represented the state of the Church that is spiritually risen with him, but not yet glorified.
(4) The entrance of the mother into the temple when her purification was perfected represented the state of the Church in heaven. (see Eph_5:27) The offerings with which she entered showed that her happiness is the purchase of the Redeemer"s passion. Her feasting upon the holy things expressed those joys of the heavenly state elsewhere described as "the marriage supper of the Lamb". J.A.M. (Rev_19:7-9)
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Chapter 12Born in sin.
Gen_3:16 Psa_51:5 Luk_2:21-21 1Ti_2:15. From the division of the animals into clean and unclean, and the sanctity thereby inculcated, we are invited to proceed to those personal liabilities to uncleanness for which due rites were provided. The first of these takes life at its fountain-head, and refers to the uncleanness connected with birth. Motherhood involved a longer or shorter period of ceremonial separation forty days in the case of a son, seventy days in the case of a daughter, after which a burnt offering and a sin offering are to be presented to the Lord, and atonement made for her that she may be clean.
I LET US START WITH THE PHYSICAL FACT THAT NATURE HAS ASSOCIATED WITH CHILDBIRTH A SENSE ON THE MOTHER"S PART OF PERSONAL UNCLEANNESS. The "issue of her blood" (verse 7) stamps the physical process with defilement. No mother can avoid this sense of personal uncleanness, not even the blessed Virgin. (Luk_3:22-24) Upon the fact it is needless to dwell.
a. THE MORAL COUNTERPART TO THIS IS THE FACT THAT SIN IS TRANSMITTED BY ORDINARY GENERATION. As David puts it in Psa_51:5, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." From generation to generation is the legacy of evil transmitted. Hereditary sin must be recognized as a much wider phenomenon than "hereditary genius." The law of heredity must be accepted as at the bottom of human experience, if the mother, in spite of all her fondness for her babe, finds that she has transmitted sinful qualities; if this is the universal experience in ordinary generation, then the sense of uncleanness, physically induced, contracts a moral significance.
b. THERE IS AT THE SAME TIME A SENSE OF JOY AND TRIUMPH ASSOCIATED WITH THE BIRTH OF CHILDREN. If there is an element of sorrow and of judgment, as God indicates by his utterance at the Fall, (Gen_3:16) there is also an element of triumph, caught from the "protevangelium," which speaks of victory through the woman"s seed. (Gen_3:15) Our Lord even speaks of it as an appropriate figure of the coming apostolic joy: "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world". (Joh_16:21) The sorrow is the preliminary of joy, the joy is its crown.
IV THE TWO ELEMENTS OF JOY AND JUDGMENT HAD THEIR EXPRESSION IN THE BURNT AND SIN OFFERING THE MOTHER WAS DIRECTED TO PRESENT TO THE LORD. The ritual is the same whether it be a son or a daughter. The difference in the time of separation was due to a supposed physical fact that "a female child causes the mother more labour and a longer illness. This belief," continues Ewald, "(even though it may have little ground in fact), was itself caused by the well-known primitive disfavour with which the birth of a girl was regarded." No moral significance is to be attached, therefore, to the difference in the duration of the mother"s separation. But at the end of either period there is to be brought a burnt offering and a sin offering. The burnt offering is to be, if the mother can afford it, "a lamb of the first year," while the sin offering is only to be "a young pigeon" or a "turtledove." It is evident, therefore, that, while a poor mother might bring as her burnt offering a "turtledove" or "young pigeon," the ritual attaches emphasis to the burnt offering rather than to the sin offering. It has even been supposed that the burnt offering took precedence in the order of time in this particular instance. At all events, the joy of consecration, which the burnt offering expresses, is more emphatic in this ritual than the atonement for unavoidable defilement, which is expressed by the sin offering. The undertone of judgment is certainly discernible, but high above it sound the notes of grateful, holy joy. The mother rejoiced that, though unavoidably unclean in her child-bearing, the Lord had put away her uncleanness, and she was ready to dedicate herself and her child unto the Lord in the rite of the burnt offering.
V THIS RITUAL RECEIVES PECULIAR EMPHASIS FROM ITS CELEBRATION BY THE "VIRGIN" MOTHER. Mary had the usual physical concomitants in the birth of Jesus, we have every reason to believe, the termination of which this ritual of purification was intended to celebrate. The sense of uncleanness was manifestly hers, since she enters upon the ritual as no exception to the general rule and law. Not only so, but Luke boldly states, "when the days of their purification, according to the Law of Moses, were fulfilled" (tou kayarismou autwn , not authv ), including Jesus along with Mary, for Oosterzee"s notion that it is Joseph and Mary, not Jesus and Mary, will not satisfy the case. In what sense, then, was Jesus associated with his mother in a ritual of purification? It is certain that there was not transmitted to Jesus any sinful disposition or qualities, as in ordinary generation. His whole life belied this idea. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." But this does not prevent the idea being accepted that there was transmitted in his extraordinary generation responsibility for human sin. In other words, Jesus Christ was born with a liability on account of the sins of others. Having entered into the human family, having condescended to be born, he became liable for the responsibilities and debts of the human family, and the ritual so regarded him. Not only so, but our Lord had entered upon his "bloody passion" when at eight days old he had passed through the painful operation of circumcision. The rites in the temple thirty-three days after only expressed in legal form the liability on account of human sin upon which he had already entered. But if the atonement of the sin offering has thus a distinctive meaning in this exceptional case, the burnt offering had also its fulfillment. Mary dedicated, not only herself, but her Son, according to the Law of the Lord, "Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord." Simeon and Anna recognized in the infant the dedicated Messiah. Thus did Mary, as mother of Jesus, fulfill all righteousness.
VI WE ARE SURELY TAUGHT HERE THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE THAT IT IS THROUGH SORROW AND HUMILIATION THAT TRIUMPH IS REACHED. The hope of a triumphant woman"s seed sustained Jewish mothers in their sorrow. They looked for salvation through child-bearing, according to the idea of the apostle. (1Ti_2:15) God"s meaning was through the child-bearing (dia thv teknogoniav ), that is, the motherhood of the Virgin. Yet the hope sustained multitudes of mothers in their agonies. At length the Conqueror of the devil appeared. He came as an infant, and braved the dangers of development, and became "the Man of sorrows," and passed through death to victory. To the same law we must constantly conform. Humiliation is the price of exaltation in the case of Jesus and of all his people. The apostles had their season of sorrow in connection with Christ"s crucifixion, and so sore it was that our Lord does not hesitate to compare it to a woman"s travail; but at Pentecost they got the joy and exhilaration which compensated for all. The law of the kingdom is that we enter it through much tribulation. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted". (Luk_14:11) When we humble ourselves under a sense of sin, when we humble ourselves under a sense of unprofitableness, then are we treading the path which leads to power and triumph. R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-8. The statutes on maternity.
We may seek
I THE EXPLANATION or THIS STATUTE. And we shall find the explanation
(1) not in the notion that any actual sin is involved in it;
(2) but in the fact that there is connected with it that which is painfully suggestive of sin. (There was nothing actually "unclean" in the camel or hare, but it was constituted so because it was fairly suggestive of it.)
1. The sorrow of maternity (Joh_16:21) points clearly to the primeval curse, and therefore to the primeval sin. (Gen_3:16)
2. The birth of a human child means the entrance into the world of one in whom are the germs of sin. (Psa_51:5 Psa_58:3 Eph_2:3)
3. Maternity suggests the sexual relation, and that suggests the abounding and baneful sin of impurity. Hence sin is associated with the birth of the human infant, and the physical condition (verse 7) attending it is typical of sin, constitutes "uncleanness," and necessitates purification.
II THE THOUGHTS WE GAIN FROM THIS STATUTE. We learn:
1. The communicativeness of sin. We transmit our follies, our errors, our iniquities, by ordinary generation. Our children, because they are our children, will go astray, and will be in danger of those very errors into which we ourselves have fallen. Those who become parents must take the responsibility of bringing into the world children like themselves, who will inherit their dispositions, their habits of thought, their character. Sin is communicated from generation to generation through heredity, and also through the contagiousness of evil example. There is nothing more diffusive.
2. The extension of the consequences of sin. How sin sends forth its stream of sorrow! The pangs of maternity, answered by the opening cry of the infant as it enters the world do these not speak the truth, that a world of sin is a world of sorrow, that succeeding generations of sinners are succeeding generations of sufferers, and that this will he so to the end of the world?
3. The removableness of guilt from the sight of God. The "uncleanness" of the mother was not irremovable. It did temporarily but did not permanently separate her from the sanctuary (verse 4). After a limited retirement she might come with her sin offering and her burnt offering to "the door of the tabernacle" (verse 6). If she were poor she might bring an offering within the reach of the poorest (verse 8), and the priest would "make atonement," and she would "be clean" (verse 8). Whatever guilt we contract, whether in communicating evil to others or as the indirect consequence of the sin of others, by whatsoever our souls have been defiled, our lives stained and corrupted, we may all come to the cross of the Redeemer, and through his atoning sacrifice be made clean in the sight of God. And thus coming, our sin offering will not be unaccompanied by a burnt offering; the forgiveness of our sin will be followed by the dedication of our whole selves to the service of the Lord. C.
HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE Vers. 2-7. Woman under the Law and under the gospel.
Every childbirth re-echoes in the ears of woman the sentence passed upon her ancestress Eve. That such a season of rejoicing should be attended with such throes of agony speaks loudly of the curse entailed by sin. There is no earthly pleasure entirely free from its shadow, pain. Great movements of society, deep thoughts, even inspiring melodies, are not ushered into the world without the pangs of travail.
I THE LAW REMINDS US HERE OF WOMAN"S CONNECTION WITH THE PRIMAL SIN.
1. She is to be considered "unclean" for a fixed period after bringing forth a child. In the first part of "separation for her infirmity," she communicates defilement to whatever she touches, and must therefore, as far as possible, remain apart. But in the succeeding thirty-three or sixty-six "days of her purifying," she may fulfill her domestic duties, only she must not come into contact with hallowed things, not partake of sacrificial meals, nor enter the sanctuary, Thus the fulfillment of her maternal hopes renders her unfit for a season to join in the worship of the holy God. She is led to rejoice with trembling; she is at once exalted and depressed. She sees that the new life is not separate from corruption, is allied to uncleanness and death, and in order to be redeemed requires hallowing by obedience to God"s ordinances.
2. To cleanse the mother from the stains of childbirth and to allow of restored fellowship with God, atonement is requisite. First a burnt offering, that the life spared and secluded temporarily may be wholly surrendered in spirit to the Author and Sustainer of life. Then a sin offering to expiate all ceremonial offenses connected with the begetting of children. If these rites appertain simply to the parent, yet must the knowledge of them afterwards acquaint the child with the state of separation from God into which it was the unwitting instrument of introducing the parent, and there is at least a hint that the origin of life is not free from taint.
II THE LAW INDICATES THE INFERIOR ESTEEM IN WHICH WOMAN WAS ANCIENTLY HELD.
1. The uncleanness contracted by bearing a female child lasted twice as long as when a boy was born. This has indeed been explained on physiological grounds, as formerly maintained, But there is ample warrant for the other view. (see 1Sa_1:11 Jer_20:15, and Joh_16:21, for the joy caused by the birth of a male child) In Lev_27:5, the female is esteemed at half the price of the male. Each mother of a male might cherish the hope that to her was granted the promised seed the Messiah.
2. No rite of initiation into the covenant for the female. The Jews regarded circumcision as the badge of honour, the mark of privilege and blessing. Woman entered the nation without special recognition. She was not capable of becoming the head of a family, on whose proved nationality so much depended, for if she married she became a member of her husband"s family.
III THE GOSPEL DIGNIFIES THE POSITION OF WOMAN.
1. It abolishes before the Lord distinctions of sex. "There is neither male nor female; ye are all one in Christ Jesus." "There is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision." Woman has equal rights with man, saving only what natural modesty forbids her claiming, and what is the general law promulgated from the first, (Gen_3:16) that the husband shall rule over her. Both men and women are baptized (Act_8:12) and endowed with the Spirit.
2. It is the glory of woman to have been the medium of the incarnation of the Son of God. Her shame is removed. Even the poverty of woman is ennobled by the example of the Virgin Mary bringing her "pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.
3. Woman"s quick appreciation of truth and steadfast fidelity are specially notable under the preaching of Christ and the apostles. Ready to adore the Lord. as an intent, to supply his wants during his ministry, to bathe his feet with repentant, grateful tears, to anoint him before his burial, to follow him on the road to Calvary, to be nearest to him at the cross, and the first at his grave on the Resurrection morn, woman occupies a place in the gospel records alike conspicuous and honourable. Nor are the faith and love and devotion of woman less marked in the Acts and the Epistles. Well has woman striven to erase the stigma of the first transgression. Eighteen centuries of the continually progressive elevation of woman in the social and mental scale have only attested the cardinal principles of Christianity. The position of woman in any nation now serves as an index to the stage of civilization which it has reached. S.R.A.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Chapters 12-15. Ceremonial purifications,
For defilement from secretions and from leprosy. The double object to exalt the sacred laws, to honour the natural laws of health and cleanliness. Thus we are taught
I RELIGION PRESERVES, PURIFIES, EXALTS HUMAN NATURE. The facts of family life are to be connected with the sanctuary. The more we think of both the joyful and the sorrowful events of our individual and social life as intimately bound up with our religion, the better we shall be prepared to find God"s blessing always both preserving and sanctifying.
II ALL REGULATIONS WHICH CONCERN THE BODILY LIFE AND THE TEMPORAL HAPPINESS OF MEN SHOULD BE SURROUNDED WITH RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. Science is a curse to the world unless it is the handmaid to religion. Oar bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. Our earthly life is the threshold of eternity.
III TYPICALLY. Leprosy represents human depravity and misery. We see it brought into relation to the cleansing blood of atonement. The sin which works death both by the individual acts and by contact with others, both in person and in condition, is cleansed away both in guilt and in power. The leper is not excluded from mercy, but is dealt with by the priest as having his place in the covenant. Our vileness does not shut us out from the love or" God, but his love is revealed as an atoning love. "He is able to save unto the uttermost," but it is "those who come unto God by him. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain She shall Be unclean.
Lev_12:1-8
She shall Be unclean.
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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 mans 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 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 worlds 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 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 Gods 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. 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 without hands, receive the little ones into covenant relation with Himself, to their eternal salvation. (S. H. Kellogg D. D.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain THE reference in Lev_12:2 to the regulations given in…
THE UNCLEANNESS OF CHILD BEARING
Lev_12:1-8
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THE reference in Lev_12:2 to the regulations given in Lev_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 Lev_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, Lev_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 {Lev_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 (Lev_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 Lev_15:29-30. A gracious provision this was, as all will remember, of which the mother of our Lord availed herself, {Luk_2:22-24} as being one of those who were too poor to bring a lamb for a burnt offering.
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 mothers 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 Lev_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.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Lev_12:2.—If a woman hath conceived … she shall be…
Maternity
SUGGESTIVE READINGS
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Lev_12:2.—If a woman hath conceived … she shall be unclean. Thus at the very entrance into life uncleanness clings to us. Not a child is born without defilement surrounding its birth. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa_51:5). “How can he be clean that is born of a woman?” (Job_25:4). How humbling is this Scripture presentation of our case. From the cradle to the grave man’s life is pronounced unclean. Surely it should arrest all self-elation and boasting. Pitiable indeed sounds the vain panegyric upon the dignity of human nature; melancholy is the haughty assumption of excellence and worthiness, in the light of this vision of man’s defilement from birth till death. He should rather “abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job_42:6). Instead of the too common flattery of human nature, be this mirror of his humiliating impurity held up to the face of the self-satisfied sinner, that he may see the “hole of the pit whence he was digged” (Isa_51:1), and cry in penitential lowliness, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa_64:6).
Lev_12:6.—She shall bring a lamb. Always, in God’s graciousness, the remedy rises for the malady. Defilement has its antidote in atonement. The two grand aspects of the sacrificial death of Christ stood out here in the “lamb for a burnt offering,” in which He offered Himself without spot to God; and in the “sin offering,” in which He substituted Himself as the victim for men. From the humbling spectacle of human helplessness and defilement here given what can be more assuring and consolatory than to gain a view, in type, of the perfect merits of Jesus—who in Himself concentrated the unsullied grace and dignity of humanity, and in His sacrifice effectually atoned for the guiltiness and degradation of our fallen race. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Lev_12:2; Lev_12:5.—If the woman have born a man child … If she bear a maid child. The mother’s defilement was ceremoniously less for the male child than for the female. Is not this a perpetuated memorial of the fact that sin entered the world through the woman, she being the first transgressor? Certainly this is the basis of Paul’s argument for her inferior position in the Christian Church (1Ti_2:11-14) Or, in this shorter banishment from sanctuary privileges when her child was a male, there may be found an intimation of the blessed privilege coveted by all Hebrew mothers, of giving birth to THE “MAN CHILD,” who was to be “born of a woman,” to redress the woes of the fall. Every suggestion of the coming Emmanuel was cherished as the soft radiance of that promised “MORNING STAR.” And so the heavier penalty fell on the birth of the female child, since woman was a remembrance of sin, whereas the ameliorated penalty was attached to the birth of a male, since the Man Child was the herald of the promised Saviour.
Lev_12:8.—If she be not able to bring a lamb. However poor the woman might be, there could be no exemption from the presentation of an atonement offering. Poverty must come, though with meek aspect, trusting in reconciling blood. And the “poor in spirit,” whose faith is tremulous, whose apprehension is feeble, must, nevertheless, lay hope on the merits of sacrifice. None can be allowed, through lowliness of station or poverty of soul, to evade the propitiatory atonement. All must place trust in Christ whatever our lot in life, whatever our spiritual mood. Yet how tender is God’s consideration! He will allow the turtle dove to suffice for the poor, and regard it as equally efficacious as the richer offerer’s lamb, so that the humblest Israelite should be harassed by no fear lest she forfeit privilege by her lowlier gift. God’s perfect grace comes to the very condition in which the “poor and needy” are to be found. And so, in this Christian dispensation, the lowest and the feeblest have the atoning blood brought within their reach, and through its merits may recover all the privileges from which “uncleanness” excludes them. “To the poor the gospel is preached.”
HOMILIES
Topic: MOTHERHOOD
Scripture shows that God thinks much of mothers. Allusions to a mother’s sufferings, perils, relationship, affection, are very numerous. She passes through no experience which has not been noticed, described, and used by the Lord as a simile of spiritual truth. Motherhood, in all its aspects, is the reiterated theme of God’s Word. This must afford a wealth of consolation and support to a believing mother in her trials and solicitudes; her watchful Father has shown that He minutely considers all her various cares, her mysterious pangs, her heart struggles between dread and delight, her yearnings and her love.
The birth of a child is also an event which constantly engages inspiration. The Word makes frequent reference to the incident. A new life ushered into the world, is a fact which touches the heart of God. Another being launched upon the floods of possibility; another factor in the intricate sum of human existence, whose results must affect the ultimate reckoning; another soul added to the millions whose destiny is bliss or woe. There is no room for doubting that the divine Father is concerned for each human offspring. He notes the child’s entrance, gives directions concerning it, sends counsels for its career desires its salvation and sanctification, calls it to the immortal Home made ready by Christ. “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Mat_18:14).
I. How observant is Scripture of the HUMILIATIONS incident to MOTHERHOOD.
This chapter is a witness.
1. Scripture has sanctioned and sanctified wifely relationship (Psa_113:9).
2. Scripture recognises every stage of physical suffering which motherhood entails (Jer_4:31).
3. Scripture forewarns of the tender sorrows and distresses incident to maternity (Joh_16:21; Isa_26:17).
4. Scripture contains special messages of compassion and hope for mothers in their period of solicitude (Isa_40:11).
II. How emphatically does Scripture pay tribute to the HONOURS of MOTHERHOOD.
In making a mother the symbol of the Church of God (Gal_4:6; Eph_5:32).
In comparing Jehovah’s consolatory ministries to those of a mother (Isa_66:13).
In using motherhood as the channel of Christ’s advent (Luk_1:35).
In the tender consideration for His mother manifested by Jesus (Luk_2:52; Joh_19:26-27).
In the command given to children to pay their mothers reverence (Mat_15:4, etc.). [See Addenda to chap. xii., Maternity.]
III. How watchfully does Scripture guard the HAPPINESS which should be the crown of MOTHERHOOD.
1. Conjugal loyalty is scrupulously demanded (Mal_2:15-16; Eph_5:25; Eph_5:28).
2. A mother’s place in the family is carefully indicated (Eph_6:1-2).
3. The grace which flows through mothers to their children is recognised with emphatic approval (2Ti_1:5).
4. The blessedness of a mother’s privilege is indicated in Christ’s welcome of the mothers who brought their children to Him (Luk_18:15-17).
“And say to mothers, What a holy charge
Is theirs; with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind;
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow
Good seed before the world has sown its tares.”—Mrs. Sigourney.
Though her child is “born in sin,” and she is humiliated by her own “uncleanness,” yet can a mother retrieve her humiliation by uplifting her child in prayer to God, by training her offspring in the faith of Christ, and at last, with her children saved in the Lord, appearing in the glory of the Eternal Presence with the glad cry, “Behold me, and the children which thou hast given me!” [See Addenda, Childhood.]
Topic: BIRTH
I. In its pangs there survives the MEMORIES OF THE WOEFUL FALL.
Our ancestress Eve sinned, therefore, “unto the woman God said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Gen_3:16).
II. In its “uncleanness” there arise SUGGESTIONS OF OUR TRANSMITTED DEFILEMENT.
Physical impurity, amid which a babe is ushered into the world, is but a sign of that corruption, moral and spiritual, which parents pass on to their offspring: “Altogether born in sin” (Joh_9:34).
III. In its transports there reappears the JOYOUSNESS OF THE MESSIAH’S INCARNATION.
Sang the angels, “Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luk_2:11). A woman, “as soon as she is delivered of the child, remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man-child is born into the world” (Joh_16:21).
Topic: POLLUTION AND PURIFYING
The birth of a child should be an event of gratitude and delight. It is never wholly so; for a shadow falls on every new-born life.
(a) It is “born in sin,” and, therefore may perish in sin!
(b) It is born amid travail, and may—dread possibility that!—occasion death through the anguish of birth.
(c) It is an event marked by God as qualified with “uncleanness.” For He sees in every birth, since Eve’s fall, the perpetuation of sin, the propagation of a sinning race.
I. UNCLEAN: such is the VERDICT OF HEAVEN UPON HUMAN LIFE.
God has here written the word pollution upon the very entrance of a babe into existence.
1. It brands the mother as “unclean,” and excludes her from social fellowship and sanctuary privileges. We are not now judged by this ceremonial standard; but a principle underlies this banishment of the mother. It declares that there is taint in the blood. There has never been a sinless mother on this earth. Certainly not Eve; nor even the Virgin Mary—for she had equally to observe “the days of her purification” (Luk_2:22). Womanhood is defiled; therefore maternity is not pure.
2. It brands the child as defiled. The tender babe holds in its physical form the germs of foul disease, of corrupt affections and passions. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” From a poisoned fountain there can flow only vitiated streams. Leave that babe to follow its inbred desires and it will degenerate into evil. Goodness is never self-evolved, but only badness. “They go astray as soon as they be born” (Psa_58:2).
II. CLEANSING: such is THE DEMAND OF GOD UPON EVERY ONE DEFILED.
Here upon the mother only, because the ceremonial directions deal with the mother. But the demand is equally enforced upon all; each sex, every life. The male child was unclean till “circumcised” (Lev_12:3).
1. Until cleansing is effected there is banishment: the door is closed upon social life, for she must be separate: and closed upon sacred scenes, for she must “not come into the sanctuary.” Defilement excludes us from all that is happiest, purest, best.
2. Until cleansing is effected there is degradation: the woman forfeited her place of dignity in her own home and in God’s temple. Impurity is a degradation. We sink thereby from our honoured place in creation; we grovel instead of triumph; we are bowed into shame before God instead of joying in His favour; and we are refused the blessedness which is the right of sinless man, of treading God’s courts with acceptance, and abiding in the delights of holy privilege.
III. PURIFIED: such is the POSSIBILITY OPENED BY GOD TO ALL WHO ARE UNCLEAN.
1. Womanhood sanctified (Lev_12:7). In the Christian dispensation there is a richer purifying than the ceremonial; it “cleanses from all sin.” Look in upon the Bethany home—“Mary sat at Jesus’ feet.” See the apostles’ list of consecrated women in the Christian church at Rome (Romans 16). Lift your eyes to the pure souls, “an hundred and forty and four thousand” with the Lamb on Mount Sion: virgin saints, all undefiled (Rev_14:1; Rev_14:4).
2. Childhood consecrated (Lev_12:3), thereby enrolled as a member of the Israel of God: and now placed in the hands of Jesus who, blessing the children, declares, “of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
There is merit in Christ’s “atonement” which purges all sin’s stains. There is grace in His heart by which all may be rejoiced. There is beauty in His righteousness with which all may be clothed in sacred comeliness.
Topic: THE STATUTE RELATING TO MATERNITY
This chapter records the rites to be observed by Hebrew women in connection with their new experiences of maternity. The period of ceremonial restrictions would differ according to the sex of the child; but, in both cases, the mother would be permitted to present her offering before the Lord, and, eventually, be restored to her former status among the people. The statute suggests the following reflections:
I. THAT ANGUISH IS ASSOCIATED WITH MATERNITY.
Through the Fall the sorrows of conception were greatly multiplied, and the pangs of childbirth became intensified. The whole period of conception, with many, is a burden; and the time of travail one of most excruciating pain. Though the mother experiences one of nature’s keenest joys when she knows that to her a child is born, yet there are accompanying sorrows which only the feelings of maternity can know, as no stranger can intermendle with the joy.
II. THAT PRIVACY IS ASSOCIATED WITH MATERNITY.
Although the procreation of children is normal and of divine ordination, yet, where there is virtuous womanly modesty, there is always a sense of shyness and reserve during period of preparation for advent of the little stranger, especially at the season of delivery. The instincts of nature suggest withdrawal from public observation and general familiar intercourse even with friends. Hence, even among heathen nations, special rites and customs have always been associated with the experiences under consideration. Such restraints and reserve do not degrade the gentler sex in the sight of God or the eyes of rightminded men; woman rather rises thereby in honour and esteem.
III. THAT DEPRAVITY IS ASSOCIATED WITH MATERNITY.
Maternity, under honourable conditions, is no sin: yet, by it, depravity is communicated; as the Psalmist expresses the fact, “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” There is a hereditary tendency in human nature to sin; so that giving birth to a child is the propagation of sinfulness, and an extension of the consequences of transgression, entailing moral, as well as ceremonial defilement. The rite of purification, under these circumstances, is both symbol and type of purification of the children of men by atonement of our great High Priest on Calvary. Responsibilities, commensurate with the honour of maternity, suggested by the statute. Imperative, that children born in sin, with inherent depraved propensities, should be taught the law of the Lord, and trained in holiness and righteousness all their days.
IV. THAT SALVATION IS ASSOCIATED WITH MATERNITY.
Though for a while the mother was kept secluded from society, the restrictions were only of a temporary character. She was soon seen presenting her appointed offerings before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The burnt offering was the basis of all other offerings; and signified, not only the sovereign claim of Jehovah upon all we have and are; but, also the disposition of the worshipper to become a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. Behold the goodness of God in promising to accept “two turtles, or two young pigeons” if the offerer were not able to present a lamb; one for the burnt offering, the other for the sin offering. The intention and frame of mind were of more importance than the offering itself, as the Scriptures elsewhere declare, “Behold! to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” This rite—being for the Jews, and associated with the Levitical economy—is abrogated now; a more minute examination, therefore, would not minister to edification—is not necessary. Some moral teachings have been indicated, and they may, when convenient, be reiterated in public as part of the didactic function of preaching; for principles, gathered from divine laws, have undying roots, and inexhaustible meanings. This, as well as other rights, was observed down to the advent of our blessed Lord; for Mary, the mother of Jesus, offered in the Temple the least offering allowed at thanksgiving and sacrifice after child-birth; an irrefutable proof of the abject poverty of her worldly circumstances. On national, as well as on religious grounds, no objection can be offered under the gospel to women, having been delivered in the time of maternal solicitude and sorrow, publicly paying their vows in the courts of the Lord, and with grateful hearts re-dedicating themselves to the service of the Most High. If womankind reflect with sorrow upon the fact that it was through Eve’s seduction that Adam fell and sin entered our world, they may reflect with joy upon the fact that it was through their own sex that the second Adam came, who has reversed the curse of sin and redeemed the human race. If in connection with the first man shame seems to cover womanhood, the second man, the Lord from heaven, placed a wreath of undying glory on her brow, as we see lying in the arms of Mary at Bethlehem, “the holy child Jesus.” Paul asserts, in his first Epistle to Timothy (Lev_5:15), that women shall be saved through the child-bearing; salvation has come through its ordinance, and if women abide in faith, love, sanctification, and holy self-control, they shall be cleansed from all moral impurity, shall be not only sanctified, but saved, through the Child born, the Son given.—F. W. B.
ILLUSTRATIVE ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 12
MOTHERHOOD:
“There is no mother like the mother that bore us.”—Spanish Proverb.
“A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.”—COLERIDGE.
“… A mother’s love
Is an undying feeling. Earth may chill
And sever other sympathies, and prove
How weak all human bonds are; it may kill
Friendship, and crush hearts with them; but the thrill
Of the maternal breast must ever move
In blest communion with her child, and fill
Even heaven itself with prayers and hymns of love.—PATTERSON.
Monica, Augustine’s mother. Never did mother struggle more earnestly than she. From her son’s nineteenth to his twenty-eighth year, while he was revelling in all sin’s foulness, she persisted in resolute hope and fervent prayer. In his twenty-ninth year she was still “instant in prayer,” when he left her and journeyed to Rome. From Rome he went to Milan, and thither the praying mother followed him. And there the answer to her prayer and reward of her Christian influence came. In Ambrose’s preaching contrition came to Augustine, and that event made Monica’s happiness complete.
CHILDHOOD:
“Children are what their mothers are.
No fondest father’s fondest care
Can fashion so the infant’s heart
As those creative beams that dart,
With all their hopes and fears, upon
The cradle of a sleeping son.”—LANDER.
“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”—BEECHER.
Cecil, who had adopted infidel sentiment in his youth, and prided himself upon his strong arguments against religion, said, long afterwards: “There was one argument I could never get over, the influence and life of a holy mother.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Uncleanness connected with Childbirth
Uncleanness connected with Childbirth
The functions of reproduction are in early stages of religion regarded with superstitious dread. The enactments in this chapter and the related regulations in Leviticus 15 had an important place in teaching the lesson of purity in sexual relationships.
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3. Cp. Gen_17:10-14. The purifications prescribed in this chapter are for the mother alone and not for the child, who does not seem to have been regarded as unclean, unless the rite of circumcision involved the idea of the purification of the child. Uncircumcision and uncleanness are frequently identical: see on Lev_19:23.
4. On the eighth day the mother is readmitted to society, but is still debarred from the services of the tabernacle till forty days after the birth.
5. In the case of the birth of a girl the two periods of uncleanness (see last note) are exactly doubled, the reason doubtless being the opinion of the ancients that the derangement of the system is greater.
8. Cp. Luk_2:24, which shows that the Virgin Mary offered the poor woman's sacrifice.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 2. Childbirth Laws and Inherited Sin
2. Childbirth Laws and Inherited Sin
CHAPTER 12
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1. The man-child (Lev 12:1-4)
2. The maid-child (Lev 12:5)
3. The offerings (Lev 12:6-8)
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 days on earth after His resurrection, recalling to mind earth’s time of paradise.”) In case of the birth of a maid-child the days of uncleanness were just double, fourteen and sixty-six. But why was this? The key to the spiritual meaning of this chapter is found in this very fact. “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1Ti 2:14). It was by the woman that the fall was brought about through the Serpent. The facts that sin is in the world, how it came into the world and that sin is inherited, transmitted from generation to generation, are made known in this brief chapter. The woman is constituted unclean because she is a sinful creature. Her sorrow and pain in childbirth, which no science nor discovery can remove, is a definite witness to the truth as contained in the third chapter of Genesis. And because she is a sinful creature and unclean, her offspring too is sinful and unclean, for “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” What later David expressed, when he stood in the light, confessing his sin, is here seen in the childbirth laws. “Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa 51:5) And one well may think here of her who was a sinful woman like every other woman, but who conceived by the Holy Spirit, Mary, the virgin. The One born of her had no sin, but is “that holy thing” called the Son of God (Luk 1:35).
on the eighth day the male child was to be circumcised. Both “circumcision” and “the eighth day” are of spiritual significance. The eighth day is the type of resurrection, the new creation. Circumcision is given in the New Testament in its true meaning. See Rom 6:6; Col 2:11; Php 3:3. This indicates the manner in which God hath dealt with inherited sin in the cross of His blessed Son, our Saviour and Lord. Then follows the commandment concerning the offerings, when the days of purification were ended. It was for both the male and the female, the same offering, a lamb and a young pigeon or turtle dove. “And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles or two young pigeons.” Read and compare with Luk 2:22.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Purification after Childbirth.
The Purification after Childbirth.
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
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v. 2. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, if a woman have conceived seed, brought forth bodily issue, and born a man child, a boy, then she shall be unclean seven days, this being the time of her personal uncleanness, during which every person and thing touched by her itself became defiled; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean, that is, during the average time of the flow following birth.
v. 3. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised, Genesis 17, this notice being here inserted lest this very necessary rite be neglected.
v. 4. And she shall then, counting from the eighth day, continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days, this making a total of forty days, during which she was to stay at home, although the restrictions of the first seven days were now made much lighter; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the Sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. Although free to perform the ordinary duties of the household, she could not take part in sacrificial meals, the Passover and other festivals, nor was she permitted to enter the court of the Sanctuary. The forty days were the symbolical time of purification, of exclusion from the world.
v. 5. But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation, the extra seven days probably being an equivalent for the rite of circumcision in the case of the boy; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying, for the average length of the entire flow, threescore and six days, this making a total of eighty days in the case of a girl. Natural sanitary reasons were probably the basis of the Levitical ordinance.
v. 6. And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son or for a daughter, that is, depending upon the fact whether it was a boy or a girl that had been born, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin-offering, unto the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, unto the priest,
v. 7. who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. "The order of the offerings is a remarkable deviation from the general principle that, when the two offerings came together, the sin-offering always preceded. The reason of this exception appears to lie in the fact that at the birth of a child feelings of joy and gratitude are naturally uppermost; the thought of the child’s heritage of sinfulness comes afterward. " This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.
v. 8. And if she be not able to bring a lamb, if her poverty is such as to make it impossible for her to afford a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles (turtledoves) or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering and the other for a sin-offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean. A significant light is thrown upon the external circumstances of Joseph’s share in this world’s goods by the fact that Mary was obliged to bring the sacrifice of the poor people at the time of her purification, Luk 2:24. Note also: As the little Jewish baby was received into fellowship with the covenant God by the rite of circumcision, so Christian children, cleansed from the guilt of inherited sin by the mashing of Baptism, are placed in to the arms of their Savior for their soul’s salvation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 she will be unclean
she will be unclean
A woman whom other people must not touch because she is bleeding from her womb is spoken of as if she were physically unclean. (See: Metaphor)
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during the days of her monthly period
This refers to the time of the month when a woman bleeds from her womb. (See: Euphemism)
the flesh of a baby boy's foreskin must be circumcised
Only the priest could perform this action. This can be translated in active form. AT: "a priest must circumcise the baby boy" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
Yahweh
Moses
Israel
children
clean
circumcise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:1-8 These verses detail the regulations pertaining to childbirth.…
12:1-8 These verses detail the regulations pertaining to childbirth. Any bodily discharge, even blood, was considered “abnormal” because it reduced the vitality of the individual and rendered the person ceremonially unclean (see study notes on 5:3; 11:1–15:33). Accordingly, not childbirth but the discharge accompanying it is addressed in these verses (12:2, 5, 7). The uncleanness was not sinful in itself, but only if it was neglected and allowed to come into contact with what is holy (see 5:2-3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.