Luke 2:22
And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;
And when the days of purification,.... Of the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord; though most copies read, "of their purification"; and so read the Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions, including both Mary and Jesus: and now, though Mary was not polluted by the conception, bearing, and bringing forth of Jesus, that holy thing born of her; yet inasmuch as she was in the account of the law clean; and though Jesus had no impurity in his nature, yet seeing he was made sin for his people, both came under this law of purification, which was for the sake of the son or daughter, as well as for the mother; though our reading, and which is according to the Complutensian edition, best agrees with the Hebrew phrase, ימי טחרה, the days of her purifying or purification, in Leviticus 12:4
according to the law of Moses, in Leviticus 12:1.
were accomplished; which for a son were forty days: the seven first days after she gave birth she was unclean; and then she continued three and thirty days in the blood of her purifying, which made forty; see
Leviticus 12:2 but though the time of her purifying was upon the fortieth day, yet it was not till the day following that she came to the temple with her offering: for so runs the Jewish canon w;
"a new mother does not bring her offering on the fortieth day for a male, nor on the eightieth day for a female, but after her sun is set: and she brings her offering on the morrow, which is the forty first for a male, and the eighty first for a female: and this is the day of which it is said, Leviticus 12:6 and "when the days of her purifying are fulfilled for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring", c.''
And this was the time when they, Joseph and Mary, brought him, the child Jesus, to Jerusalem, and to the temple there, to present him to the Lord, to the priest his representative and which was done in the eastern gate, called the gate of Nicanor: x for here,
"they made women, suspected of adultery, to drink, and purified new mothers, and cleansed the lepers.''
And here Mary appeared with her firstborn son, the true Messiah; and this was the first time of his coming into his temple, as was foretold, Malachi 3:1
w Maimon. Hilch Mechosre Cappara, c. 1. sect. 5. x Misn. Sota, c. 1. sect. 5.