Leviticus 12:5

Summary

Leviticus 12:5 describes the purification period following the birth of a female child: an initial two-week period of impurity comparable to menstrual impurity, followed by sixty-six days during which the mother remains in a state described as "blood of purification."

Key words

• ne.ke.Vah ("a female", H5347) — feminine singular adjective functioning as the subject-object of the birth, contrasting with the male child case in the preceding verse.
• ta.me.'Ah ("she will be unclean", H2930A) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative chain begun by tе.Led; grammatically it reads as a continuation of a future sequence despite the perfect form.
• ni.da.Ta ("menstruous impurity", H5079) construct + -Ah ("her", H9024) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, literally "her impurity/separation," used as the point of comparison (ke., "like", H9004) for the first period.
• she.vu.'A.yim ("two weeks", H7620H) — dual form of the noun for "week," marking exactly two units, paired grammatically with shi.Shim... ve.She.shet ya.Mim ("sixty... and six days") for the second period.
• de.Mei ("blood of", H1818) construct + to.ho.Rah ("purification", H2892A) — construct chain meaning "blood(s) of purification," designating the specific state of the sixty-six day period, distinct from the impurity term used for the first two weeks.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional clause (ve.'im-, "and if") followed by two sequential time-blocks joined by the narrative vav construction. The first verb, te.Led ("she will bear", H3205), is a simple qal imperfect; the second verb, ta.me.'Ah ("she will be unclean", H2930A), is a vav-consecutive perfect that continues the same temporal sequence — a common construction in Biblical Hebrew narrative and legal prose where perfect forms after imperfect verbs carry future/sequential meaning rather than past meaning.

The two time periods are grammatically distinguished by different nouns: the first uses she.vu.'A.yim ("two weeks", H7620H), a dual form built on "week," while the second period is spelled out with cardinal numbers, shi.Shim ("sixty", H8346) and She.shet ("six", H8337) construct with ya.Mim ("days", H3117G), giving sixty-six days rather than a rounded "nine weeks" or similar unit. The first period is described using the term ni.da.Ta ("her menstruous impurity", H5079), placing it in the same category as regular menstrual separation, while the second period is described with the construct phrase de.Mei to.ho.Rah ("blood of purification", H1818 + H2892A) — a distinct expression not using the impurity root tm' (H2930A) that appeared in verse's first clause. The verb te.Shev ("she will remain", H3427, qal imperfect) governs this second period, using the preposition 'al- ("on/upon", H5921A) to describe her state as being "upon" or "in" this blood of purification.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the two time-periods as a single combined figure, "sexaginta sex diebus" ("sixty-six days"), collapsing the Hebrew's separate construct numerals (She.shet + ya.Mim, "six days") into one continuous count, similar to the LXX's ἑξήκοντα ἡμέρας καὶ ἕξ ("sixty days and six"). The Hebrew's ni.da.Ta ("her impurity", H5079) is rendered by the LXX as ἄφεδρον ("separation/removal") and by the Vulgate as "ritum fluxus menstrui" ("the rite of menstrual flow"), both expanding or interpreting the single Hebrew construct noun. The closing phrase de.Mei to.ho.Rah ("blood of purification") appears in the LXX as αἵματι ἀκαθάρτῳ αὐτῆς ("her unclean blood") — using the adjective ἀκάθαρτος ("unclean"), which contrasts with the Hebrew's use of to.ho.Rah ("purification", H2892A), a term built on the root for "pure" rather than "impure."