8 And if she has not money enough for a lamb, then let her take two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burned offering and the other for a sin-offering, and the priest will take away her sin and she will be clean,
And all the fat of it is to be burned on the altar like the fat of the peace-offering; and the priest will take away his sin and he will have forgiveness.
And if he has not money enough for a lamb, then let him give, for his offering to the Lord, two doves or two young pigeons; one for a sin-offering and one for a burned offering.
And two doves or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get; and one will be for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering.
And on the eighth day he is to take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the door of the Tent of meeting and give them to the priest:
And when the necessary days for making them clean by the law of Moses had come to an end, they took him to Jerusalem to give him to the Lord (As it says in the law of the Lord, Every mother's first male child is to be holy to the Lord), And to make an offering, as it is ordered in the law of the Lord, of two doves or other young birds.
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Commentary on Leviticus 12 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 12
Le 12:1-8. Woman's Uncleanness by Childbirth.
2. If a woman, &c.—The mother of a boy was ceremonially unclean for a week, at the end of which the child was circumcised (Ge 17:12; Ro 4:11-13); the mother of a girl for two weeks (Le 12:5)—a stigma on the sex (1Ti 2:14, 15) for sin, which was removed by Christ; everyone who came near her during that time contracted a similar defilement. After these periods, visitors might approach her though she was still excluded from the public ordinances of religion [Le 12:4].
6-8. the days of her purifying—Though the occasion was of a festive character, yet the sacrifices appointed were not a peace offering, but a burnt offering and sin offering, in order to impress the mind of the parent with recollections of the origin of sin, and that the child inherited a fallen and sinful nature. The offerings were to be presented the day after the period of her separation had ended—that is, forty-first for a boy, eighty-first for a girl.
8. bring two turtles, &c.—(See on Le 5:6). This was the offering made by Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it affords an incontestable proof of the poor and humble condition of the family (Lu 2:22-24).