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Water from the Rock (Jacopo Tintoretto)
A Commentary
Victory oh Lord! (John Everett Millais)
Leviticus 12
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. Leviticus 12:1 - 4
a. If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days: After giving birth to a male child, a mother was considered ceremonially unclean seven days. The boy was then circumcised on the eighth day.
i. Mary, the mother of Jesus, brought Him to the temple on the eighth day after His birth (Luke 2:21). Jesus obeyed the law in every respect, including His circumcision on the eighth day.
b. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised: God commanded Abraham that his male covenant descendants (through Isaac and Jacob) should be circumcised when eight days old (Genesis 17:12). This was a sign of the covenant God made with Abraham and his covenant descendants (Genesis 17:11), and here is also commanded as an aspect of the Law of Moses.
c. She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days: When a son was born, a mother’s ceremonial uncleanness lasted an additional 33 days, for a total of 40 days of ceremonial impurity after giving birth to a male child. There were several reasons for this, but one important reason was to give an Israeli mother an ancient equivalent to the modern maternity leave. Here ceremonial uncleanness relieved her of many social obligations. Mothers welcomed these days of rest, seclusion, and bonding with the newborn.
i. In the law of ancient Israel, blood had sacred associations. It was understood that the life of a being was in their blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11); loss of blood can mean the loss of life. The blood of menstruation made a woman ritually unclean (Leviticus 15:19-24). Even animals had to be bled in a certain way in sacrifice or slaughter. Since childbirth is always associated with blood, it makes sense that there was a special ritual purification after childbirth. “Because life is in the blood (17:11), the loss of blood required some purification to acknowledge the sanctity of life.”
ii. Mary, the mother of Jesus, also fulfilled these days of purification (Luke 2:22-24). It was on this occasion that Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) and Anna (Luke 2:36-38) met Jesus and His family and spoke their words of blessing and thanks.
iii. When Mary gave birth to Jesus, she was not responsible for bringing a sinner into the world. Nevertheless, Jesus identified with sinful humanity – even as an infant.
d. She shall not touch any hallowed thing: The commanded time of ceremonial impurity should not be regarded as a negative attitude towards birth or childbearing on God’s part. God commands childbearing, in that humanity is commanded to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), that children are regarded as a gift from God (Psalm 127:3), and that a woman with many children is considered blessed (Psalm 128:3).
i. The key to understanding this ceremony is to understand the idea of original sin. As wonderful as a new baby is, God wanted it to be remembered that with every birth another sinner was brought into the world, and in this symbolic picture, the mother was responsible for bringing a new sinner into the world.
ii. She shall be unclean: “Motherhood is one of the most sacred and beautiful things in the whole realm of human experience. This needs no argument. But motherhood is exercised in a race which is defiled. When the great singer of Israel, in his penitential psalm, said: ‘Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me’ (Psalm 51:5), he was casting no reflection upon his own mother, but rather stating a fact, from which no human being escapes.”
A Daily Defense
Day 37 One or Two in the Gospels?
CHALLENGE: “How can you trust the Gospels when they can’t even agree on whether Jesus exorcized one demoniac or two, healed one blind man or two, rode on one animal or two, or had his Resurrection announced by one angel or two?”
DEFENSE: These incidents are not contradictions; they are reports that mention different details. It is true the Gospels sometimes report an incident and mention only a single demoniac (Mark 5:2; Luke 8:27), blind man (Mark 8:22–23, 10:46; Luke 18:35), animal (Mark 11:2; Luke 19:30; John 12:14), or angel (Matt. 28:2; Mark 16:5), while other reports mention two demoniacs (Matt. 8:28), blind men (Matt. 9:27, 20:30), animals (Matt. 21:2), or angels (Luke 24:4; John 20:12). These are not contradictions, because in none of these cases does an evangelist say there was only one of the things in question present.
The evangelist may mention only one, but that leaves open the possibility—confirmed by one or more of the other evangelists—that there was more than one present.
It has often been noted that if several people witness a car accident, they will each observe and report different details when they recount it later. This phenomenon may be partly responsible for cases mentioned above.
For example, if Matthew was an eyewitness to a particular event he may have remembered seeing two demoniacs, blind men, and so on, while non-eyewitnesses like Mark and Luke were dependent on sources who may have mentioned only one.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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