Leviticus 3:6

Animal from the Flock

3:6 “‘If his offering for a peace offering sacrifice to the Lord is from the flock, he must present a flawless male or female. ¹ 

Leviticus 4:28

4:28 or his sin that he committed ²  is made known to him, ³  he must bring a flawless female goat ⁴  as his offering for the sin ⁵  that he committed.

Leviticus 12:5

12:5 If she bears a female child, she will be impure fourteen days as during her menstrual flow, and she will remain sixty-six days in ⁶  blood purity. ⁷ 

Leviticus 15:33

15:33 the one who is sick in her menstruation, the one with a discharge, whether male or female, ⁸  and a man ⁹  who has sexual intercourse with an unclean woman.’”

Leviticus 25:6

25:6 You may have the Sabbath produce ¹⁰  of the land to eat – you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you, ¹¹ 

Leviticus 27:5

27:5 If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the conversion value of the male is twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

Leviticus 27:7

27:7 If the person is from sixty years old and older, if he is a male the conversion value is fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

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¹ tn Heb “a male or female without defect he shall present it”; cf. NLT “must have no physical defects.”

² tn Heb “or his sin which he sinned is made known to him”; cf. NCV “when that person learns about his sin.”

³ tn Lev 4:27b-28a is essentially the same as 4:22b-23a (see the notes there).

⁴ tn Heb “a she-goat of goats, a female without defect”; NAB “an unblemished she-goat.”

⁵ tn Heb “on his sin.”

⁶ tn Heb “on purity blood.” The preposition here is עַל (’al) rather than בְּ (bÿ, as it is in the middle of v. 4), but no doubt the same meaning is intended.

⁷ tn For clarification of the translation here, see the notes on vv. 2-4 above.

sn The doubling of the time after the birth of a female child is puzzling (see the remarks in J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:750-51; and G. J. Wenham, Leviticus [NICOT], 188). Some have argued, for example, that it derives from the relative status of the sexes, or a supposed longer blood flow for the birth of a woman, or even to compensate for the future menstrual periods of the female just born. Perhaps there is a better explanation. First, a male child must be circumcised on the eighth day, so the impurity of the mother could not last beyond the first seven days lest it interfere with the circumcision rite. A female child, of course, was not circumcised, so the impurity of the mother would not interfere and the length of the impure time could be extended further. Second, it would be natural to expect that the increased severity of the blood flow after childbirth, as compared to that of a woman’s menstrual period, would call for a longer period of impurity than the normal seven days of the menstrual period impurity (compare Lev 15:19 with 15:25-30). Third, this suggests that the fourteen day impurity period for the female child would have been more appropriate, and the impurity period for the birth of a male child had to be shortened. Fourth, not only the principle of multiples of seven but also multiples of forty applies to this reckoning. Since the woman’s blood discharge after bearing a child continues for more than seven days, her discharge keeps her from contact with sacred things for a longer period of time in order to avoid contaminating the tabernacle (note Lev 15:31). This ended up totaling forty days for the birth of a male child (seven plus thirty-three) and a corresponding doubling of the second set of days for the woman (fourteen plus sixty-six). See R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:368-70. The fact that the offerings were the same for either a male or a female infant (vv. 6-8) suggests that the other differences in the regulations are not due to the notion that a male child had greater intrinsic value than a female child (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 169).

⁸ tn Heb “and the one with a discharge, his discharge to the male and the female.”

⁹ tn Heb “and for a man.”

¹⁰ tn The word “produce” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied; cf. NASB “the sabbath products.”

¹¹ tn A “resident who stays” would be a foreign person who was probably residing as another kind of laborer in the household of a landowner (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 170-71). See v. 35 below.