Did the Old Covenant Baptize Its Daughters?
Introduction
The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was circumcision, which was not merely a national or ethnic identity marker, like a tribal tattoo or a passport stamp. It was God’s covenant sign, marking that a person belonged to His covenant family outwardly and inwardly. The physical cutting away anticipated a spiritual cut to the heart, a spiritual change that included faith (Dt. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:28f). Abraham was justified by faith before circumcision, which was considered “a sign and seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Rom. 4:11). Circumcision was a physical sign pointing to a spiritual reality.
God said this to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant” (Gen. 17:7). This is why in the Old Testament they started applying the covenant sign not just to the parents who had faith, but to their male children, pointing forward to the day when the child would receive the gift of the covenant sign with faith.
But what about the baby girls? They couldn’t be circumcised. Does that mean they were not included in the covenant like the boys?
Girls were covenant members just like the boys were, but not by their own sign. They were members of the covenant by federal representation through the circumcision of the household males. Genesis 17:11 says “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.” The “you” is plural, meaning “you all.” When the males were circumcised, the entire household, including the females, was counted as bearing the covenant sign.
So, the OT contains a male covenant initiation sign of circumcision that included blood. But also, there is a broader washing ritual, a program of purification that was applied to all, including baby girls.
Leviticus and the purification of mother and newborn
Leviticus 12 describes the process of purification for a mother and her newborn child in three phases.
Phase one is the time of impurity. For the male child, the mother is ceremonially unclean for seven days (Lev. 12:2), and the boy is circumcised on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3). For the female child, the mother is ceremonially unclean for fourteen days (Lev. 12:5). Part of the asymmetry between male and female is that the male child’s eighth-day circumcision happens the day the mother’s first phase ends.
Phase two is the blood of purifying. For the male child, the mother remains “in the blood of her purifying” for thirty-three days (Lev. 12:4). For the female child, the mother remains “in the blood of her purifying” for sixty-six days (Lev. 12:5). During this time, the mother, “shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed” (Lev. 12:4).
Phase three is the sacrifice and washing at the sanctuary. When the days of her purifying are complete, she brings a lamb, or if poor like Mary (Lk. 2:24) she brings two birds (Lev. 12:6). This is for the burnt offering and a sin offering, as mentioned in Leviticus 15:30. The priest “shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood” (Lev. 12:7).
Think about the three groups. There is the mother, the baby boy, and the baby girl. How is the mother restored to temple worship? Through sacrifice and cleansing, not circumcision. How is the boy incorporated into the covenant? Through the blood-sign of the covenant cut into his body (Lev. 12:3), then through atonement and offering (Lev. 12:7), and finally through ceremonial washing. How is the girl incorporated into the covenant? Through the atonement and offering mentioned in Leviticus 12:7 and the ceremonial washing. Leviticus 15:19-28 elaborates on the postpartum impurity. There is washing with water (Lev. 15:21, 27), which returns the mother and child to cleanness through water.
The boy’s sign of circumcision is named while the girl gets no named rite. Instead, the girl, along with the boy, passes into the water purification process. Why are the newborns impure? Impurity is transmissible by contact (Lev. 15:21-23; 26-27). So, the mother is unclean, and the newborn is in ongoing physical contact with her. The mother is nursing the child and holding the child through the entire seven or fourteen-day phase. Thus, the newborn is unclean and in need of the washing with water.
The question is this: Does washing the newborn girl with water have any significance for entrance into the covenant? On the surface the answer seems to be an obvious “no.” But then we read the prophetic words of Ezekiel 16.
Ezekiel 16 – Covenant Entry by Washing
Ezekiel 16:4-9 depicts God’s covenant relationship with Israel using the figure of an abandoned newborn girl. At birth, this baby girl was not washed with water for cleansing. She was not salted or swaddled (Ez. 16:4). The Lord saw this pitiable child wallowing in blood and decided to enter into covenant with her (Ez. 16:5-8). How does God enter into covenant with the baby girl? He washed her with water, cleaned off the blood, and anointed her with oil (Ez. 16:9).
The actions of Ezekiel 16:4-9 don’t strictly follow the postpartum cleansing phases described in Leviticus 12 and Leviticus 15. Rather, it is an image of a newborn girl being washed at birth as the beginning of a covenant relationship. It’s not a male child in this passage, but a female. The sex that does not receive the covenant sign in the Torah does receive covenant washing in Ezekiel. And the sex that does not receive covenant washing in Ezekiel does receive the covenant sign in the Torah.
This anticipates the New Covenant where “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ …. male and female” (Gal. 3:27f). There is something fitting, almost narratively foreseeable from the perspective of the Old Testament. In the Abrahamic Covenant the sign, carried out by knife, excluded half the children, while the female child was purified with no knife. According to Colossians 2:11-12, in the New Covenant, circumcision gives way to a new sign carried out with water, the very element that had been ceremonially washing the mothers of the covenant, and their newborns, for millennia. Water was always in view, even when it hadn’t become a covenant sign yet. If the blood-sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was selective (male only), the water-sign of the New Covenant is comprehensive (male and female).
Consider another Old Testament text that anticipates the inclusiveness of the baptism rite.
Numbers 19 – Water in the Sacrifice
In Numbers 19, a red heifer, without blemish and never yoked, is slaughtered outside the camp and burned entirely, including hide, flesh, blood, and even dung (Num. 19:1-5). The priest then throws cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet into the fire, and the heifer burns (Num. 19:6). The priest cleans himself and his clothes with water before gathering the ashes and storing them outside the camp in a clean place (Num. 19:7-10).
Why is all this done? It is preparation for the purification of the people to use as a sin offering (Num. 19:9). When needed, a clean person takes some of the ash, adds “living water” (Num. 19:17) and this becomes the water to clean those who are impure (Num. 19:19). A clean person dips hyssop in the water and sprinkles it on the defiled person on the third and seventh days (Num. 19:17-19). The blood was applied once and sprinkled toward the tent (Num. 19:4), but the ongoing work of cleansing is through the sprinkled water (Num. 19:19).
The author of Hebrews describes this process in Hebrews 9:13, saying, “The blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh.” This is one of the “various washings” (baptismois) referred to in Hebrews 9:10. Unlike circumcision, the red-heifer water (what else shall we call it?) reaches everyone, male and female; adult and child; even “for the stranger” (Num. 19:10) who needed purification (19:9). All “the persons who were there” where death occurred get sprinkled (Num. 19:18). This inclusiveness seems to be anticipating Galatians 3:28.
The reason the ceremonial rites of Numbers 19 are inclusive is because it deals with the impurity that comes from being near a dead body. Anyone in a tent or house where death occurs; anyone who touches a dead body or grave, becomes impure, whether they be infants, females, or sojourners. Which means infants, females, and sojourners—indeed everyone—each receive, in the words of Hebrews 9:10-13, baptism by sprinkling, not as covenant-initiation, but as the sprinkling of purification water.
Hebrews 13 – Christ Connection
In Numbers 19:9 the ashes are gathered up outside the camp. Remember, Hebrews 9:13 summarized the red heifer sacrifice of Numbers 19. Then Hebrews picks this thread up again in Hebrews 13:11-13. Look for the connection.
“For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”
Christ suffering “outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12). The water that cleanses is ash-of-death mixed with living water, kept outside the gate (Num. 19:1-9, 17). In the Old Covenant, death and living water were combined and sprinkled on everyone who had touched death. This was done so they may approach the sanctuary. In the New Covenant, Jesus’ death, in complete fulfillment of the sacrificial system, sanctifies the people through his blood (Heb. 13:12). It’s a new rite where “our hearts sprinkled clean… and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22). And not just water, but also the Spirit, as Jesus taught, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5).
This inclusion of the Spirit for all God’s people takes us to the promises of a New Covenant.
New Covenant Prophecies
The New Testament merges the male sign of circumcision and the various purification washings to create the sign of the New Covenant, baptism by water. This is an inclusive measure that replaces the blood of circumcision, the male-exclusive sign. The New Covenant prophecies reach for water and Spirit imagery when describing the internalization. The shift from a blood-sign to a water-sign means the sign of the New Covenant is applied to both sexes.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 describes the New Covenant with a sequence that involves water, new heart (internalization), and Spirit.
Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”
Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
Ezekiel 36:27, “And I will put my Spirit within you.”
Notice a few things. The mode of applying the water is sprinkling. This is the same mode as Numbers 19 and the same mode emphasized in Hebrews 9-10. Why does Ezekiel pick the mode of sprinkling? Remember, Ezekiel is not just a prophet, but also a priest (Ez. 1:3). He was trained in the purification system where sprinkled water was used to restore the impure.
Notice also that Ezekiel changes the sign from circumcision to water baptism. The New Covenant promise includes internalization (Ez. 36:26; Jer. 31:31-34) and the Spirit for all (Ez. 36:27; Joel 2:28-30). In Ezekiel’s presentation, the sign of the New Covenant, baptism, is entrance into the New Covenant of internalization and receiving the Spirit.
Jesus brings these two things together in John 3:5, teaching that those united to Christ are “born of water and the Spirit.” Jesus is getting this from Ezekiel 36:25-27 and Isaiah 44:1-5. It’s worth noting that Jesus’s words in John 3:5 use Isaiah 44:1-5, which says the recipients of the water and Spirit are the newborn offspring of believers. So, in Jesus’ mind, the New Covenant promise and the application of water retains the same household form found in the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 17:7). Jesus knew the words of Jeremiah 31:34 where the New Covenant is given to all. Who is all? “The least of them to the greatest,” an all-inclusive phrase that refers to all ages, from infants to the elderly, and both sexes, male and female (Jer. 6:9-15). Jesus also knew the words of Isaiah 52:15 that extends the sprinkling of water to the nations, signaling that the New Covenant is inclusive not just of age and gender, but also to Gentiles.
Then there is Zechariah 13:1 which says, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” So, this takes the fountain of living water image and specifically connects it to cleansing from not just uncleanness, but also sin. Paul sees this same connection when he writes that God saved his people from their sins by the water of regeneration (Titus 3:5).
Conclusion
The asymmetry of circumcision applied to boys but not girls was always pointing toward a water-sign that would gather in everyone. The prophets describe the new sign of water and apply it to the whole people, and to their offspring, and to the Gentiles. In the New Covenant, there are not “various washings” as in the Old Testament (Heb. 9:10), but one baptism and one people joined to one Spirit. One faith in the one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph. 4:4-6).
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was circumcision, which was not merely a national or ethnic identity marker, like a tribal tattoo or a passport stamp. It was God’s covenant sign, marking that a person belonged to His covenant family outwardly and inwardly. The physical cutting away anticipated a spiritual cut to the heart, a spiritual change that included faith (Dt. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:28f). Abraham was justified by faith before circumcision, which was considered “a sign and seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Rom. 4:11). Circumcision was a physical sign pointing to a spiritual reality.
God said this to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant” (Gen. 17:7). This is why in the Old Testament they started applying the covenant sign not just to the parents who had faith, but to their male children, pointing forward to the day when the child would receive the gift of the covenant sign with faith.
But what about the baby girls? They couldn’t be circumcised. Does that mean they were not included in the covenant like the boys?
Girls were covenant members just like the boys were, but not by their own sign. They were members of the covenant by federal representation through the circumcision of the household males. Genesis 17:11 says “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.” The “you” is plural, meaning “you all.” When the males were circumcised, the entire household, including the females, was counted as bearing the covenant sign.
So, the OT contains a male covenant initiation sign of circumcision that included blood. But also, there is a broader washing ritual, a program of purification that was applied to all, including baby girls.
Leviticus and the purification of mother and newborn
Leviticus 12 describes the process of purification for a mother and her newborn child in three phases.
Phase one is the time of impurity. For the male child, the mother is ceremonially unclean for seven days (Lev. 12:2), and the boy is circumcised on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3). For the female child, the mother is ceremonially unclean for fourteen days (Lev. 12:5). Part of the asymmetry between male and female is that the male child’s eighth-day circumcision happens the day the mother’s first phase ends.
Phase two is the blood of purifying. For the male child, the mother remains “in the blood of her purifying” for thirty-three days (Lev. 12:4). For the female child, the mother remains “in the blood of her purifying” for sixty-six days (Lev. 12:5). During this time, the mother, “shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed” (Lev. 12:4).
Phase three is the sacrifice and washing at the sanctuary. When the days of her purifying are complete, she brings a lamb, or if poor like Mary (Lk. 2:24) she brings two birds (Lev. 12:6). This is for the burnt offering and a sin offering, as mentioned in Leviticus 15:30. The priest “shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood” (Lev. 12:7).
Think about the three groups. There is the mother, the baby boy, and the baby girl. How is the mother restored to temple worship? Through sacrifice and cleansing, not circumcision. How is the boy incorporated into the covenant? Through the blood-sign of the covenant cut into his body (Lev. 12:3), then through atonement and offering (Lev. 12:7), and finally through ceremonial washing. How is the girl incorporated into the covenant? Through the atonement and offering mentioned in Leviticus 12:7 and the ceremonial washing. Leviticus 15:19-28 elaborates on the postpartum impurity. There is washing with water (Lev. 15:21, 27), which returns the mother and child to cleanness through water.
The boy’s sign of circumcision is named while the girl gets no named rite. Instead, the girl, along with the boy, passes into the water purification process. Why are the newborns impure? Impurity is transmissible by contact (Lev. 15:21-23; 26-27). So, the mother is unclean, and the newborn is in ongoing physical contact with her. The mother is nursing the child and holding the child through the entire seven or fourteen-day phase. Thus, the newborn is unclean and in need of the washing with water.
The question is this: Does washing the newborn girl with water have any significance for entrance into the covenant? On the surface the answer seems to be an obvious “no.” But then we read the prophetic words of Ezekiel 16.
Ezekiel 16 – Covenant Entry by Washing
Ezekiel 16:4-9 depicts God’s covenant relationship with Israel using the figure of an abandoned newborn girl. At birth, this baby girl was not washed with water for cleansing. She was not salted or swaddled (Ez. 16:4). The Lord saw this pitiable child wallowing in blood and decided to enter into covenant with her (Ez. 16:5-8). How does God enter into covenant with the baby girl? He washed her with water, cleaned off the blood, and anointed her with oil (Ez. 16:9).
The actions of Ezekiel 16:4-9 don’t strictly follow the postpartum cleansing phases described in Leviticus 12 and Leviticus 15. Rather, it is an image of a newborn girl being washed at birth as the beginning of a covenant relationship. It’s not a male child in this passage, but a female. The sex that does not receive the covenant sign in the Torah does receive covenant washing in Ezekiel. And the sex that does not receive covenant washing in Ezekiel does receive the covenant sign in the Torah.
This anticipates the New Covenant where “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ …. male and female” (Gal. 3:27f). There is something fitting, almost narratively foreseeable from the perspective of the Old Testament. In the Abrahamic Covenant the sign, carried out by knife, excluded half the children, while the female child was purified with no knife. According to Colossians 2:11-12, in the New Covenant, circumcision gives way to a new sign carried out with water, the very element that had been ceremonially washing the mothers of the covenant, and their newborns, for millennia. Water was always in view, even when it hadn’t become a covenant sign yet. If the blood-sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was selective (male only), the water-sign of the New Covenant is comprehensive (male and female).
Consider another Old Testament text that anticipates the inclusiveness of the baptism rite.
Numbers 19 – Water in the Sacrifice
In Numbers 19, a red heifer, without blemish and never yoked, is slaughtered outside the camp and burned entirely, including hide, flesh, blood, and even dung (Num. 19:1-5). The priest then throws cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet into the fire, and the heifer burns (Num. 19:6). The priest cleans himself and his clothes with water before gathering the ashes and storing them outside the camp in a clean place (Num. 19:7-10).
Why is all this done? It is preparation for the purification of the people to use as a sin offering (Num. 19:9). When needed, a clean person takes some of the ash, adds “living water” (Num. 19:17) and this becomes the water to clean those who are impure (Num. 19:19). A clean person dips hyssop in the water and sprinkles it on the defiled person on the third and seventh days (Num. 19:17-19). The blood was applied once and sprinkled toward the tent (Num. 19:4), but the ongoing work of cleansing is through the sprinkled water (Num. 19:19).
The author of Hebrews describes this process in Hebrews 9:13, saying, “The blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh.” This is one of the “various washings” (baptismois) referred to in Hebrews 9:10. Unlike circumcision, the red-heifer water (what else shall we call it?) reaches everyone, male and female; adult and child; even “for the stranger” (Num. 19:10) who needed purification (19:9). All “the persons who were there” where death occurred get sprinkled (Num. 19:18). This inclusiveness seems to be anticipating Galatians 3:28.
The reason the ceremonial rites of Numbers 19 are inclusive is because it deals with the impurity that comes from being near a dead body. Anyone in a tent or house where death occurs; anyone who touches a dead body or grave, becomes impure, whether they be infants, females, or sojourners. Which means infants, females, and sojourners—indeed everyone—each receive, in the words of Hebrews 9:10-13, baptism by sprinkling, not as covenant-initiation, but as the sprinkling of purification water.
Hebrews 13 – Christ Connection
In Numbers 19:9 the ashes are gathered up outside the camp. Remember, Hebrews 9:13 summarized the red heifer sacrifice of Numbers 19. Then Hebrews picks this thread up again in Hebrews 13:11-13. Look for the connection.
“For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”
Christ suffering “outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12). The water that cleanses is ash-of-death mixed with living water, kept outside the gate (Num. 19:1-9, 17). In the Old Covenant, death and living water were combined and sprinkled on everyone who had touched death. This was done so they may approach the sanctuary. In the New Covenant, Jesus’ death, in complete fulfillment of the sacrificial system, sanctifies the people through his blood (Heb. 13:12). It’s a new rite where “our hearts sprinkled clean… and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22). And not just water, but also the Spirit, as Jesus taught, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5).
This inclusion of the Spirit for all God’s people takes us to the promises of a New Covenant.
New Covenant Prophecies
The New Testament merges the male sign of circumcision and the various purification washings to create the sign of the New Covenant, baptism by water. This is an inclusive measure that replaces the blood of circumcision, the male-exclusive sign. The New Covenant prophecies reach for water and Spirit imagery when describing the internalization. The shift from a blood-sign to a water-sign means the sign of the New Covenant is applied to both sexes.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 describes the New Covenant with a sequence that involves water, new heart (internalization), and Spirit.
Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”
Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
Ezekiel 36:27, “And I will put my Spirit within you.”
Notice a few things. The mode of applying the water is sprinkling. This is the same mode as Numbers 19 and the same mode emphasized in Hebrews 9-10. Why does Ezekiel pick the mode of sprinkling? Remember, Ezekiel is not just a prophet, but also a priest (Ez. 1:3). He was trained in the purification system where sprinkled water was used to restore the impure.
Notice also that Ezekiel changes the sign from circumcision to water baptism. The New Covenant promise includes internalization (Ez. 36:26; Jer. 31:31-34) and the Spirit for all (Ez. 36:27; Joel 2:28-30). In Ezekiel’s presentation, the sign of the New Covenant, baptism, is entrance into the New Covenant of internalization and receiving the Spirit.
Jesus brings these two things together in John 3:5, teaching that those united to Christ are “born of water and the Spirit.” Jesus is getting this from Ezekiel 36:25-27 and Isaiah 44:1-5. It’s worth noting that Jesus’s words in John 3:5 use Isaiah 44:1-5, which says the recipients of the water and Spirit are the newborn offspring of believers. So, in Jesus’ mind, the New Covenant promise and the application of water retains the same household form found in the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 17:7). Jesus knew the words of Jeremiah 31:34 where the New Covenant is given to all. Who is all? “The least of them to the greatest,” an all-inclusive phrase that refers to all ages, from infants to the elderly, and both sexes, male and female (Jer. 6:9-15). Jesus also knew the words of Isaiah 52:15 that extends the sprinkling of water to the nations, signaling that the New Covenant is inclusive not just of age and gender, but also to Gentiles.
Then there is Zechariah 13:1 which says, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” So, this takes the fountain of living water image and specifically connects it to cleansing from not just uncleanness, but also sin. Paul sees this same connection when he writes that God saved his people from their sins by the water of regeneration (Titus 3:5).
Conclusion
The asymmetry of circumcision applied to boys but not girls was always pointing toward a water-sign that would gather in everyone. The prophets describe the new sign of water and apply it to the whole people, and to their offspring, and to the Gentiles. In the New Covenant, there are not “various washings” as in the Old Testament (Heb. 9:10), but one baptism and one people joined to one Spirit. One faith in the one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph. 4:4-6).
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.
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