Introduction
In Deuteronomy 23, God continued giving laws to help the
Israelites protect their purity and set-apartness for Him. Remember, the
nations around the Israelites did not follow Yahweh. They worshipped a
multitude of false gods such as Molech, Baal, and Asherah. When God gave each
of these laws to the Israelites, He set up a new nation and by that, provided a
national system of laws by which each person should live. He, too, was setting
up a way for the Israelites to be unaffected by the pagan worship and
lifestyles of the surrounding nations. God did not want the Israelites to
syncretize the worship of Him with the ways the other nations lived and
worshipped. He wanted them to stay pure and set apart solely for Him.
Deuteronomy 23 includes laws about who can be in the assembly of the LORD, how
they were to live while encamped, and five laws affecting relationships within
Israel.
The Purity of the Assembly of the LORD
Meaning.
Verses 1 to 8 of this chapter discuss who can be a part of
the assembly of the LORD. To understand the laws, we must begin by
understanding what the term “the assembly of the LORD” means. Being part of the
assembly of the LORD allowed a person to hold office in the temple/sanctuary
and in civil life. In addition, if a person came from a people of whom the LORD
allowed to be part of the assembly of the LORD, a Jew could marry him or her. Remember,
God formed the nation of Israel to be a theocracy. Because of that, every
leadership roles in the society developed from Yahweh. There was no separation
of church and state. Hence, if the LORD did not allow a person to be part of
the assembly of the LORD, God forbade he or she to be a leader in Israel. If
such a non-allowed person was to become a leader in Israel, they may have led
the nation away from the LORD. God set up rules about who could become a part
of the assembly of the LORD. He set up four categories of people who He forbade
to be in the assembly of the LORD.
The Emasculated.
Verse 1 states, “No one who is emasculated or has his male
organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” In our century, this appears
unfair, but when we look at it through God’s lens, we will understand why He
instituted this law. The English word “emasculated” in this verse comes from
the Hebrew word dakah and means
“crushed testicles.” Notice, God forbade men with crushed testicles and eunuchs
to be in the assembly of the LORD.
Remember that in the surrounding nations, men were eunuchs
by the will of the ruler to protect the leader’s wives and harems. These
eunuchs learned the customs of the nations in which they served and could teach
the Israelites the ways of life and worship of their home countries. That would
lead to syncretizing that nations’ worship of its god with the worship and way
of Yahweh. God created this law to make sure this syncretization did not occur.
In Leviticus 21:16-24, God gave the law that no man from the
line of Aaron (the high priest) who has a defect can come before the LORD –
worshipping, interceding, or offering sacrifices. The LORD said it would
profane (chalal - defile and
desecrate) His sanctuaries. Likewise, in Leviticus 22:24, God forbade any animal
with crushed, bruised, torn, or cut testicles be offered as a sacrifice. Why is
this important? God created everything good and whole. When the animal or man
was not whole through injury or intentional maiming of the genitals, the person
or animal was not pure. Only pure and undefiled people were adequate to be in
the presence of the LORD, just as only undefiled animals (non-maimed animals) were
adequate to offer to God as a sacrifice.
In Deuteronomy 23:1, this meant just whole and unharmed men could
be part of the assembly of the LORD. They alone may lead Israel because they
were untainted by the practices of other nations and they were whole and pure.
This law of the LORD’s sought to keep His people, Israel, pure and set apart
for Himself alone.
The Illegitimate.
Verse 2 says, “No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the
assembly of the LORD; none of his descendents, even to the tenth generation,
shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” This, too, might seem harsh. Remember, though,
God enacted these laws to keep the people of Israel, His chosen people, pure.
As we look closer at this verse, we find the word
“illegitimate” comes from the Hebrew word mamzer.
It means a child of incest, out of wedlock, or of mixed race (one parent is a
Jew and the other is not). The influence of a person outside the faith of
Israel or one who disobeyed God by conceiving a child outside holy wedlock would
affect the child as he or she grew so that the child would grow up with syncretized
laws. The ways of foreign nations or evil people who broke God’s laws would affect
the firm foundation the LORD established for Israel through His laws. By
issuing this law, God expected to keep the influence of evil (nations and
people) from affecting the purity and set-apartness of His people, Israel.
God further forbade any of the descendants of the
“illegitimate” person through the tenth generation to enter the assembly of the
LORD. Two ways to interpret this arise. The first is that only persons of the
eleventh generation and beyond may enter the assembly of the LORD, the strict
reading of the words of the verse. We must consider, though, that ten is a complete
number for the Hebrew people. This part of the verse, too, could mean that no
descendant of this illegitimate person may ever enter the assembly of the LORD.
God made sure this person (an evil person or one from another nation) would not
influence Israel. He did not allow him or her to be a leader of the people in
temple/sanctuary or civic life.
The Ammonite and Moabite.
History
To understand this law of God in verses three through six,
we must recall who the Ammonites and Moabites were and how they affected the
Israelites. Both the Ammonites and Moabites descended from Lot. When the messengers
of the LORD rescued Lot and his family from Sodom before God destroyed it,
Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom and turned to a pillar of salt. His daughters
feared the end of their lineage because no man would be available to be their
husbands (Genesis 19). Because of the daughters’ fear, they made Lot drunk and they
each laid with their him. From that intimacy with their father, the oldest
daughter bore a son, whom she named Moab. The youngest daughter bore a son,
whom she named Ben-ammi, who later became the father of the Ammonites. So the
people of Moab and Ammon came from an incestuous relationship through trickery.
This already made them excluded from the assembly of the LORD.
Balak, the king of the Moabites at the time Israel left Egypt,
feared the Israelites. He saw how the Israelites routed the Amorites and sent
for Balaam, a prophet of Yahweh, to curse the Israelites. Besides this, when
the Israelites sent word to their kindred, the Moabites, asking permission to
pass through their land and drink their water for which they paid, Balak
refused (Numbers 22-23). The Ammonites, too, refused the Israelites passage or
drink (Judges 11:17). Because of these things, God judged them and refused them
acceptance into the nation of His chosen people, Israel.
Judgment
God’s judgment appears in these verses. He said,
No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD;
none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the
assembly of the LORD, because they did not meet you with food and water on the
way when you came our of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the
son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless, the LORD
your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the
curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you. You shall
never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days. (Deuteronomy 23:3-6
[NASB])
God forbade the people of Ammon and
Moab to enter His assembly and lead His people. We understand why God forbade
the Israelites from allowing a Moabite and Ammonite to be a part of their nation
and lead them. We, too, understand from verse two this meant their descendants may
not lead Israel even if one of them married a Jew. The latter would make their
descendants “illegitimate.” Besides this, God commanded the Israelites never to
seek the peace and prosperity of these people. God judged the Moabites and
Ammonites. Remember, judgment from God was dispossession of land and death. He
instructed the Israelites not to help these people to prosper or seek an
alliance of peace with them. The Ammonites and Moabites were enemies of God because
they were enemies of the Israelites.
The Edomites and Egyptians.
A definitive distinction exists between the Moabites and
Ammonites to the Edomites. They each descended from the same line as Abraham,
but the former two cursed and hated the Israelites. In addition, the Edomites
came from the line of Abraham’s grandson, Esau. God told the Israelites they
must not detest the Edomites because they came from their brother, Esau
(Genesis 25:24-26). The English word “detest” comes from the Hebrew word ta’ab and means to abhor or loathe. God
told the Israelites not to loathe or abhor the Edomites.
God gave this same command about the Egyptians. This may
appear odd since the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, but God told them His reason.
God said the Egyptians helped the Israelites survive the drought and famine
that occurred, which led the Israelites to be in Egypt. When the people of
Israel sought help from the Egyptians while they were aliens to the Egyptians,
the Egyptians nurtured them (Exodus 22:21, 23:9; Leviticus 19:34; and
Deuteronomy 10:19).
God commanded the Israelites not to loathe these two groups
of people. He allowed them to enter the assembly of the LORD in the third
generation of the family’s residence in the land of Israel. Once the families
of Edom and Egypt lived long enough for a third generation to be born in Israel,
God allowed them to enter the assembly of the LORD and lead/rule in religious
and civic affairs.
The Purity of the Camp
God next addressed the purity of the encampment of Israel. Just
as the law about who may be in the assembly of the LORD affected the spiritual and
physical lives of the Israelites, so did these laws about when they encamped. What
the Israelites did by their physical bodies and minds affected their spiritual
selves and relationship with God. Verse 9 says they were to keep themselves
from “every evil thing.” As Jesus taught, evil is not just a physical action,
but the thought and temptation that preceded the action. Moses spoke many times
throughout the exodus years about what was evil in the sight of the LORD. These
deeds and thoughts that God proclaimed He detested or abhorred, they were not
to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Moses told the Israelites again about
another thing that polluted them and made them unclean. He said, “If there is
among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must
go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp. But it shall be when evening
approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter
the camp.” The nocturnal emissions did not include what occurred during sexual
intimacy. The English word “emission” comes from the Hebrew word qareh and means the chance or accidental
nighttime emission/pollution. In both Leviticus 15:16 and Leviticus 22:4-6, God
said any man who experienced nocturnal emissions was ritually unclean until
evening when he bathed himself. Until the man bathed himself that evening, he could
not reenter the camp and eat of the holy gifts. Notice that what comes out of
the body makes the person unclean. Impurities of the body affected the
relationship and closeness a man could have with Yahweh. He could not be in the
presence of God until he was ritually clean.
In verses 12 through 14, God spoke about another bodily
emission – feces. It may appear arbitrary that God would speak to something so
base and mundane, but God had reasons. God commanded encamped Israelites they must go outside the camp, dig
a hole, put their excrement in a hole and cover it. The biological reason is
obvious. By doing this, they would be safer from the bacteria and germs that
arise from fecal material. From a spiritual viewpoint, keeping emissions from
the body separate from the Israelites, kept them ritually clean. When a person
was ritually clean, God could be with him or her. By doing as the LORD said
here, the LORD remained within their camp and walked among them. God gave this
important command because by His walking among them, He could deliver the
Israelite soldiers and defeat their enemies (vs. 14). Moses said in verse 14b,
“Therefore your camp must be holy and He must not see anything indecent among
you or He will turn away from you.”
In relation to this, remember Jesus told the Pharisees what
goes into the body is not what defiles it, but instead what comes from it
(Matthew 15:11). Evil comes from the heart of a person. Emissions come from the
body. Both make a person unclean and keep God from walking with him or her. Our
sins come from within ourselves and keep us separated from God in the same way.
The Preservation of Purity and Set-Apartness of the Israelites
In the rest of this chapter, verses fifteen through
twenty-five, God addressed the purity of the Israelites in five different areas
of life. These areas affected the relationship of Israelite to Israelite, Israelite
to foreigner, and Israelite to God. Moses gave God’s commands the Israelites
about runaway slaves, prostitution, usury, vows, and abuse of a neighbor’s
field/vineyard.
Against Mistreatment of Runaway Slaves.
In verses 15 and 16, God addressed the treatment of runaway
slaves. God forbade the Israelites who found a slave who escaped from his
master and went to Israel to return the slave to his master. In addition to
this, the slave could live in any place he or she chose within Israel. God commanded
the Israelites not mistreat the slave. This command from God assumes the slave
escaped (natsal – delivered oneself)
from an evil master in a neighboring nation, like in 1 Samuel 30:15. Remember
from Deuteronomy 14:22-15:23 God showed He cared for everyone who lived in
Israel including the foreigner. He cared that people not be abused. In this
command from verses fifteen and sixteen, God showed His care of foreigners who
were slaves. He commanded the Israelites treat them with compassion not mistreatment.
Moses reminded them in Deuteronomy 5: 15 they were once slaves, too. By having
compassion and care for people, the Israelites showed the love of God and
remained in a covenant relationship with Him. Jesus spoke about this when He
said to love your neighbor as yourself. Care for other people is with what the
last six commandments dealt.
Against Prostitution.
Verses 17 and 18 deal with cultic prostitution. Moses said,
None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute,
nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute. You shall not bring
the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God or
any votive offering for both, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD
your God. [NASB]
God commanded this because He did
not want the people of Israel to be involved in the cultic worship of the
nations near them. To be involved in these religions in any way corrupted their
worship of God with the practices of the cult worship. In these two verses, God
forbade His people from being prostitutes for the worship of other gods. By
doing so they defamed Yahweh and defiled themselves, God’s chosen people. Leviticus
19:29 speaks to this and Deuteronomy 22:21 says a prostitute’s judgment was
death to purge the evil from Israel. Giving the wages of a cult prostitute as a
votive offering was an abomination (detestable) to the LORD (vs. 18).
One
other thing we need to understand in verse eighteen is use of the term “dog.”
The English word “dog” comes from the Hebrew word keleb. Keleb means
contempt or male cult prostitute. In Leviticus 18:22, keleb spoke of a man lying with another man and in Leviticus 20:13 it
says this action God considered detestable and held a death judgment. This helps
explain why God considered the offering of these prostitute wages detestable and
abhorrent.
God was serious about and against prostitution
whether for false gods in cultic worship, as mentioned here, or of one’s own
choice as in Deuteronomy 22:21. He considered prostitution an “abomination” (tow’ebah – detestable) that made a
person ritually unclean and wicked. Because of this, God even considered an
offering from the wages of a prostitute as unworthy to be given to Him for a
votive offering. We need to consider whether anything we do could corrupt our
worship of and offering to God.
Against Usury.
In verses 19 and 20 God gave specific commands about
interest on loans – for money, food, or anything
they needed. God commanded the Israelites not charge interest on any loans to
their countrymen – a brother, relative, or Israelite. Moses used this same word
in Exodus 22:25 and said God’s people, the Israelites. In Leviticus 25:25-27,
Moses spoke of a loan to a countryman who then had near kinsman who bought his
property back and returned it to him. In both verses, the term countrymen
referred to Israelites as the countryman with regard to loans. So in
Deuteronomy 23:19-20, we must realize about whom Moses spoke. He said to not
charge interest on a loan given to another Israelite. God allowed interest to be
charged on a loan to a foreigner.
The reason God did not allow interest on loans for
countrymen was because the LORD God would bless each of them in everything they
attempted when they were faithful to their covenant with Him. God’s blessing for
faithfulness to the Ten Commandments states this many times in Deuteronomy.
When a person is faithful to God, He will bless them and they will have what
they need. When a fellow Israelite needed something, God commanded the person from
whom the Israelite sought help give out of God’s blessing to him. Added to
this, in Deuteronomy 15:10 God commanded the Israelites to give help to their fellow
kinsman and the LORD would bless them in everything they attempted. This
command comes with a promise of blessing or curse for faithlessness.
Against the Breach of Vows.
Verses 21 through 23 speak of vows made to the LORD.
Remember, a vow is a pledge made to the LORD of one’s choice. This kind of vow
God called a neder vow. God did not
mandate making this vow. Yet, when we read these three verses we find when a
person made a neder vow, God expected
the person to fulfill his or her vow. Moses said in verse twenty-one, “You
shall not delay to pay it for it would be sin in you and the LORD your God
would surely require it of you.” God expects each person to keep his or her
pledges (Numbers 30:1-2). Ecclesiastes 5:4-5 says it is better not to vow than not
to fulfill a vow. In carrying this command forward, Jesus told the people to
keep an oath they made to the LORD (Matthew 5:33). In Deuteronomy 23:22, Moses
said, “If you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you.” The pledge of a
vow or oath as a neder vow is not
mandatory to the LORD. Not keeping the vow is faithlessness and sin just as
Moses said in verse 23. Because a person volunteered a vow, God required him or
her to do what he or she promised.
Against Abuse of Neighborly Liberties in a Neighbor’s Field/Vineyard.
Verses 24 and 25 command how much of a neighbor’s produce a
person may eat. Moses said,
When you enter
your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully
satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket. When you enter your
neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you
shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.
In these two verses, a neighbor is
anyone living within Israel, unlike the definition of “countryman” in verses
nineteen and twenty. This law provides food for the hungry until sated at that
moment. It does not allow people to harvest a neighbor’s produce for themselves
and take it to their homes. The verses say “you may eat grapes until you are fully
satisfied” and “you may pluck the heads (of grain) with your hand but not use a
sickle.” This law has a two-fold purpose. It taught the Israelites they were to
feed the hungry. Besides that, it taught that an Israelite may not abuse a
neighbor’s care by taking a large part of his produce. Greed is not acceptable.
This law reminds me of the law of gleaning found in Leviticus 23:22. This law
told the farmer not to harvest the grain on the edges of his field, but to
leave them for the poor and foreigners living among them. God cared about each person
living in Israel. He cared that His people showed compassion for them. By being
obedient to these laws, the Israelites’ relationship with God would grow.
Recap
God provided laws by which the Israelites were to live and for
the foreigners living among them. Because of the deceit and unfriendliness of
the Moabites and Ammonites, God’s judgment on them was they were never to be a
part of the assembly of God. God allowed just the pure to lead His people. Added
to this, He allowed just the legitimate and non-emasculated to lead His people.
If God’s allowed His people to be led by people affected by the evil of other
cultures and nations, Israel would be misled. God made allowances for the
Edomites and Egyptians to become a part of the assembly of the LORD. The third
generation born in Israel may become a leader in civic and religious roles.
Besides the laws defining who may lead Israel, God addressed
the purity of men within an encampment, most likely soldiers in military camps.
God promised to walk among them and defeat their enemies if they remained pure.
God told the Israelites what came from their bodies, nocturnal emissions and
fecal matter, made them impure. In His laws, God provided a way for them to
stay clean or become clean from these things. From these and the other laws God
gave, the Israelites received the message and command to stay pure. The
Pharisees were hyper-vigilant about purity to the point of making sure people saw
their purity by highlighting it in public out and punishing those who were not pure.
Jesus, in Matthew 5, spoke about this and explained that what comes from the
heart of a person makes him or her unclean, not what is put into a person.
As to people living within Israel, God gave laws to keep peace.
He taught how He wanted escaped slaves treated. God recalled for them how He
looked upon prostitution, particularly cultic worship prostitution and the
money earned from it. God gave a command on how they were to treat loans to
fellow Israelites and foreigners. This law recalled the promise of God’s blessing
to the Israelites for being faithfulness to their covenant with Him. Next God
commanded that if they made a neder
vow to Him, He required them to do what they promised. God did not require a neder vow, but if they made one, He required
its fulfillment. The last thing Moses told the Israelites was God commanded
them not to abuse a neighbor’s goodwill when eating from his field or vineyard.
He provided a law stating they must allow their fellow man to eat their
produce, but just enough to satisfy his or her hunger at that point in time.
Each of these laws dealt with the Israelites’ relationship
with other people – countrymen, Israelite, foreigner, slave, and enemy. They, too,
dealt with the relationship of Israelite to the LORD God. If the people followed
these laws, they would stay pure and God would walk among them. If they did not
follow them, then God would not walk among them because of their impurity and
lack of righteousness. This would lead to death (per the curse of their
covenant with God). God provided ways for people to return to following Him
through sacrifices and cleansing in water. He provided ways to remove evil from
among them, too.
Relevance
The Old Testament covenant between the Israelites and Yahweh
God led them to seek and find God. It did not give salvation from their past
sin, nor power to overcome sin in the present and future. God knew from the
beginning of time He would give salvation through a Redeemer, His Son, Jesus
Christ. At the right time, God sent His Son to be born of a virgin in a low
place, a stable. Jesus lived the life of any young Jewish boy – learning a
trade with his father, learning Torah and Talmud from his father and priests.
At the right time, Jesus revealed Himself as the Son of Father God sent to take
away the sins of the world. He proclaimed the Father’s Good News of salvation.
He lived a sin-free life. Jesus died the accursed death, on a cross even though
He was sinless. By Jesus’ hanging and dying on the cross, He bore the penalty -
the judgment - for our own sins. Our sins required judgment. That judgment is
death. When Jesus died for each of us, He saved us from our death penalty and redeemed
us from the power sin would have over us in the present and future. With Jesus’
ascension from the grave, He removed the power of death Satan held over us. Jesus
conquered death and the grave. He gave everyone who trusts in and believes on
Him the same power – not to sin, not to be tied to eternal death, and to be in
the presence of God forever.
Conclusion
How we each respond to God’s love at Jesus’ cost is our own
decision. We can stick to Old Testament laws and be led to God repeatedly as we
strive to live by them. These laws do not give salvation from sin and death. Alternatively,
we each can choose to follow Jesus Christ, admit He is the Son of God, accept
His love and grace given through His life, death, and resurrection, and have
victory over sin and death. God’s laws in the Old Testament led people to Him.
His gift of Jesus Christ gives us salvation if we will believe and receive. We each
must choose for ourselves. God will force none of us.
What
will you choose – love, mercy, and grace shown on the cross
or a
life lived trying to be perfect through the laws of the Old Testament?
