THE UNCLEANNESS OF CHILD BEARING
THE reference in Leviticus 12:2 to the regulations given in Leviticus 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 Leviticus 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, Leviticus 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 Leviticus 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 (Leviticus 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 Leviticus 15:29-30. A gracious provision this was, as all will remember, of which the mother of our Lord availed herself, Luke 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 mother's 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 Leviticus 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.