Leviticus 12
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 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. 7 And the priest will present them before the LORD and make atonement for her; and she shall be ceremonially cleansed from her flow of blood. This is the law for a woman giving birth, whether to a male or to a female. 8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, she shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. Then the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”
✦ What the text says
## Summary
Leviticus 12 sets out the purification period for a woman after childbirth. It distinguishes two lengths of impurity depending on the sex of the child, requires circumcision of a male infant on the eighth day, and specifies the offerings a mother must bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting once her days of purification are complete.
## Key words
- *taz.Ri'a* ("she will bear a child", H2232) — hiphil imperfect, marking the woman as the causative subject of conception, not merely of birth.
- *dotah* ("being unwell", H1738) — qal infinitive construct with pronominal suffix, forming the phrase "days of *niddah* of her being unwell," describing menstrual impurity by verbal action rather than a fixed noun.
- *shevu'ayim* ("two weeks", H7620) — dual form of the noun for "week," doubling the seven-day impurity period prescribed for a male birth when the child is female.
- *tohorah* ("purification", H2892A) — feminine singular noun repeated in construct chains ("days of her *tohorah*," "blood of her *tohorah*") that frame the entire chapter around a defined temporal state.
- *timtsa yadah* ("her hand will find", H4672 + H3027) — qal imperfect + construct noun "hand," an idiom expressing financial capacity, here determining which offering a woman may bring.
## What the text says
The chapter is built on parallel legal formulas introduced by *ki* ("if/when", H3588A) and *ve-'im* ("and if", H0518A), a structure typical of case law: a condition is stated, then its consequence follows in sequential perfect verbs (*ve-yaledah*, *ve-tam'ah*, *ve-tahorah*), which in Hebrew narrative syntax show one action logically following another rather than being independent events. The doubling of time periods for a female birth (fourteen days of initial impurity plus sixty-six days of purification, against seven and thirty-three for a male) is expressed purely through numerals and construct phrases, without any explanatory comment in the Hebrew text itself.
The construct chain *torat ha-yoledet* ("law of she-who-is-giving-birth", H8451 + H3205) at the close of verse 7 uses a feminine singular participle, treating "the one giving birth" as a legal category rather than naming an individual event. The offerings section (verses 6–8) alternates *le-'olah* ("for a burnt offering", H5930A) and *le-chattat* ("for a sin offering", H2403H), each introduced by the preposition *le-*, marking the intended function of the animal rather than its species.
## Differences between versions
The Hebrew infinitive phrase *nidat dotah* ("her menstrual-impurity of being-unwell") is rendered in the LXX as "τοῦ χωρισμοῦ τῆς ἀφέδρου" ("of the separation of her flow"), replacing a verbal construction with two nouns. The Vulgate's "juxta dies separationis menstruæ" similarly nominalizes the Hebrew's verbal phrase. In verse 8, the Hebrew idiom *timtsa yadah dei seh* ("her hand will find sufficiency of a sheep") app
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.