A Sin Offering for Birth Anxiety
Following the purification period after birth, a mother must bring a חטאת –“sin offering,” despite her having committed no obvious sin. This offers us a unique glimpse into the prehistory of the Israelite cult, when apotropaic rituals (used to protect against dangerous forces) like those in other ANE cultures, were the norm.
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Published: April 5, 2016
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
[1]
מתקיף לה רב יוסף: והא מזידה היא, ובחרטה תליא מילתא! ועוד, קרבן שבועה בעי איתויי!
R. Joseph refuted this: “But hasn’t she acted purposefully [in making the vow]?” And thus all is dependent on her regret! Moreover, wouldn’t she need to bring an oath offering (not a sin offering)?!
[2] See Jacob Milgrom, “Sin-Offering or Purification-Offering,” VT 21 (1971), 237–239; Leviticus 1–16 (Anchor Bible; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 253–254.
Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins Context and Meaning (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 99–108. Briefly, the sense of the piel form of חט”א “to purify” reflects a late stage in the semantic development of this term. The exclusive use of this root in ritual contexts, many of which deal specifically with the sin offering, suggests that the original use of the pielform was “to perform a sin offering rite” (so Lev 6:19; 9:15; 2 Chr 29:24). The more general use, “to perform a purification rite” employed to describe comparable acts (dabbing or sprinkling) in similar rituals (e.g., purification of a house from “leprosy,” the red cow rite for corpse impurity) was a secondary derivative. Indeed, a comprehensive survey of the piel andhitpael usages of the root חט”א reveals that they refer to a specific act of purification, not to purification in general (which is expressed by the root טה”ר). In other words, the piel form of חט”א originated as a denominative derivative from the name of the sin offering (חטאת), as already suggested by M.Z. Kaddari, A Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2006), 289 (Hebrew).
E.g. Genesis 35:17–19; 1 Samuel 4:19–20. See Jo Ann Scurlock, “Baby-Snatching Demons, Restless Souls and the Dangers of Childbirth: Medico-Magical Means of Dealing with Some of the Perils of Motherhood in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Incognita 2 (1991): 135–183.
For more on Hittites, see Yigal Levin, “Who Was Living in the Land When Abraham Arrived?” TheTorah (2013); Yitzaq Feder, “The Significance of Hittite Treaties for Biblical Studies and Orthodox Judaism,” TheTorah (2014).
[6] See Gary Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals (StBoT 29; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983); for the biblical parallels, see my Blood Expiation, 125–43.
See Feder, Blood Expiation, 7–34
This obscure Hurrian term refers to a substance believed to possess purifying properties.
Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals, 132–147 (Ritual K).
See Feder, Blood Expiation, 134–40.
Text edition: Rita Strauß, Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 286 – 88; discussion and English translation: Feder, Blood Expiation, 9 – 13.
For example, the Mesopotamian Šurpu incantations or the “My god, I did not know!” (ilī ul īdi) prayers. See Markham J. Geller, “The Šurpu Incantations and Lev. V. 1–5,” Journal of Semitic Studies 25 (1980), 181–92; Wilfred G. Lambert, “DINGIR.ŠÀ.DIB.BA Incantations,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 33 (1974), 267–322.
See Yitzaq Feder, “Expiating with Blood”; also the detailed discussion in Blood Expiation, chs. 5 – 6.
One should also take into consideration the fluidity of these ritual traditions. Regarding the Hittite evidence, the blood rite usually took place before birth, but it is also attested as taking place afterwards (Blood Expiation, 141).
The Qumran scrolls (especially the Damascus Document 9: 2–8), for example, refer to an institutionalized practice of rebuke with legal sanctions, based explicitly on Lev 19:17–18 (see L. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code[Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983], 89–109).
For further discussion, see my article: “Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic: Leviticus 14 and its Extra-Biblical Parallels,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15.4 (2015): 1–26.http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_207.pdf
[17] Joel S. Baden and Candida R. Moss, “The Origins and Interpretation of ṣāra‛at in Leviticus 13–14,” JBL 130 (2011), 643–53.
Though modern diagnostic terms such as “leprosy” and “gonorrhea” cannot be simplistically identified with the biblical terms, neither should one assume that the biblical diseases are merely imaginary or symbolic constructs, with no connection with these diseases. For further discussion, see my “Behind the Scenes,” 2 – 3, and also Jo Anne Scurlock and Burton R. Andersen, Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine (Chicago: Indiana University Press, 2005), 70–73, 231–33, 723–24, nn. 139–40 regarding leprosy (Hansen’s disease) and 88–97 regarding gonorrhea.
The Religion of Israel (trans. M. Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1960),107.
Guide for the Perplexed 3:32.
