Leviticus 12:4

4 The woman shall continue in purification from her bleeding for thirty-three days. She must not touch anything sacred or go into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are complete.

Leviticus 12:4 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 12:4

And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three
and thirty days
That is, so many more, in all forty; for though at the end of seven days she was in some respects free from her uncleanness, yet not altogether, but remained in the blood of her purifying, or in the purifying of her blood, which was more and more purified, and completely at the end of forty days: so with the Persians it is said, a new mother must avoid everything for forty days; when that time is passed, she may wash and be purified ^F14; and which perhaps Zoroastres, the founder of the Persian religion, at least the reformer of it, being a Jew, as is by some supposed, he might take it from hence:

she shall touch no hallowed thing;
as the tithe, the heave offering, the flesh of the peace offerings, as Aben Ezra explains it, if she was a priest's wife:

nor come into the sanctuary;
the court of the tabernacle of the congregation, or the court of the temple, as the same writer observes; and so with the Greeks, a pregnant woman might not come into a temple before the fortieth day ^F15, that is, of her delivery:

until the days of her purifying be fulfilled;
until the setting of the sun of the fortieth day; on the morrow of that she was to bring the atonement of her purification, as Jarchi observes; (See Gill on Leviticus 12:6).

---

FOOTNOTES:

F14 Lib. Shad-der, port. 86. apud Hyde Hist. Relig. Vet. Pers. p. 478.
F15 Censorinus apud Grotium in loc.

Leviticus 12:4 In-Context

2 “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.

3 And on the eighth day the flesh of the boy’s foreskin is to be circumcised.

4 The woman shall continue in purification from her bleeding for thirty-three days. She must not touch anything sacred or go into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are complete.

5 If, however, she gives birth to a daughter, the woman will be unclean for two weeks as she is during her menstruation. Then she must continue in purification from her bleeding for sixty-six days.

6 When the days of her purification are complete, whether for a son or for a daughter, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering.