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Leviticus 22:27

in Leviticus 22

“When an ox, a sheep, or a goat is born, it must remain with its mother for seven days. From the eighth day on, it will be acceptable as an offering made by fire to the LORD.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under the dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted for the oblation of an offering made by fire unto Jehovah.

KJV

When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under the dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted for an offering made by fire unto the Lord.

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This verse in Leviticus 22

Commentary

7 notes on this verse

A commentator

Clement of Alexandria

The Stromata Book 2 · Written before 215.

Scripture says, "At least grant the offspring to its mother for its first seven days." For if nothing comes to be without reason and milk flows in the mothers for the nourishment of the offspring, then in taking the offspring away from the providential endowment of the milk, a person is doing violence to nature. So Greeks and anyone else who runs the law down ought to blush for shame if the law is generous over irrational beasts. Yet some people actually expose human offspring to abortive death.

This site's exposition

Then the LORD said to Moses

on Leviticus 22:26-30

The third speech turns to an animal's life: a newborn stays "with its mother for seven days" and is acceptable from the eighth. An ox or sheep may not be slaughtered on the same day as its young, and Leviticus gives no reason.

This site's exposition

remain with its mother for seven days

Matthew Henry reports the Jewish reason, that a sabbath had to pass over the animal before it was offered. Clement of Alexandria read the seven days as mercy, as the mother's milk was given for her young. He turned the law against those who exposed human infants.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

The Jews say, "It was because the sabbath sanctifies all things, and nothing should be offered to God till at least one sabbath had passed over it." It was in conformity to the law of circumcision, which children were to receive on the eighth day. Christ was sacrificed for us, not in his infancy, though then Herod sought to slay him, but in the prime of his time.
When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth,....

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

No victim was to be offered in sacrifice until it was a week old. The meaning of this law appears to be that the animal should realise a distinct existence in becoming less dependent on its mother, and able to provide for its own wants.

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

When a bullock - is brought forth - This is a most unfortunate as well as absurd translation. The creature called an ox is a bull castrated; surely then a bullock was never yet brought forth! The original word שור shor signifies a bull, a bullock, or indeed any thing of the neat kind: here, even common sense required that it should be translated calf; and did I not hold myself sacredly bound to print the text of the common version with scrupulous exactness, I should translate the former clause of this verse thus, and so enter it into the text: When a Calf, or a Lamb, or a Kid is brought forth, instead of, When a bullock, a sheep, or a goat is brought forth, the absurdity of which is glaring. Seven days under the dam - In vindication of the propriety of this precept it may be justly asserted, that the flesh of very young animals is comparatively innutritive, and that animal food is not sufficiently nourishing and wholesome till the animal has arrived at a certain growth, or acquired the perfection of its nature. There is something brutish in eating the young of beast or fowl before the hair and hoofs are perfect in the one, and the feathers and claws in the other. Before this period their flesh is not good for food. See the note on Lev 9:1.

The words behind it

19 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • שׁ֣וֹרan ox

    shorH7794 →79 times

  • אוֹ־or

    ʾov-H176 →321 times

  • כֶ֤שֶׂבa young ram

    khesevH3775 →13 times

  • אוֹ־or

    ʾov-H176 →321 times

  • עֵז֙a goat

    ʾezH5795 →74 times

  • כִּ֣יif

    kiH3588 →4482 times

  • יִוָּלֵ֔דit will be born

    yivaledH3205 →496 times

  • וְהָיָ֛הand it will be

    vehayahH1961 →3559 times

  • שִׁבְעַ֥תseven

    shivatH7651 →394 times

  • יָמִ֖יםdays

    yamimH3117 →2304 times

  • תַּ֣חַתunder

    tachatH8478 →505 times

  • אִמּ֑וֹmother its

    ʾimoH517 →220 times

  • וּמִיּ֤וֹםand from [the] day

    umiyomH3117 →2304 times

  • הַשְּׁמִינִי֙<the> eighth

    hasheminiH8066 →28 times

  • וָהָ֔לְאָהand onwards

    vahalahH1973 →

  • יֵרָצֶ֕הit will be accepted

    yeratzehH7521 →56 times

  • לְקָרְבַּ֥ןto a present of

    lekarbanH7133 →82 times

  • אִשֶּׁ֖הa fire offering

    ʾishehH801 →65 times

  • לַיהוָֽה׃to Yahweh

    layahwehH3068 →6520 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

6 in all, six open

The number beside each verse is how many compiled reference works tie it to this one. The strongest six stand open.

Exodus 22:30You shall do likewise with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but on the eighth day you are to give them to Me.8 worksExodus 28:38And it will be worn on Aaron’s forehead, so that he may bear the iniquity of the holy things that the sons of Israel consecrate with regard to all their holy gifts. It shall always be on his forehead, so that they may be acceptable before the LORD.5 worksLeviticus 19:23When you enter the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you shall regard the fruit as forbidden. For three years it will be forbidden to you and must not be eaten.4 worksLeviticus 22:25Neither you nor a foreigner shall present food to your God from any such animal. They will not be accepted on your behalf, because they are deformed and flawed.’”3 worksLeviticus 12:2–3“Say to the Israelites, ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be unclean for seven days, as she is during the days of her menstruation.3 worksLeviticus 1:4He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, so it can be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.2 works

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Exodus 22:30

    You shall do likewise with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but on the eighth day you are to give them to Me.

    it leads to

    • Deuteronomy 15:19

      You must set apart to the LORD your God every firstborn male produced by your herds and flocks. You are not to put the firstborn of your oxen to work, nor are you to…

    • Leviticus 12:3

      And on the eighth day the flesh of the boy’s foreskin is to be circumcised.

    • Exodus 13:12

      you are to present to the LORD the firstborn male of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.

  • Through

    Leviticus 22:25

    Neither you nor a foreigner shall present food to your God from any such animal. They will not be accepted on your behalf, because they are deformed and flawed.’”

    it leads to

    • Malachi 1:12–14

      “But you profane it when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is contemptible.’

    • Numbers 15:14–16

      And for the generations to come, if a foreigner residing with you or someone else among you wants to prepare an offering made by fire as a pleasing aroma to the LORD, he is…

    • Leviticus 21:6

      They must be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. Because they present to the LORD the offerings made by fire, the food of their God, they must be…

    • Leviticus 21:8

      You are to regard him as holy, since he presents the food of your God. He shall be holy to you, because I the LORD am holy—I who set you apart.

    • Ephesians 2:12

      remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

Where this verse is studied

About Leviticus

The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt, 1854. Public domain.
The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt, 1854. Public domain.
Leviticus: the study guide →Read Leviticus 22 →

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata Book 2; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Leviticus 22 →