Twenty-five days after Yeshua was circumcised and named in Nazareth, we
find him at the Temple in Jerusalem. If you haven’t read our earlier blog – Experiencing the Temple Yeshua That Knew
– go back and read it & watch the video so you will be able to picture what
happened in the verses below:
When the time
came for the purification rites
required by the Law of Moses, Joseph
and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in
the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn
male is to be consecrated to the Lord,” and
to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord; “a
pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (Luke 2:22-24)
Luke refers to two laws from “the Law of
Lord” – the purification of the mother & the redemption of the first born
son. The laws concerning the purification of the mother are found in Luke is
Leviticus 12:
Then
the woman must wait thirty-three days
to be purified from her bleeding. She must
not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her
purification are over. . . When the days of her purification for a son
or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of
meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin
offering. He shall offer them before YAHWEH to make atonement for her,
and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood. These are the
regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. If she cannot afford a lamb, she
is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and
the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest
will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’” (Leviticus
12:4-8)
Mary’s
sacrifice of “a pair of doves or two young pigeons” provides
an insight into the finances of the family because she was not able to afford to
purchase a lamb for the sacrifice. The laws for the redemption of the first
born son are found in Exodus 13 and Numbers 3.
YAHWEH said
to Moses, “Sanctify
(set apart) to Me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites, among
mankind and large animals, he is Mine.”(Exodus 13:1-2)
YAHWEH said
to Moses, “Number every male of the sons of Israel who are a month old or more and
take the number of their names. And you
shall take the Levites for Me in place of all the
firstborn of the sons of Israel, and
the cattle of the Levites in place of all the firstborn of the cattle of the sons
of Israel.” (Numbers 3:40-41)
In
return for the Levites taking over this responsibility, every firstborn
Israelite was required to be redeemed by a payment of five shekels to a
member of the tribe of Levi. Despite the destruction of the Temple, this
ancient redemption ceremony continues to take place and is still widely
observed today. On the thirty-first day after the birth of the first son, a
ceremony, to which relatives and friends are invited, takes place in the home.
Among the guests is a Kohen (priest), a descendant of the tribe of Levi.
When Joseph and
Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to
Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. (Luke 2:39)
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