“If a woman conceives and bears a man child, then she shall be unclean for seven days … And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised, and she shall continue in her purifying for three and thirty days. She shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying shall be fulfilled” Leviticus 12:2-4.
So a woman is ritually unclean for a month if she delivers a baby boy? Yes. And if she delivers a girl, she is unclean for two months (Leviticus 12:5). Does that feel like rejection or some kind of shame being heaped on a young mother?
It is not.
‘Unclean’ does not mean sinful or dirty. Instead, it is a legal distinction that honors the mother by relieving her of certain duties (she does not have to go to church). Scholars suggest this would have made the early days with a new baby easier.
But there is more.
When the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land, they saw farms that were more prosperous than anything they had ever seen in Egypt or the wilderness. Like idol worshippers everywhere, the idol-worshipping Canaanites believed their farms were flourishing because they had been faithfully serving the local deities. This notion that different gods ruled different territories (much like the five mafia families would one day divide up the city of New York) was well-known and enticing to the Hebrews. They were drawn in, tempted to believe that to have a good harvest, they needed to please the local gods. (They may have seen God as a God of Egypt and the desert, but doubted His power in a fertile valley.)
There is another reason idolatry was so tempting: idol worship provides a god the worshipper can “control” (sort of) and from whom the worshipper can secure various blessings. It is a quid pro quo notion, allowing the idol worshipper to tell himself that if he makes certain sacrifices for Baal, then Baal will give him a good crop.
God, as you may have discovered, does not treat us that way. God loves us, but He will not be manipulated by us. God loves us, but He instructs us NOT to approach Him with bargains and deal-making (see Matthew 7:7-11 MSG).
It gets worse.
Baal was a male deity believed to be able to bring rain. Asherah was a female deity alleged to bring fertility. And, as another writer explains, the pagans–
“practiced ‘sympathetic magic.’ That is, they believed they could influence the gods’ actions by performing the behavior they wished the gods to demonstrate. Believing the sexual union of Baal and Asherah produced fertility, the worshippers engaged in immoral sex to cause the gods to join together, ensuring good harvests. This practice became the basis for religious prostitution (1 Kings 14:23-24). The priest or male member of the community represented Baal. The priestess or female member of the community represented Asherah. In this way, God’s incredible gift of sexuality was perverted to the most obscene public prostitution.”[1]
It gets worse still.
“At times of crises, Baal’s followers sacrificed their children … to gain personal prosperity. The Bible calls this practice ‘detestable.’ (Deuteronomy 12:31, 18: 9-10.)”[2]
Imagine this scenario: pagan ‘worshippers’ gather on “every high hill” where men and women engage with strangers in ‘ritual sex’ or, in today’s vernacular, a “religious orgy,” some of them bearing official-sounding religious titles such as “temple prostitute,” all to win the favor of the false gods Baal and Asherah. And when people really had a need, they would murder their children for Baal as a sacrifice. Can you imagine the way these violently unholy acts must have grieved the heart of God?
Thus, to ensure such horrible acts did not take root among His people, God separated all acts of sexuality from the religious practices of ancient Israel.
“Canaanite religions incorporated prostitution and immoral rites [including child sacrifice!] as the people begged their gods to make their crops, herds, and families increase. By contrast, Israel’s religion avoided all sexual connotations. By keeping worship and sex entirely separate, God helped the Israelites avoid confusion with pagan rites.”[3]
Did God provide laws prohibiting temple prostitutes and ritual sex? Absolutely. Did God provide laws prohibiting child sacrifice? Absolutely. But God took things one step further: He pronounced new mothers ritually unclean for weeks following birth, thus ensuring that neither the mothers nor their children would be anywhere near worship—pagan or otherwise. God gave Israel an entirely new set of religious practices, creating a religion where neither ritual sex nor newborn children were welcome, to ensure that His people would be tempted by Baal worship as little as possible.
Dear God, the more things change, the more things stay the same—our culture still has a tendency to worship sex and to offer the lives of children on the altar of our own prosperity. Forgive us, Lord. We are men of “unclean lips and we live among a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Forgive us and deliver us to true worship. May we honor You in all that we do. May we be grateful, wise, and disciplined about sexuality, respecting the boundaries You have given us. And fill us with love, compassion, and a sense of the purpose of every child’s life.
AΩ.
[1] Much of this content comes from this article: https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/fertility-cults-of-canaan
[2] Id.
[3] Chronological Life Application Study Bible, KJV. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, (1988), p211, note Lev.12:1-4.