First Read Leviticus 12:1-8
This first appears to be an odd section of Scripture. Why would there be a section on bearing children and making women unclean? However, we must not associate sin with uncleanness. Constable notes there is a distinction between moral transgressions and ritual uncleanness. Just because a woman was ritually unclean, does not mean she had sinned.
“Unclean” doesn’t mean “sinful”, but “impure.” – Constable.
12:2 When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for 7 days, as in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean. It wasn’t the act of birth, but the blood associated with it that made the woman unclean.
12:3 On the 8th day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. This was the sign of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17). Other nations also had circumcision, but they appear to have used it as a rite of passage at the time of adolescence.
12:8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take 2 turtle doves or 2 young pigeons… This was what Mary offered in Luke 2:24. A hint at the economic status of Mary and Joseph.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US:
- Pollution doesn’t just come from our environment, but it also can come from within. Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” – Mark 7:14-23
