Leviticus 12:1 - Meaning and Application

The law here declares that a woman after childbirth is ceremonially unclean. The Jews say that this rule even reached a miscarriage, if the child had formed enough for the sex to be seen.

There was first a short time of strict separation right after the birth, seven days for a son and fourteen for a daughter (Leviticus 12:2, Leviticus 12:5). During those days, she was kept apart from her husband and friends. Those who had to care for her were also ceremonially unclean. This was one reason male babies were not circumcised until the eighth day, because they shared in the mother’s uncleanness during her time of separation.

There was also a longer time set aside for purification, thirty-three more days, making forty in all, if the child was a boy, and twice that long if it was a girl (Leviticus 12:4, Leviticus 12:5). During that time, the mother was kept away from the sanctuary, and she could not eat the Passover, the peace offerings, or, if she was a priest’s wife, anything holy to the Lord.

I cannot give any reason why the time was twice as long for a daughter as for a son, except that this was the will of the Lawgiver. In Christ Jesus there is no difference between male and female (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). But this ceremonial uncleanness, which the law placed on women after childbirth, was meant to picture the stain of sin we all receive when we are conceived and born in it (Psalm 51:5).

If the root is unclean, so is the branch. No clean thing can come from an unclean one. If sin had never entered the world, then the command to “be fruitful and multiply” would have been connected only with honor and purity. But now that human nature is broken, the act of bringing children into the world carries signs of shame, because corruption is passed on with life. It also reminds us of the curse on the woman who was first in the transgression, that in sorrow, and here also in shame, she would bear children.

The woman’s long exclusion from the sanctuary and from holy food showed something deeper. It taught that our natural corruption, the sin we bring into the world with us, would have kept us out of God’s presence forever if he had not kindly provided a way to make us clean.