Leviticus 12:4

4 and thirty and three days she doth abide in the blood of her cleansing; against any holy thing she doth not come, and unto the sanctuary she doth not go in, till the fulness of the days of her cleansing.

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 unto the sons of Israel, saying, A woman when she giveth seed, and hath born a male, then she hath been unclean seven days, according to the days of separation for her sickness she is unclean;

3 and in the eighth day is the flesh of his foreskin circumcised;

4 and thirty and three days she doth abide in the blood of her cleansing; against any holy thing she doth not come, and unto the sanctuary she doth not go in, till the fulness of the days of her cleansing.

5 `And if a female she bear, then she hath been unclean two weeks, as in her separation; and sixty and six days she doth abide for the blood of her cleansing.

6 `And in the fulness of the days of her cleansing for son or for daughter she doth bring in a lamb, a son of a year, for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering, unto the opening of the tent of meeting, unto the priest;