Leviticus 12:4

4 And for thirty-three days she shall continue in her unclean blood; she shall touch nothing holy, and shall not enter the sanctuary, until the days of her purification be fulfilled.

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).

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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 Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, Whatsoever woman shall have conceived and born a male child shall be unclean seven days, she shall be unclean according to the days of separation for her monthly courses.

3 And on the eighth day she shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin.

4 And for thirty-three days she shall continue in her unclean blood; she shall touch nothing holy, and shall not enter the sanctuary, until the days of her purification be fulfilled.

5 But if she should have born a female child, then she shall be unclean twice seven days, according to the time of her monthly courses; and for sixty-six days shall she remain in her unclean blood.

6 And when the days of her purification shall have been fulfilled for a son or a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of a year old without blemish for a whole-burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin-offering to the door of the tabernacle of witness, to the priest.