Leviticus 12:7

Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) Who shall offer it.—Better, and he shall offer it, that is, the priest shall offer the sin offering. Though two sacrifices were brought—a burnt offering and a sin offering—yet stress is laid on the sin offering, for on it depended the purification and atonement of the mother. Even if the mother gave birth to twins, the administrators of the law during the second Temple decided that the one sin offering here prescribed sufficed.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:1-8 Ceremonial purification. - After the laws concerning clean and unclean food, come the laws concerning clean and unclean persons. Man imparts his depraved nature to his offspring, so that, excepting as the atonement of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit prevent, the original blessing, Increase and multiply, Ge 1:28, is become to the fallen race a direful curse, and communicates sin and misery. Let those women who have received mercy from God in child-bearing, with all thankfulness own God's goodness to them; and this shall please the Lord better than sacrifices.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The sacrificial act expressed an acknowledgment of sin and a dedication of herself to Yahweh. See Leviticus 8:14.

Leviticus 12:6

Of the first year - literally, as in the margin, "a son of his year." This expression is supposed to mean one less than a year old, while the "son of a year" is one that has just completed its first year.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-8. the days of her purifying—Though the occasion was of a festive character, yet the sacrifices appointed were not a peace offering, but a burnt offering and sin offering, in order to impress the mind of the parent with recollections of the origin of sin, and that the child inherited a fallen and sinful nature. The offerings were to be presented the day after the period of her separation had ended—that is, forty-first for a boy, eighty-first for a girl.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For though there was a difference in the time of her uncleanness for the one and for the other, yet both were to be purl fled one and the same way; to note, that though all sins and sinners were not equal, yet all were to be cleansed by the same means, to wit, by Christ, and by faith. See 1 Corinthians 7:14 Galatians 3:28.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Who shall offer it before the Lord,.... Upon the altar of burnt offering:

and make an atonement for her; for whatsoever sin in connection with or that attended childbearing; as typical of the atonement by Christ both for sin original and actual:

and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood; in a ceremonial sense, and according to that law be pure and clean:

this is the law for her that hath born a male or a female; enjoined her, and to be observed by her; and though now with the rest of the ceremonial law it is abolished, yet it has this instruction in it; that it becomes women in such circumstances to bring the freewill offerings of their lips, their sacrifices of praise, and in a public manner signify their gratitude and thankfulness for the mercy and goodness of God vouchsafed to them, in carrying them through the whole time of childbearing, and saving them in the perilous hour.

Geneva Study Bible

Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Leviticus 12:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After the expiration of the days of her purification "with regard to a son or a daughter," i.e., according as she had given birth to a son or a daughter (not for the son or daughter, for the woman needed purification for herself, and not for the child to which she had given birth, and it was the woman, not the child, that was unclean), she was to bring to the priest a yearling lamb for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin-offering, that he might make atonement for her before Jehovah and she might become clean from the course of her issue. שׁנתו בּן, lit., son of his year, which is a year old (cf. Leviticus 23:12; Numbers 6:12, Numbers 6:14; Numbers 7:15, Numbers 7:21, etc.), is used interchangeably with שׁנה בּן (Exodus 12:5), and with שׁנה בּני in the plural (Leviticus 23:18-19; Exodus 29:38; Numbers 7:17, Numbers 7:23, Numbers 7:29). דּמים דּמור, fountain of bleeding (see at Genesis 4:10), equivalent to hemorrhage (cf. Leviticus 20:18). The purification by bathing and washing is not specially mentioned, as being a matter of course; nor is anything stated with reference to the communication of her uncleanness to persons who touched either her or her couch, since the instructions with regard to the period of menstruation no doubt applied to the first seven and fourteen days respectively. For her restoration to the Lord and His sanctuary, she was to come and be cleansed with a sin-offering and a burnt-offering, on account of the uncleanness in which the sin of nature had manifested itself; because she had been obliged to absent herself in consequence for a whole week from the sanctuary and fellowship of the Lord. But as this purification had reference, not to any special moral guilt, but only to sin which had been indirectly manifested in her bodily condition, a pigeon was sufficient for the sin-offering, that is to say, the smallest of the bleeding sacrifices; whereas a yearling lamb was required for a burnt-offering, to express the importance and strength of her surrender of herself to the Lord after so long a separation from Him. But in cases of great poverty a pigeon might be substituted for the lamb (Leviticus 12:8, cf. Leviticus 5:7, Leviticus 5:11).