Leviticus 12 – God’s Grace For Being A Woman And A Mom

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS 26 June 2016, 16 October 2022

Intro

• The newspaper in Wichita recently ran a full-page ad proclaiming, “...it’s clear that the Bible shows an utter disregard for human life.” This was capped by a photo of Margaret Sanger, a modern pro-abortion activist, and a quote from her, “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body... No gods – No masters.” It was sponsored by the Freedom FROM Religion Foundation.

• This is a wake-up call to the war upon Christian virtue that is being waged around us. Christians must push back and offer the truth of God’s word in every area of life – especially the area of women’s issues.

• The passage today is about women’s issues. Maybe you haven’t heard any sermons about child­birth, but it is a vitally-important topic for us as human beings, so it’s important that we as Christians not shy away from it.

• The first chapter of Genesis tells us that God made human beings in two genders: male and female, and that He created both together in His image¹. There is something about both genders which reflects what God is like, therefore both men and women are valuable, both show forth the image of God in different ways, and when God was done making man and woman He pronounced them not just “good” (like He did the rest of creation), but “very good” (Gen. 1:31).

• The first point of a Biblical view of womanhood is that God made women, and there is nothing substandard or inferior in her design – nothing bad or even second-rate about women. Any man who thinks otherwise is Satanically-inspired, no matter how superior a Christian he thinks he is. Women are not bad; women are not inept; women are not stupid; women are not gross – get those lies out of your head and believe that women are, as God says in Psalm 139, “fearfully and wonderfully made” and to be treated as a holy creation and reflection of God Himself.

• A second point in a Biblical view of womanhood is the roles, privileges, honors, protections, etc. of a woman who is united to a man in marriage. There is a whole array of teachings from Genesis through Revelation dealing with the issues surrounding the role of woman as wife or daughter, but Leviticus 12 does not really get into that, so I won’t go deep into that in this sermon.

• What Leviticus 12 does talk about is the role of a woman as child-bearer. Here is the third plank in a Biblical view of womanhood which it is absolutely crucial to get right. It is a point which many humanists are at war against – the reality that God made women with the absolutely amazing and wonderful ability to nurture offspring.

  • In God's design for pregnancy, he prepares a woman each month to sustain a baby's development. If that does not happen, the cycle is repeated. (This is what our Hebrew text refers to in v.2 as the “separation (or flowing out) of her infirmity.” This does not mean she is sick², by the way; it is just that when the cycle happens, there has not been a strong, healthy pregnancy, so her body purifies and tries again.

  • Most of the physical things we recognize as differences between men and women have to do with her ability to gestate young. So many people ignore the patently-obvious truth about these design features of women; women were made to nurture children! Sure these design features may have other functions, but anyone who fails to appreciate the truth that these features were God’s design to enable women to bear children is perverse and seeking to bend God’s design according to a will other than God’s.

  • As the people of God who are stepping out of rebellion against God’s design, it should be our joy to embrace what God has designed us for physically – marriage and childbearing.

  • These are good things in God’s eyes:

    • Malachi 2:15 “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” (ESV) What is God seeking? Godly offspring! So don’t be faithless, have kids!

    • God commanded it from the very beginning: Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it...’” Having children is a blessing AND it is a command! When we obey God and have children we are blessed! How awesome is that?!

  • But what if you are physically unable to have children? Sometimes this is not a punishment from God but rather an opportunity which God places upon those He loves, in order to call them to trust Him in special ways and be fruitful and multiply in different ways under His blessing.

    • Isaiah 54:1 talks about a barren woman rejoicing because God has given her more children than the married women who could bear children³.

    • The key is to look for God to make you spiritually fruitful by inspiring faith in Him in the lives of other persons, whether or not those other persons were carried in your womb. But in Leviticus 12, the physical womb is the topic.

• Because God made women with this holy and wonderful functionality, God talks about it in His word, and it is right and good for us to also consider it, as long as we treat this creation of His with the sacredness it deserves.

2b ‘A woman who conceives and gives birth to a boy will be unclean seven days, like the days she is unclean [during] the separation of her infirmity.

• Husbands, when your wife hits that monthly cycle, and also when you come to the days following childbirth, show honor to her for this wonderful design that God has given uniquely to your wife; don’t ever despise or disparage her for it. God made her body to operate this way, so give God the respect He deserves by accepting His design as good.

• Ladies, on the days when you feel yucky, praise Him for how He created you, and don’t allow the evil one to smuggle thoughts into your head that you are somehow despicable because of how you feel. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Believe it with all your heart!

• Leviticus 12 refers to the aftermath of childbirth, where there’s a lot of amazing things going on in a woman’s body as well as the neonate’s body, but the uncleanness of bleeding is what God focuses on here. And one thing that Lev. 12 teaches us is that we need to take special care of a woman who has just had a child.

  • In the childbirth studies that my wife and I have pursued over the decades, we have run into a curious and destructive myth which seems to keep coming up, and that is the myth of the native woman, the “real” woman, the Amazon woman who can work a man’s job, even while pregnant, then stop for a few minutes to deliver a baby, put the baby in a basket and get right back to work. That is a perverse myth which women themselves seem to perpetuate. It holds up a ridiculously impossible standard to measure up to, and therefore makes normal women feel inadequate.

  • What should be normal is that the new mother gets a week or two of bed-rest! That’s what Leviticus 12 says, in effect.

    • She needs that time for her and the new baby to get used to nursing,

    • for her body to heal up after all the trauma of giving birth,

    • for the hormones to stabilize past the postpartum euphoria and subsequent depression that many women experience.

    • The more she has to be up and around on her feet the longer it is going to take to heal all up.

• What is the application for Christians today?

  • First, remember that laws like this are not there to show you how to earn God’s favor. As the Apostle Paul put it in the book of Romans (3:20-22) “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his [God’s] sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (ESV) It is only through trusting in Jesus Christ to save you that you will be made right.

  • But this law does demonstrate the righteousness and goodness of God. It tells us that God understands the unique design and needs of women, and He cares enough to give them instructions in good hygiene regarding bleeding, and He cares enough to give them time to sit apart from the rat-race of everyday life and recover after having a baby – or a miscarriage. A woman has to go through the pains of childbirth and recovery for a miscarriage too, only there is no baby to hold as a reward, and that is the hardest of all.

  • And husbands can take our cues from God and care for our women, protect them from having to do too much work after this, and nurture and cherish them!

• Now, the next component of this law has to do with the baby. If it’s a boy, then once the bleeding that causes uncleanness has subsided, a symbol of his relationship with God is applied to him – a symbol that also points to how God saves us from our sin.

3 Then during the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

• This is talking about cutting of a piece of skin that all boys are born with, but which can be removed without any real harm.

• This ceremony was first commanded by God to Abraham in Genesis 17:10-13 “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised... it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring... So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.” (ESV, cf. Acts 7:8)

• The cutting off of a piece of flesh symbolized that even at 8 days old, a child had a sin nature for which death was the punishment, but although he bled and part of him was put to death by the surgery, his life was spared by God’s grace, and that part of him that once was covered by flesh was no longer obscured by flesh.

• John Calvin, in his commentary made the point that “because the whole race of Adam is polluted and defiled... the woman contracts uncleanness from the offspring which she bears... The mother would not be unclean if the children were pure...⁴”

• Where did he get his sin nature? From his parents, and they from theirs all the way back to Adam and Eve. Matthew Henry’s comment on this was: “But this ceremonial uncleanness which the law laid women in child-bed under was to signify the pollution of sin which we are all conceived and born in, (Psalm 51:5.) For, if the root be impure, so is the branch... And the exclusion of the woman for so many days from the sanctuary, and all participation of the holy things, signified that our original corruption (that sinning sin which we brought into the world with us) would have excluded us for ever from the enjoyment of God and his favours if he had not graciously provided for our purifying.”

• Geerhardus Vos, in his Biblical Theology explains, “[C]ircumcision has something to do with the process of propagation... It is not the act but the product, that is, human nature, which is unclean and stands in need of purification... Hence circumcision is not, as among pagans, applied to grown-up men, but to infants... [in paganism, circumcision is generally used as an initiation into manhood, but God used it to mean something different, that all humankind is ungodly.] The uncleanness and disqualification of nature must be taken away. Dogmatically speaking, therefore, circumcision stands for justification and regeneration plus sanctification.”

• God’s word makes it clear, that the physical surgery was not the main point, rather, the spiritual realities which it symbolized were the main point:

  • Deuteronomy 10:15-16 ESV “Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them... Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” Circumcision was about not having a stubborn, rebellious, fleshly-oriented heart towards God.

  • Later on we see the same concept in the prophets that circumcision symbolized turning toward God and away from idols: Jeremiah 4:1-4 ESV “...O Israel, declares the LORD, to me you should return... remove your detestable things from my presence... Circumcise yourselves to the LORD”

  • And the Apostles confirm it: Romans 2:28-29 ESV “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter...”

  • Jesus fulfilled all of the law, so we read in Luke 2:21-24 ESV And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord... and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons."

  • But Jesus’ perfect fulfillment of the law and the shedding of His blood on the cross for­ever abolished the need for 8-day-old boys to bleed anymore. Jesus instituted a “new and living way” (Heb. 10:20).

  • Colossians 2:11-13 ESV “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses...”

  • 1 Corinthians 7:18-19 ESV “Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.”

  • Galatians 5:6 ESV “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”

• So the application for us today is that we must recognize that even from birth our children have fleshly natures which are dead in sin, that they need to put off rebellion and turn to God and trust Christ to give them eternal life and save them.

  • We recognize this formally in the church through infant dedications and infant baptisms which do not involve blood.

  • But we act upon it on a day-to-day basis by praying for our children, preaching the gospel to our children, and teaching and training them in righteousness. Don’t wait until your child is old enough to argue with you; start when they are newborns!

• Now we go back to the mother and the extended postpartum time:

4 Thirty more days plus three days she shall sit in the blood of her purification; she must not come into contact with any holy thing, and she must not go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled.

• While is normal for it to take a while for the bleeding to taper off after delivering a baby, I think it is significant that this is not framed as something bad. It is called “purification.” The Hebrew word tahur is related to the same word in chapter 11 verse 32 which describes something that has become pure because it has been washed with water and dried. Women, do not think of yourselves as gross or unlovely, or disgusting; you are a special creation of God who is growing in purity!

• This time of confinement is actually a blessing.

  • The Hebrew word is literally, “she should sit.” I don’t think that rules out lying down, but it does imply not being up on your feet much.

  • Staying out of public places – even church services – can keep you and the new baby from getting everybody’s sicknesses. It’s o.k. to stay away from church for a few weeks with a new baby.

  • Remaining scaled back from regular work and from travel gives you more opportunity to heal faster and more completely,

  • and it gives you more opportunity to bond with that little baby and give him your full attention and show love like God loves us.

5 But if she gives birth to a girl, then she will be unclean for [two] weeks (like her separation), then sixty days plus six days she shall sit upon the blood of her purification,

• Nobody seems to know really why it’s 33 + 7 days for boys and 66 + 14 days for girls.

  • The Bible doesn’t seem to explain it.

  • It does seem that the bleeding after a birth often takes somewhat longer to heal after a girl than a boy, but I’m not aware of any medical reason for doubling the timeframe.

  • John Calvin noted that, although there was the inconvenience of the extra time of confinement in the case of a daughter, there was, on the other hand the discomfort of the boy child’s circumcision that balanced that out.

  • About the best explanation I’ve found was from Keil and Delitzsch that the numbers 40 and 80 must have had some symbolism that is lost on us.

6 and when the days of her purification are fulfilled for a son or for a daughter, she must bring a yearling lamb for a whole-burnt-offering and a young dove or pigeon for a sin-offering to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to the priest. 7 Then he [the priest] shall offer it before the face of Yahweh and shall make atonement over her, and she shall be pure from the fountain of her blood. This is the instruction regarding the childbearing woman – for her boy or for her girl.

• God wants Moms back in church! He welcomes women and promises atonement for women’s offenses against Him just the same as He does for men!

• Women, do you realize that God wants you in church? He wants you here to worship Him! You are not some appendage that just provides nursery assistance while the guys worship God.

• Just as God called for women to offer sacrifices, so the women in the church have offerings of praise to give to Christ our high priest, and confessions of sin. The Medieval rabbi Ibn Ezra said that the sin offering was to cover all the regrettable things women said in the middle of the pains of child-birth, but whatever the sin actually was, it was followed by affirmation of God’s cleansing from sin. The Gospel is for women just as much as it is for men, and women are just as welcome in God’s holy presence as men.

  • Matthew Henry commented: “The morality of this law obliges those women that have received mercy from God in child-bearing with all thankfulness to own God's goodness to them, acknowledging themselves unworthy of it, and... to continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety; for this shall please the Lord better than the turtle-doves or the young pigeons.”

• Women may have different sets of typical sins than men typically do, but God promises free and full forgiveness for the unique needs of women. He did in Moses’ day through the death of sacrificial animals, and He still offers forgiveness today to women through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. (Galatians 3:26-28 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God, through faith... there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”)

• I know that little children can be distracting, and there are seasons of life where you are only going to catch the benefits of corporate worship in fits and snatches and may have to fight to tune in to what’s going on in worship, but, ladies, don’t ever fall victim to the lie that you are unwanted or unnecessary in worship. And fathers – and big brothers and sisters – do what you can to help Mama worship by helping care for the little kids that need attention during the worship service.

• Finally, the chapter closes with God showing consideration for special financial needs of women.

8 Now, if her means cannot find enough for a lamb, then let her take two pigeons or two young doves, one for a whole-burnt-offering, and one for a sin-offering. Then the priest will make atonement over her and she shall be pure.

• God’s accommodations for the poor are amazing. Can’t buy a lamb? No problem; just do the doves.

• How often we encounter women in the Bible who are living in impoverished situations!

• God sees and cares if you are broke. Don’t let yourself fall into the prison of self-pity by believing the lie that destitute people are not as important to God.

  • Remember, it was the widow who had only pennies to give who really caught Jesus’ attention, not the wealthy men who made the big donations.

• Maybe your poverty is not financial. Maybe you are low on energy, marginal in health, or have no free time to spare. God still is considerate of you in your special circumstances of need, and if you are willing to humble yourself and give of yourself to Him, even if it feels like nothing, He will receive you as warmly as ever. Jesus said in Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the ones who are lowly in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” (NAW)

Conclusion

• R.J. Rushdoony, in his Institutes of Biblical Law, made the interesting point that both the Old Testament sign of circumcision and the Old Testament purification of women after parturition “witness... to the fact that man’s hope is not in generation but in regeneration... [T]he ritual of purification was the witness to covenant membership for the daughters. It was a reminder that covenant righteousness was of the grace of God, to mother and child, and that grace, not race or blood, is the fountainhead of salvation.”

• The last words in Leviticus 12 are, “and she will be clean.” Are you clean? How do we get clean?

• Your natural state is unclean and offensive to God because your existence is derived from humans who rebelled against and offended God, and you have naturally added to the offense by dishonoring God yourself.

• That’s why God provided Jesus to make atonement for our sins and our sinful nature through the shedding of His blood and the sacrifice of His life on the cross.

• “...Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her... that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Eph. 5:25-27, NASB)

• ““Therefore… let's keep approaching with sincerity of heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts having been sprinkled-clean from a guilty conscience and our bodies having been washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:19-23, NAW)

Comparative translations of Leviticus 12

When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original Hebrew, I use strikeout. And when a version omits a word which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (Sometimes I will place the X at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I have also tried to use colors to help the reader see correlations between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different translations of a given word. Curiously, there is no known Dead Sea Scroll containing Lev. 12!