Leviticus 12:7

Summary

Leviticus 12:7 concludes the purification ritual for a woman after childbirth: someone presents an offering before Yehovah, atonement is made for her, and she becomes pure from her flow of blood. The verse closes with a formal label identifying this as the legal procedure (torah) for any woman giving birth, whether to a male or female child.

Key words

• hikriv ("he will present", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem indicates someone causes the offering to draw near, rather than the woman herself acting.
• kipper ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the intensive stem denotes a ritual, effectual action rather than a simple verb of covering.
• taharah ("she will be pure", H2891) — qal sequential perfect, subject shifts to "she" (the woman), marking the resulting state after the priestly actions.
• dameyah ("bloods", H1818) — masculine plural construct with 3fs suffix ("her"); the plural form for blood is a fixed idiom denoting a flow or discharge, not multiple bloods.
• torat ("law/procedure of", H8451) — feminine singular construct; introduces a technical, legal-formula closing statement typical of Levitical instructions.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three sequential perfects (vav-consecutive): hikriv ("he will present"), kipper ("he will make atonement"), and taharah ("she will be pure"). This grammatical chain continues directly from the preceding verses in Leviticus 12, meaning the subject of the first two verbs ("he") is not restated in this verse — it is carried over from context rather than named explicitly in the Hebrew of v.7 itself. The subject then shifts to "she" for the final verb, marking the woman as the one who reaches the state of purity as a result of the prior actions.

The phrase mimeqor dameyha ("from the spring/source of her bloods", H4726 + H1818) uses a construct chain describing the flow of blood as its "source," a phrasing that frames impurity as flowing from a point of origin rather than as a static condition.

The closing formula, zot torat hayoledet ("this is the torah of the one giving birth", H2063 + H8451 + H3205), uses a feminine singular participle (H3205) with the definite article, functioning as a title for a legal category — "the woman who gives birth" — followed by two adjectives, zakhar ("male", H2145) and neqevah ("female", H5347), each governed by the preposition la- ("for the"), specifying that the same procedure applies regardless of the child's sex.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text does not name the subject of hikriv ("he will present") and kipper ("he will make atonement") within this verse; the actor is implicit from earlier verses. The LXX makes the subject explicit by inserting ὁ ἱερεύς ("the priest") as the one who performs ἐξιλάσεται ("will atone"). The Vulgate, like the Hebrew, leaves the subject unnamed ("qui offeret... orabit"). Modern translations such as the BSB follow the LXX's explicitation by adding "the priest" as the stated subject, which is not overtly present in the Hebrew wording of this specific verse.