Deuteronomychapter 23
25 verses · BSBDeuteronomy book hub →
Key verse
For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you.
It stands in Who may enter the assembly of the LORD, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The assembly, the camp's purity, and various laws. Castrated and bastards barred from the assembly of the LORD; Ammonite and Moabite to the tenth generation; Edomite and Egyptian admitted in the third generation. The camp must be kept clean. A place outside for nature, a paddle on the weapon to cover it: ‘for the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp’. The escaped slave finds asylum. No harlots, no sodomites, no usury to a brother. Vows to be paid promptly. Eating freely in a neighbour's vineyard or cornfield as you pass through, but not filling a vessel or putting a sickle to his grain.
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 23The history
The chapter is Moses speaking in the fortieth year, to a people living in a camp with the ark in the middle of it. The house reading dates it to about 1406 BC, stated as a reading rather than a settled date. The place is the plains of Moab, and the camp in view is the one the hearers are standing in. The occasion is the settling of who may stand in the assembly, followed by the keeping of the camp and by rules for lending, vows and a neighbour's crop. A first hearer knew what the assembly was, the gathered body of Israel for worship and decision. The exclusions at verses 1 to 8 therefore concern standing in that body rather than dwelling in the land. A first hearer knew the history behind two of them, since Ammon and Moab had hired Balaam and had refused Israel bread and water on the road. A first hearer also knew that returning a runaway slave was a standard obligation between kingdoms, written into treaties of the period, so the order at verse 15 runs against the practice of the region. Every soldier carried a digging tool with his equipment for the rule at verses 12 and 13.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
What it meant to them
The camp rules made holiness physical. God is described as walking through the middle of their tents, and that reached all the way down to where a man dug a hole. The runaway law and the permission to eat by hand in a neighbour's field told first hearers what sort of society they were joining. A hungry man could eat, and a fugitive from a foreign master could stay. Interest could be taken from a trader and never from a brother, because the second loan was made to a neighbour in trouble.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 23, in the store's exposition_notes
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 23 falls in Second sermon, the law restated (chapters 5–26). The Decalogue repeated; the Shema; laws for the land, for worship, for kingship, for war, for the poor. The covenant's central exposition.
Before it: First sermon, retrospective, chapters 1–4. After it: Third sermon, blessings and curses, chapters 27–30.
The whole shape of Deuteronomy→The structure of this chapter
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Who may enter the assembly of the LORD
1. (vv. 1-2)
Deuteronomy 23:1
“He that is wounded . . ., shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord--"To enter into the congregation of the Lord" means either admission to public honors and offices in the Church and State of Israel, or, in the case of foreigners, incorporation with that nation by marriage.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 23:2
“A bastard shall not enter - ממזר mamzer, which is here rendered bastard, should be understood as implying the offspring of an illegitimate or incestuous mixture.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The chapter opens on who is shut out, and what being shut out means is disputed, since Barnes reads the bar as one on naturalization and public office rather than on living in the land, and Henry says plainly that interpreters are not agreed. The word rendered bastard is mamzer, which Clarke takes of the child of an incestuous or forbidden union rather than of any child born outside marriage. Isaiah 56:3-5 answers verse 1 by name, promising the eunuch who takes hold of the covenant a place and a name in God's house better than of sons and of daughters. Acts 8:27 has an Ethiopian eunuch on the road home from Jerusalem with the scroll of Isaiah open in front of him.
2. (vv. 3-6)
Deuteronomy 23:3
“Upon Ammonites and Moabites, the posterity of Lot, who, for his outward convenience, had separated himself from Abraham, Gen. xiii. And we do not find that he or his ever joined themselves again to the children of the covenant. They are here cut off to the tenth generation, that is, (as some think it is explained), for ever.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 23:3
“This law forbids only the naturalization of those against whom it is directed. It does not forbid their dwelling in the land; and seems to refer rather to the nations than to individuals. It was not understood at any rate to interdict marriage with a Moabitess; compare Rth 1:4; Rth 4:13. Ruth however, and her sister were doubtless proselytes. Deu 23:4 Compare the marginal reference. The Moabites and the Ammonites are to be regarded as clans of the same stock rather than as two independent nations, and as acting together. Compare 2Ch 20:1.”
Deuteronomy 23:4
“Because they met you not with bread and with water,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 23:4
“However this omission of the Ammonites should be remembered against their nation in future ages. Note, God will certainly reckon, not only with those that oppose his people, but with those that do not help and further them, when it is in the power of their hand to do it. The charge at the great day is for an omission: I was hungry, and you gave me no meat.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 23:5
“Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam,....”
Deuteronomy 23:6
“Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. Not that they were to retain malice towards them, or indulge a spirit of revenge, or not do them any good offices in a private way, which is contrary to the law of love; nor does this contradict any offices of kindness and friendship that might be performed in a personal way: so we find that David had a kindness for Hanun the Ammonite, and showed it, though ill rewarded for it, yet is not blamed for doing it; 2Sa 10:2 for these words respect not persons in a private capacity, but the people of Israel as a body politic, who, as such, were not to carry on trade and commerce with those people, nor intermarry with them, nor make leagues and enter into alliances with them; the reason of which was, because being very near neighbours to them, had there not been such a law, as a wall of partition between them, they might have become very familiar, and so have learnt their evil ways and customs, which this was designed to prevent: the Jews restrain (o) this to overtures and proclamations of peace, which they were not to make with these nations, as they were directed to do when they went out to war with others, Deu 20:10. (o) Hilchot Melachim, c. 6. sect. 6.”
The charge against Moab and Ammon is two things done on the road out of Egypt, no bread and water offered and Balaam hired to curse, which Numbers 22 to 24 tells at length. Verse 5 says the Lord turned the curse into a blessing because he loved thee, and Nehemiah 13:1-2 quotes that whole charge back, the turned curse included, on the day the book of Moses is read aloud in Jerusalem. Deuteronomy 2:29 says the Moabites who dwelt in Ar sold Israel food on that same road, both verses stand in the book, and Keil reads the charge here as the conduct of the nation rather than of every man in it. Ruth the Moabitess is the case a reader sets against verse 3, since Ruth 4:17 makes her the great-grandmother of David and Matthew 1:5 names her in the line of Christ, and the readings offered are that the law bars naturalization rather than marriage, which is where Barnes lands, or that the Hebrew is masculine and reaches the men of Moab only, or that Ruth came in as a proselyte.
3. (vv. 7-8)
Deuteronomy 23:7
“The Edomite, as descended from Esau the twin brother of Jacob (compare Deu 2:4), and the Egyptian, as of that nation which had for long shown hospitality to Joseph and his brethren, were not to be objects of abhorrence. The oppression of the Egyptians was perhaps regarded as the act of the Pharaohs rather than the will of the people Exo 11:2-3; and at any rate was not to cancel the memory of preceding hospitality. Deu 23:8 In their third generation - i. e. the great grandchildren of the Edomite or Egyptian alien: compare the similar phrase in Exo 20:5.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 23:7
“At any rate [Scripture] says openly, "You shall not loathe Egyptians, since you lived as strangers in Egypt." By Egyptian it means "Gentile," in fact anyone from anywhere in the world. It is further forbidden to think of enemies as enemies, even if they are presently besieging your walls in the effort to capture your city, until you have sent them an envoy to invite them to peace.”
Clement of Alexandria· written before 215· The Stromata Book 2patristic
Deuteronomy 23:8
“8 The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the L ORD in their third generation. 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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Edom is spared on the ground of kinship, for he is thy brother, and the reckoning holds after Genesis 27 and after Numbers 20:18-21, where Edom came out with the sword to refuse Israel passage. Egypt is spared on the ground that thou wast a stranger in his land, so the house of bondage is kept off the list that holds Moab, and Barnes reads the oppression as the act of the Pharaohs rather than the will of the people who once fed Joseph's brothers. The grandchildren of both may enter in the third generation, against the ten generations of verse 3.
B. Keep the camp clean: he walks in itvv. 9-14
Verse 9 puts the army in the field under the law it lives under at home, keep thee from every wicked thing, and what follows is bodily rather than moral. A man unclean by night goes outside until he has washed and the sun is down, which Leviticus 15:16 had already required, and every man carries a paddle on his weapon to cover his own waste beyond the lines. Verse 14 gives the reason, that the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, which is the language of Leviticus 26:12 where God says he will walk among his people. Clarke observes that the same rules keep an army from disease, and he takes the health of the camp as a mercy carried inside the command rather than as the ground the text gives for it.
Deuteronomy 23:9
“The whole passage refers not to the encampments of the nation while passing from Egypt through the wilderness, but to future warlike expeditions seat out from Canaan.”
Deuteronomy 23:10
“If there be among you any man that is not clean,....”
Deuteronomy 23:11
“But it shall be, when evening cometh on,.... When the day declines, and it is near sun setting: he shall wash himself with water; dip himself all over in water, not only wash his garments but his flesh: and when the sun is down he shall come into the camp again; and take his place and rank in the army.”
Deuteronomy 23:12
“Thou shalt have also a place without the camp,.... A place prepared, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, provided on purpose for the use hereafter suggested; so Ben Melech: whither thou shalt go forth abroad; to do the necessities of nature, which they were to do without the camp, not in any place they thought fit and most convenient, but what was appointed for that purpose.”
Deuteronomy 23:13
“And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon,....”
Deuteronomy 23:14
“I WILL scarcely allude to the context, which you ought to notice at home, but I must say as much as this—the Lord cared for the cleanliness of His people while they were in the wilderness, literally so—and this text is connected with a sanitary regulation of the wisest possible kind. What I admire in it is that God the Glorious, the All-Holy, should stoop to legislate about such things.”
C. No runaway betrayed, no hire of a harlotvv. 15-18
The runaway is not returned, which reverses the codes around Israel, since the laws of Hammurabi put to death the man who hid a fugitive slave and paid a reward to whoever brought one in. He settles where it liketh him best, in the place which he shall choose, and chapters 12 to 26 use that phrase fifteen times of the place which the Lord shall choose. Barnes and Keil both read the case as a slave escaping a foreign master into Israel rather than one Hebrew fleeing another. Verses 17 and 18 bar prostitution kept at a shrine and bar its wages from the house of the Lord for any vow, and Gill notes that the word rendered whore is the ordinary word for a consecrated woman turned to its opposite.
Deuteronomy 23:15
“The case in question is that of a slave who fled from a pagan master to the holy land. It is of course assumed that the refugee was not flying from justice, but only from the tyranny of his lord.”
Deuteronomy 23:16
“He shall dwell in thee, even among you,....”
Deuteronomy 23:17
“Compare the marginal reference. Prostitution was a common part of religious observances among idolatrous nations, especially in the worship of Ashtoreth or Astarte. Compare Mic 1:7; Baruch 6:43.”
Deuteronomy 23:18
“Thou shall not bring the hire of a whore,.... Which was given to her as a reward for the use of her body: or the price of a dog; not of the firstborn of a dog, the price for the redemption of it, as some; nor for the loan of a hunting dog, or a shepherd's dog for breed, as Josephus (z) interprets this law.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 23:18
“The hire of a whore, or the price of a dog - Many public prostitutes dedicated to their gods a part of their impure earnings; and some of these prostitutes were publicly kept in the temple of Venus Melytta, whose gains were applied to the support of her abominable worship.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 23:18
“Or the price of a dog - It seems to mean, of a whoremonger or sodomite. Such are called dogs, Rev. xxii, 15. And it is not improbable they are called so here.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
D. No interest from a brother; pay what you vowedvv. 19-23
Interest may be taken of a stranger and not of a brother, which is the line Exodus 22:25 and Leviticus 25:35-37 draw, and Psalm 15:5 and Ezekiel 18:8 make lending without it a mark of the righteous man. Henry reads the permission toward the stranger as evidence that interest is not oppressive in itself, while Ambrose and the canonists after him took the passage as a bar on lending at interest at all. Vows are voluntary, and verse 22 says outright that it is no sin to make none, though what has gone out of the lips binds once it is spoken, which Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 repeats almost line for line. Numbers 30 sets out the law of vows at length, and Judges 11:30-39 is where one spoken in haste is carried through to its end.
Deuteronomy 23:19
“This among them would be little or no loss to the lender, because their land was so divided, their estates so settled, and there was so little a merchandise among them, that it was seldom or never they had occasion to borrow any great sums, but only for the subsistence of their family, or some uncommon emergence.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 23:20
“Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury,....”
Deuteronomy 23:21
“A wish is a request for blessings from God with a promise to fulfill a duty. And so, when you obtain what you have asked for, it is ungrateful to delay the promise.”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On Cain and Abelpatristic
Deuteronomy 23:22
“But if thou shalt forbear to vow,....”
Deuteronomy 23:23
The second mode of breaking a vow occurs through a contrary will, as when someone promises something to God and afterward repents of it. Against such persons it is said in Deuteronomy: "If anything has proceeded from your lips, you shall not make it void."
Bonaventure· written before 1257· Collationes de Decem Praeceptis, Collation 3patristic
E. Eat your fill, but fill no basketvv. 24-25
A man passing through another man's vineyard may eat his fill and may carry nothing away, and the same line is drawn in the standing corn, where the hand is allowed and the sickle is not. Clarke points out that this is the law the disciples were keeping when they plucked the ears of corn at Matthew 12:1, so the complaint brought against them was about the day and not about the grain. Henry passes on the Jewish reading that the rule was framed for the hired labourer in the harvest, whose mouth is not to be muzzled any more than the ox that treads out the corn.
Deuteronomy 23:24
“In vine-growing countries grapes are amazingly cheap; and we need not wonder, therefore, that all within reach of a person's arm, was free; the quantity plucked was a loss never felt by the proprietor, and it was a kindly privilege afforded to the poor and wayfaring man.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 23:24
“The Jews say, "This law was chiefly intended in favour of labourers, who were employed in gathering in their harvest and vintage; their mouths must not be muzzled any more than that of the ox when he treads out the corn." 3. It teaches us not to insist upon property in a small matter, of which it is easy to say, What is that between me and thee?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 23:25
“Thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand - It was on the permission granted by this law that the disciples plucked the ears of corn, as related Mat 12:1. This was both a considerate and humane law, and is no dishonor to the Jewish code.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 23. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
Keep studying
On this page
Studies3
On this verse
On this book
Places1