The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 230

I. LET us START WITH THE PH-v;sICAL FACT THAT NATURE HAS ASSOCIATED WITIII 'ffiLDnIRTH A SENSE ON THE MOTHER s PART OF PERSONAL UNCLEANNESS. 'l'he "issue of her blood" (ver. 7) stamps the physic3l process with defilement. No mother can avoid this sen~ ~f personal uncleanness, not even the blessed Virgin (Luke iii. 22-24). Upon the fact 1t 1s needless to dwell. II. THE MORAL COUNTERPART TO THIS IS THE FACT THAT sm IS TRANSMITTED BY ?RDI~ARY GEN~RA_Tro~. As David puts ~t in P~. li. 5, "Behold, I was sbapen in 1mqu1ty; and 1n_sm did 11?-Y mother co~ce1ve _me. From generation to generation is the legacy of evil transmitted. Hereditary sin must be recoanized as a much wider- phenomenon than" hereditary genius." 'l'he Jaw of heredity°must be accepted as ab the bottom of human experience. If the mother, in spite of all her fondness for her babe, finds that she has transmitted sinful qualities; if this is the universal experience- in ordii:i,ar.r generation, then the sense of uncleanness, physically induced, contracts a, moral s1gn1ficance. III. THERE IS AT THE BAME TIME A SENSE OF JOY AND TRtumB ABSOOIATED WITJI THE BIRTH OF CHILDREN. If there is an element of sorrow and of judament, as God indicates by his utterance at the 1''all (Gen. iii. 16), there is also an eleme~t of triumph cnugbt from the" protevangelium," which speaks of victory through the woman's seed (Gen. ~ii._ 15). Our Lord ev_en sp~k_s of it _as an appropriate figure of the coming apostolic JOY : " A woman when she 1s m travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world" (John xvi. 21). The sorrow is the preliminary of joy, the joy is its crown. IV. THE TWO ELEMENTS OF JOY AND JUDGMENT HAD THEm EXPRESSION IN THB :BURNT AND BIN OFFERING THE MOTHER WAS DIRECTED TO PRESENT TO THE LOBD; The ritual is the same whether it be a son or a daughter. The difference in the time of separation was due to a supposed physical fact that "a female child causes the mother more labour and a longer illness. This belief," continues Ewald," (even though it may have little ground in fact), was itself caused by the wcll•known primitive disfavour with which the birth of a girl was regarded." 1 No moral significance is to be attached, therefore, to the difference in the duration of the mother's separation. But at the end of either period there is to be brought a burnt offering and a sin offering. The burnt offering is to be, if the mother can afford it, "a Jamb of the first year," while the sin offering is only to be "a young pigeon" o_r a "turtledove." It is evident, therefore, that, while a poor mother might bring as her burnt offering a "turtledove" or "young pigeon," the ritual attaches emphasis to the burnt offering rather than to the sin offering. It has even been supposed that the burnt offering took precedence in th& order of time in this particular instance. At all events, the joy of consecration, which the burnt offering expresses, is more emphatic in this ritual than the atonement for unavoidable defilement, which is expressed by the sin offering. The undertone of judgment is certainly discernible, but high a'l?ove it sound the notes of grateful, holy joy. The mother rejoiced that, though unavoidably unclean in her child-bearing, the Lord had put away her uncleanness, and she was ready to dedicate herself and her child unto the Lord in the rite of the burnt offering. V. True RITUAL RECEIVES PRCOLIAB EMPHASIS FBOH ITS CELEBRATION BY THE VIRGIN MOTHER. Mary had the usual physical concomitants in the birth of Jesus, we have every reason to believe, the termination of which this ritual of purification was intended to celebrate. The sense of uncleanness was manifestly hers, since she enters upon the ritual as no exception to the general rule and law. Not only so, but Luke boldly states, "when the days of their purification, according to the Law of Moses, were fulfilled" (-roii 1ta.6ap111µoii ,.b.,.;;,v, n0t abT;js), including Jesus along with Mary, for Oosterzee's notion that it is Joseph and Mary, uot Jesus and Mary, will not satisfy the case. Jn what sense, then, was Jesus associated with his mother in a ritual of purifica- tion? It ie certain that there was not transmitted to Jesus any sinful disposition or qualities, as in ordinary generation. His whole life belied this idea. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." But this docs not prevent the idea being accepted that there was transmitted in his extraordinary generation responsibility 1 Ewald's 'Antiquities of Israel,' p. 156; cf. also Weemse on 'The Ceremonial Law,' p. 5. OH, XII, 1-8.] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 193