But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her period; and she shall continue in the blood of purification sixty-six days.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 5. Days. In all 80, double the time required for a male child, as they infirmities of women continue so much longer when they bear a female. Vales. sac. Philos. c. xviii. Hippocrates allows forty-two days for the one, and thirty for the other.—Purification. Some copies of the Septuagint read, in her pure, others, in her impure blood; which Origen attempts to reconcile by observing, that she is deemed less impure during the last thirty-three or sixty-six days, than in the preceding ones. Calmet.—During these, she was treated almost like those who were under the greatest legal uncleanness, Calmet. 15. Numbers 5. Those who were under the less, might enter the court of the Gentiles, and did not infect others by their touch. Josep. c. Apion 2. Tirinus.