1And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
2“Speak to the children of Israel, saying: A woman, when she will bear seed and give birth to a male, will be impure seven days. She will be impure like the days of the impurity of her menstruation.
12:2. the impurity of her menstruation. This is the first occurrence of this matter in a portion dealing with law. Prior to this it has come up in the story of Rachel’s hiding her father Laban’s teraphim. There Rachel keeps Laban at a distance by telling him, “I have the way of women.” What attitudes toward menstruation do the Torah’s laws and stories reflect? The most neutral view is that menstruation was a specific condition with a particular legal status. But that is stretching in order to downplay the negative conception of menstruation that is contained here. Indeed, some people have regarded it as a kind of contamination, and some have even imagined some kind of invisible creatures on a person who is in this impure condition. Freud elucidated the psychological component in explaining why this subject is so mysterious and even intimidating to males. Or, even at a more conscious level, blood is intimidating to a large proportion of us, who look away when blood is drawn from ourselves or others, or who cannot bear to watch bloody scenes in drama, or who are distressed at the idea of contact with another person’s blood, or who, like Lady Macbeth, associate blood with guilt. This list could easily be extended. The point is that blood is powerful: physically, symbolically, and emotionally. For a woman it is a natural part of her life from the time of puberty, visible each month. But for a man it is a sign that something is wrong, almost always associated with injury or illness. And so menstruation is a mysterious and intimidating subject even to a male who fully understands the biology of it. Laban wants his teraphim back, but not enough to approach his daughter when she has “the way of women.”
3And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
4And thirty days and three days she shall remain in blood of purity. She shall not touch any holy thing, and she shall not come to the holy place until the completion of the days of her purification.
5And if she will give birth to a female, then she will be impure two weeks, like her impurity. And sixty days and six days she shall remain with blood of purity.
12:5. two weeks.... And sixty days and six days. But it is one week plus thirty-three days for a male (12:2–4): a total of forty for a male but eighty for a female. No one knows the reason why it is double for a female.
6And at the completion of the days of her purification, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest.
7And he shall bring it forward in front of YHWH and make atonement over her, and she will be purified from the source of her blood. This is the instruction for the one giving birth to a male or to a female.
8And if her hand will not find enough for a sheep, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and one for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement over her, and she will be purified.”
12:8. her hand will not find enough. Meaning: if she will not be able to afford. (See comment on Lev 5:7,11.)