God declared women unclean for menstruating

Leviticus 15 addresses bodily discharges from both men and women, declaring them sources of ritual impurity that restrict participation in communal worship.¹ A menstruating woman is ritually unclean for seven days. For women with abnormal uterine bleeding (zavah), the requirements are more extensive: an additional seven-day waiting period after the bleeding stops, followed by sacrificial offerings.² These laws raise questions about the differential treatment of male and female reproductive functions in biblical law.

The biblical text

Leviticus 15 is structured in four parallel sections: abnormal male discharges, normal male discharges, normal female discharges, and abnormal female discharges.³ The section on menstruation begins:

"When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean." Leviticus 15:19-20 (English Standard Version)²

The Hebrew term "niddah" (נִדָּה) derives from a root meaning "to remove" or "to separate."⁴ The impurity is communicable: anyone who touches the menstruating woman becomes unclean until evening, and anyone who touches objects she has lain or sat upon must wash, bathe, and remain unclean until evening.²

The text continues with provisions for sexual contact during menstruation:

"And if any man lies with her and her menstrual impurity comes upon him, he shall be unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean." Leviticus 15:24 (English Standard Version)²

The man's impurity here lasts seven days—matching the woman's—rather than the typical one-day period for contact with impurity.⁵ Other texts treat menstrual sex more severely: Leviticus 18:19 prohibits it, and Leviticus 20:18 prescribes that both parties "shall be cut off from among their people."^{6, 7}

Purification requirements

Leviticus 15 distinguishes between normal menstruation and abnormal uterine bleeding (zavah). Normal menstruation requires seven days of impurity with no explicit sacrificial offering. For abnormal bleeding—discharge "for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity"—the requirements are more stringent:

"And if a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean... But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before the LORD for her unclean discharge." Leviticus 15:25, 28-30 (English Standard Version)²

This addresses abnormal bleeding, but traditional Jewish interpretation extended the requirement for offerings to normal menstruation as well.⁸ The requirement that the priest "make atonement" (kipper) uses the same terminology employed for sin offerings throughout Leviticus.⁹

The use of "sin offering" (chatat) is theologically significant. The text does not suggest menstruation itself is sinful, but the purification ritual employs the same sacrificial category used for moral transgressions.¹⁰ This creates an association between women's natural bodily functions and the need for atonement before God.

Comparison with male discharges

Leviticus 15 addresses male discharges in parallel, creating an apparently egalitarian structure.³ Abnormal male and female discharges receive identical treatment: seven clean days followed by offerings.¹ But the treatment of normal discharges reveals significant asymmetry.

Purification requirements for bodily discharges in Leviticus 15^{1, 2}

A man's normal seminal emission renders him unclean only until evening.¹¹ A woman's normal menstruation renders her unclean for seven days.² The text requires offerings only for abnormal bleeding, though some traditional Jewish interpretations extended this to normal menstruation.⁸ The differential treatment of normal bodily functions creates an unequal burden on women.

Some scholars argue this asymmetry reflects ancient medical theories that viewed menstrual blood and semen differently—both were "seed," but menstrual blood was associated with life-giving properties requiring more extensive ritual management.¹² This does not explain why life-giving properties would necessitate longer exclusion from worship, or why abnormal bleeding required sin offerings.

Practical impact on women's lives

During the seven days of impurity, a woman could not enter the tabernacle or temple, could not touch sacred objects, and rendered unclean anyone who contacted her or objects she had used.¹³ Only the ritually pure could enter the temple or handle sacred items.¹³ Severe impurity required expulsion from the encampment entirely.¹⁴ Menstrual impurity did not go that far, but it did create barriers to full participation in communal worship.¹⁵

For women of childbearing age, these restrictions recurred monthly. With a typical 28-day cycle, a woman would be ritually impure for roughly one-quarter of her adult life before menopause.¹⁶

The communicability of menstrual impurity also affected household dynamics. Objects she sat or lay upon became unclean.² The biblical text does not explicitly mandate physical separation from the household, but later rabbinic interpretation developed extensive regulations to prevent inadvertent impurity transmission within the home.⁴

Ancient Near Eastern context

Menstrual taboos were widespread in the ancient Near East, though attitudes varied. In ancient Egypt, menstruation was often seen as indicating fertility, and Egyptians unusually considered it a purificatory process with medicinal properties.¹⁷

Mesopotamian societies perceived menstruation as an illness with polluting powers, though the goddess Inanna/Ishtar presided over its sacred aspects.¹⁸ Mesopotamian medical texts describe uterine bleeding in sophisticated anatomical terms alongside ritual concerns.¹⁹

Biblical purity laws occupy a middle position. They are less severe than Mesopotamian law, which typically required menstruating women to leave their dwellings entirely.²⁰ But they are more restrictive than Egyptian practice, which lacked comparable purity restrictions.¹⁷

Theological interpretations

Scholars and theologians have offered several interpretations.

The life and death symbolism interpretation

Some argue the purity laws reflect a symbolic system centered on life and death rather than moral judgment. Bodily discharges involving blood and semen relate to the boundaries between fertility and mortality; menstrual blood, associated with potential life, requires ritual management when that potential is not realized.²¹

This has merit as symbolic logic. But it does not address the practical inequality of declaring women's normal functions a more serious source of impurity than men's. Symbolic systems have real-world effects on who participates in religious life.²²

The hygiene explanation

Apologetic literature often claims the purity laws served hygienic purposes, protecting communities from disease before modern medicine.²³

The text itself provides a theological rationale, not a medical one. Leviticus 15:31: "Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst."¹ The concern is ritual defilement of sacred space.

If hygiene were the point, the laws are both over- and under-inclusive. They declare objects merely sat upon unclean but allow menstruating women to remain home. They require elaborate purification for menstruation but minimal procedures for contact with corpses, which pose far greater disease risks.²⁴ The pattern fits a ritual purity system, not a public health code.

The "equal treatment" defense

Some scholars emphasize the parallel treatment of male and female discharges as evidence of gender equity.³ Both sexes experience ritual impurity, and both abnormal discharges require identical purification.¹

But the parallel breaks down where it matters most: recurring, unavoidable bodily functions. Normal semen emission requires minimal purification and lasts until evening. Normal menstruation requires seven days of impurity.^{2, 11} Formal parallelism in textual structure does not create substantive equality in practical impact.

Feminist and critical perspectives

Charlotte Fonrobert's analysis of rabbinic niddah interpretations shows how these laws became sites for negotiating women's sexual autonomy, bodily integrity, and religious participation.²⁵ Some feminist interpreters argue the purity system privileges normal males and disadvantages all females.²² Others note the laws can protect women from sexual demands during menstruation and create space for bodily autonomy.²⁶

Both dimensions are real. The laws create structural disadvantages for women in access to sacred space and frequency of ritual exclusion. They also establish boundaries with protective effects. Whether the protection outweighs the exclusion depends on who holds the power to interpret and enforce them.

What remains clear is that God, as portrayed in Leviticus, established a system in which women's normal reproductive biology creates recurring ritual impurity requiring atonement. Whether this reflects divine wisdom or human projection of cultural attitudes onto God is a question each reader must resolve.

Evolution of the tradition

The interpretation of these laws evolved considerably. During the Second Temple period, emphasis shifted from tum'at niddah (separation for defilement) to issur niddah (restriction of sexual relations).²⁷

Rabbinic Judaism developed extensive regulations known as taharat ha-mishpacha (family purity laws), extending the biblical seven-day period by requiring seven additional "clean" days before ritual immersion in a mikveh.⁴ This continues in Orthodox and some Conservative Jewish communities today.

Early Christianity largely abandoned the ritual purity system. Some traditions developed their own menstrual prohibitions, but these were not universal and lacked the biblical basis of the Levitical laws.²⁸

Implications for biblical authority

These are not obscure regulations. Leviticus 15 begins, "The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 'Speak to the people of Israel and say to them...'"¹

Several positions are possible. Some argue these were ceremonial laws specific to Israel's worship system, fulfilled in Christ and no longer binding.²⁹ This preserves biblical authority but raises the question of why God would establish a system treating women's bodies as sources of impurity requiring sin offerings.

Others suggest the laws were "divine condescension"—accommodations to ancient cultural norms rather than expressions of God's ideal will.³⁰ This preserves God's goodness but complicates claims about biblical inerrancy.

Still others conclude the laws reflect patriarchal human culture rather than divine command—ancient men regulating women's bodies under the guise of religious purity.²² This takes the gendered power dynamics seriously but requires substantial revision of traditional views about biblical inspiration.

What cannot be disputed is what the text says. Leviticus 15 declares menstruating women ritually unclean for seven days, restricts their participation in worship, transmits their impurity to objects they touch, and for abnormal bleeding requires sacrificial offerings for purification. These are not later interpretations but the explicit content of biblical law presented as God's direct speech to Moses.