Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 23
1He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly. 2A person born of a forbidden union shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one of his enter into Yahweh’s assembly. 3An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into Yahweh’s assembly forever, 4because they didn’t meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. 5Nevertheless Yahweh your God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, but Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because Yahweh your God loved you. 6You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. 7You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land. 8The children of the third generation who are born to them may enter into Yahweh’s assembly.
9When you go out and camp against your enemies, then you shall keep yourselves from every evil thing. 10If there is among you any man who is not clean by reason of that which happens to him by night, then shall he go outside of the camp. He shall not come within the camp; 11but it shall be, when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water. When the sun is down, he shall come within the camp. 12You shall have a place also outside of the camp where you go relieve yourself. 13You shall have a trowel among your weapons. It shall be, when you relieve yourself, you shall dig with it, and shall turn back and cover your excrement; 14for Yahweh your God walks in the middle of your camp, to deliver you, and to give up your enemies before you. Therefore your camp shall be holy, that he may not see an unclean thing in you, and turn away from you.
15You shall not deliver to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you. 16He shall dwell with you, among you, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best. You shall not oppress him.
17There shall be no prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel. 18You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute, or the wages of a male prostitute, into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow; for both of these are an abomination to Yahweh your God.
19You shall not lend on interest to your brother: interest of money, interest of food, interest of anything that is lent on interest. 20You may charge a foreigner interest; but you shall not your brother interest, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land where you go in to possess it.
21When you vow a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not be slack to pay it, for Yahweh your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you. 22But if you refrain from making a vow, it shall be no sin in you. 23You shall observe and do that which has gone out of your lips. Whatever you have vowed to Yahweh your God as a free will offering, which you have promised with your mouth, you must do. 24When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat your fill of grapes at your own pleasure; but you shall not put any in your container. 25When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the ears with your hand; but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 41 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry3
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Interpreters are not agreed what is here meant by entering into the congregation of the Lord, which is here forbidden to eunuchs and to bastards, Ammonites and Moabites, for ever, but to Edomites and Egyptians only till the third generation. 1. Some think…
Israel was now encamped, and this vast army was just entering upon action, which was likely to keep them together for a long time, and therefore it was fit to give them particular directions for the good ordering of their camp. And the charge is in one word…
Orders are here given about five several things which have no relation one to another: - I. The land of Israel is here made a sanctuary, or city of refuge, for servants that were wronged and abused by their masters, and fled thither for shelter from the…
John Gill25
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
He that is wounded in the stones,.... In any of them, not accidentally, but purposely; which are crushed and bruised by the hands of men, with a design to make him unfit for generation, or to make an eunuch of him: or that hath his privy member cut by himself…
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,.... That is born of whoredom, as the Targum of Jonathan; and for the sake of avoiding whoredom and deterring from it was this law made, according to Maimonides (h), that adulterers might see, as he…
An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,.... Or marry an Israelitish woman, as Jarchi, and so the Targum of Jonathan,"the male Ammonites and Moabites are not fit to take a wife of the congregation of the Lord;''for the Jews…
Keil & Delitzsch7
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
The Right of Citizenship in the Congregation of the Lord. - Deu 23:1. Into the congregation of the Lord there was not to come, i.e., not to be received, any person who was mutilated in his sexual member. פּצוּע־דּכּה, literally wounded by crushing, i.e…
Preservation of the Purity of the Camp in Time of War. - The bodily appearance of the people was also to correspond to the sacredness of Israel as the congregation of the Lord, especially when they gathered in hosts around their God. "When thou marchest out…
Toleration and Non-Toleration in the Congregation of the Lord. - Deu 23:15, Deu 23:16. A slave who had escaped from his master to Israel was not to be given up, but to be allowed to dwell in the land, wherever he might choose, and not to be oppressed. The…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown6
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
even to the their tenth generation shall they not enter--Many eminent writers think that this law of exclusion was applicable only to males; at all events that a definite is used for an indefinite number (Neh 13:1; Rut 4:10; Kg2 10:2). Many of the Israelites…
When the host goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing--from the excesses incident to camp life, as well as from habits of personal neglect and impurity.
Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which has escaped from his master unto thee--evidently a servant of the Canaanites or some of the neighboring people, who was driven by tyrannical oppression, or induced, with a view of embracing the true…
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