What Women Must do After Giving Child Birth
November 8, 2021
Commentary
Now we come to a passage which deals with afflictions and diseases and, in the spiritual realm, with what these do to us in our relationships with others, and between ourselves and God. Here we will find that many modern sanitary procedures are anticipated by the rules and laws laid down by Moses for the people of God. If these had been followed through the course of the centuries, many outbreaks of plague and epidemic would have been avoided – and still could be.
The Lord told Moses to say to the community of Israel: If a woman gives birth to a son, she is unclean for seven days, just as she is during her monthly period. Her son must be circumcised on the eighth day, but her loss of blood keeps her from being completely clean for another thirty-three days (vv. 1-4). During this time she must not touch anything holy or go to the place of worship. Any woman who gives birth to a daughter is unclean for two weeks, just as she is during her period (v. 5). And she won’t be completely clean for another sixty-six days.
When the mother has completed her time of cleansing, she must come to the front of the sacred tent and bring to the priest a year-old lamb as a sacrifice to please me and a dove or a pigeon as a sacrifice for sin (v. 6). After the priest offers the sacrifices to me, the mother will become completely clean from her loss of blood, whether her child is a boy or a girl (v. 7). If she cannot afford a lamb, she can offer two doves or two pigeons, one as a sacrifice to please me and the other as a sacrifice for sin (v. 8).
Application
When Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross He suffered and died for every sin that I ever committed.
Leviticus 12:1– 8 (NET)
1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Tell the Israelites, ‘When a woman produces offspring and bears a male child, she will be unclean seven days, as she is unclean during the days of her menstruation. 3 On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin must be circumcised. 4 Then she will remain thirty-three days in blood purity. She must not touch anything holy and she must not enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. 5 If she bears a female child, she will be impure fourteen days as during her menstrual flow, and she will remain sixty-six days in blood purity.
6 “‘When the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she must bring a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering to the entrance of the Meeting Tent, to the priest. 7 The priest is to present it before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean from her flow of blood. This is the law of the one who bears a child, for the male or the female child. 8 If she cannot afford a sheep, then she must take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and one for a sin offering, and the priest is to make atonement on her behalf, and she will be clean.’”
Illustration: Tony Campolo Jesus Took Our Sins on Himself
While spending a few days as the religious-emphasis-week speaker on the campus of a Christian college, I talked with a senior who seemed quite casual about the sins in his life. He told me about having an affair with a married woman. Then he said, “Whenever I commit sin, I remember that Jesus took the punishment for that sin back there on the cross.” In response, I said, “The next time you’re in bed having sex with your lover, I hope you can hear the screams of Jesus from the cross; because at that very moment Jesus is reaching across time and absorbing into His own body the very sin that you are committing there and then. The Jesus who hates sin becomes the sinner that you are. The innocent Jesus becomes everything about you that He hates.” (Tony Campolo, “Speaking My Mind,” page 109)