Leviticus 15:28

Purity Regulations from Female Bodily Discharges

15:28 “‘If ¹  she becomes clean from her discharge, then she is to count off for herself seven days, and afterward she will be clean.

Leviticus 12:4-6

12:4 Then she will remain ²  thirty-three days in blood purity. ³  She must not touch anything holy and she must not enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. ⁴  12:5 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 ⁵  blood purity. ⁶ 

12:6 “‘When ⁷  the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she must bring a one year old lamb ⁸  for a burnt offering ⁹  and a young pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering ¹⁰  to the entrance of the Meeting Tent, to the priest.

[15:28]  ¹ tn Heb “And if…” Although this clause is parallel to v. 13 above, it begins with וְאִם (vÿ’im, “and if”) here rather than וְכִי (vÿkhi, “and when/if”) there.

[12:4]  ² tn Heb “sit, dwell” (יָשָׁב, yashav) normally means “to sit, to dwell”), but here it means “to remain, to stay” in the same condition for a period of time (cf., e.g., Gen 24:55).

[12:4]  ³ tn Heb “in bloods of purification” or “purifying” or “purity”; NASB “in the blood of her purification”; NRSV “her time of blood purification.” See the following note.

[12:4]  ⁴ tn The initial seven days after the birth of a son were days of blood impurity for the woman as if she were having her menstrual period. Her impurity was contagious during this period, so no one should touch her or even furniture on which she has sat or reclined (Lev 15:19-23), lest they too become impure. Even her husband would become impure for seven days if he had sexual intercourse with her during this time (Lev 15:24; cf. 18:19). The next thirty-three days were either “days of purification, purifying” or “days of purity,” depending on how one understands the abstract noun טֹהֳרָה (toharah, “purification, purity”) in this context. During this time the woman could not touch anything holy or enter the sanctuary, but she was no longer contagious like she had been during the first seven days. She could engage in normal everyday life, including sexual intercourse, without fear of contaminating anyone else (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 73-74; cf. J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:749-50). Thus, in a sense, the thirty-three days were a time of blood “purity” (cf. the present translation) as compared to the previous seven days of blood “impurity,” but they were also a time of blood “purification” (or “purifying”) as compared to the time after the thirty-three days, when the blood atonement had been made and she was pronounced “clean” by the priest (see vv. 6-8 below). In other words, the thirty-three day period was a time of “blood” (flow), but this was “pure blood,” as opposed to the blood of the first seven days.

[12:5]  ³ tn Heb “on purity blood.” The preposition here is עַל (’al) rather than בְּ (bÿ, as it is in the middle of v. 4), but no doubt the same meaning is intended.

[12:5]  ⁴ tn For clarification of the translation here, see the notes on vv. 2-4 above.

[12:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “And when” (so KJV, NASB). Many recent English versions leave the conjunction untranslated.

[12:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “a lamb the son of his year”; KJV “a lamb of the first year” (NRSV “in its first year”); NAB “a yearling lamb.”

[12:6]  ⁶ sn See the note on Lev 1:3 regarding the “burnt offering.”

[12:6]  ⁷ sn See the note on Lev 4:3 regarding the term “sin offering.”