THE VIRTUES IN THE BLOOD
Opening Prayer
Thank you for your Word, Father. Use it to help me grow in grace as I read its pages that are filled with truth and life, healing and hope — reasons for wonder and joy.
Read LEVITICUS 12
Purification After Childbirth
12 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.
6 “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, 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 dove for a sin offering.[a] 7 He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.
“‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. 8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”
Footnotes
- Leviticus 12:6 Or purification offering; also in verse 8
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
Are there rituals to do with blood in your culture or other cultures known to you?
Think Further
Israel had just come out of its bondage from Egypt, redeemed by the Lord who had chosen the people be his own.1 This was the background to the Law that he gave to the people on Mount Sinai. Obeying it is part of the process of making Israel the holy nation God wants it to be, an example to the rest of the world.
Our passage today has to do with the purification of women from the blood of childbirth. Different cultures have their own rituals connected with the three main stages of life: birth, marriage, and death; this is part of what God ordained for his people. Why does the blood of childbirth make a woman unclean? Does it perhaps relate to the curse of Eden, regarding the pain of childbirth?2 No one knows for sure, but this ritual uncleanness is evidently linked to that which attends the discharge of bodily fluids (v. 2; and see chapter 15, which also addresses male discharges). Both here (vv. 2, 5) and elsewhere in the Law,3 there is a clear distinction in practice based on the gender of the child.
Whatever the case, this ritual purification involves the shedding of animal blood: a burnt offering in thanksgiving, followed by a second sacrifice as a sin offering. A lamb is the preferred animal; and we can readily see how this looks forward to the one whom John the Baptist addressed as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’4 Significantly, the parents of Jesus fell into the class of those too poor to afford a lamb for this sacrifice when the Son of God came into our world (v. 8).5
Apply
There are about 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. Find out more about the blood and praise the Lord in the words of Psalm 139:14.
Closing prayer
Loving Savior, thank you for suffering the shame of the cross and shedding your blood for me, for giving your life so that I could live. I commit my life to you afresh today.
1 Exod 19:5,6 2 Gen 3:16 3 Lev 27:2–6 4 John 1:29 5 Luke 2:22–24
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