Leviticus 12:2
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“Say to the Israelites, ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be unclean for seven days, as she is during the days of her menstruation.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Laws of Purification - Leviticus 12-15 The laws concerning defilement through eating unclean animals, or through contact with those that had died a natural death, are followed by rules relating to defilements proceeding from the human body, in consequence of which persons contaminated by them were excluded for a longer or shorter period from the fellowship of the sanctuary, and sometimes even from intercourse with their fellow-countrymen, and which had to be removed by washing, by significant lustrations, and by expiatory sacrifices. They comprised the uncleanness of a woman in consequence of child-bearing (Lev 12:1-8), leprosy (ch. 13 and 14), and both natural and diseased secretions from the sexual organs of either male or female (emissio seminis and gonorrhaea, also menses and flux: ch. 15); and to these there is added in Num 19:11-22, defilement proceeding from a human corpse. Involuntary emission defiled the man; voluntary emission, in sexual intercourse, both the man and the woman and any clothes upon which it might come, for an entire day, and this defilement was to be removed in the evening by bathing the body, and by washing the clothes, etc. (Lev 15:16-18). Secretions from the sexual organs, whether of a normal kind, such as the menses and those connected with child-birth, or the result of disease, rendered not only the persons affected with them unclean, but even their couches and seats, and any persons who might sit down upon them; and this uncleanness was even communicated to persons who touched those who were diseased, or to anything with which they had come in contact (Lev 15:3-12, Lev 15:19-27). In the case of the menses, the uncleanness lasted seven days (Lev 15:19, Lev 15:24); in that of child-birth, either seven or fourteen days, and then still furthe…
Open source ↗After the laws concerning clean and unclean food come the laws concerning clean and unclean persons; and the first is in this chapter concerning the ceremonial uncleanness of women in child-birth (Lev 12:1-5). And concerning their purification from that uncleanness (Lev 12:6, etc.).
Open source ↗12:2 menstrual period: See 15:19-24.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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And when the time of purification according to the Law of Moses was complete, His parents brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.
How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure?
What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
You must not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her during her menstrual period.
Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.