Home

For Teaching

Deuteronomy 23: What the Passage Says

68 claims across 25 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Deuteronomy 23 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses gives rules about who may join the assembly of the LORD: some are shut out, including Ammonites and Moabites because of how they treated Israel after Egypt, while the children of Edomites and Egyptians may enter in the third generation. He then gives rules for keeping an army camp clean and holy. The chapter closes with laws on runaway slaves, prostitution and its wages, lending at interest, keeping vows, and eating from a neighbor's vineyard or grainfield.

Claim by Claim

  1. 23:1
    • A man whose testicles are crushed may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
    • A man whose male organ is cut off may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
  2. 23:2
    • A person born of an illicit union may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
    • Even to the tenth generation his descendants may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
  3. 23:3
    • An Ammonite may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
    • A Moabite may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
    • Even to the tenth generation their descendants may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
    • This exclusion stands forever.
  4. 23:4
    • The reason for the exclusion is that the Ammonites and Moabites did not meet Israel with bread and water on the road when Israel came out of Egypt.
    • A further reason is that they hired Balaam against Israel to curse Israel.
    • Balaam was the son of Beor.
    • Balaam was from Pethor in Aram-naharaim, the land of the two rivers.
  5. 23:5
    • The LORD your God was not willing to listen to Balaam.
    • The LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you.
    • The reason was that the LORD your God loved you.
  6. 23:6
    • You shall not seek their peace.
    • You shall not seek their good.
    • This holds all your days, forever.
  7. 23:7
    • You shall not abhor an Edomite.
    • The reason is that an Edomite is your brother.
    • You shall not abhor an Egyptian.
    • The reason is that you were a resident foreigner in his land.
  8. 23:8
    • Children born to Edomites and Egyptians may enter the assembly of the LORD in the third generation.
  9. 23:9
    • When the army goes out in camp against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.
  10. 23:10
    • If a man among you is unclean because of an emission occurring at night, he shall go outside the camp.
    • Such a man shall not come inside the camp.
  11. 23:11
    • Toward evening he shall wash himself with water.
    • When the sun sets he may come back into the camp.
  12. 23:12
    • You shall have a designated place outside the camp.
    • You shall go out to that place to relieve yourself.
  13. 23:13
    • You shall have a digging tool along with your equipment.
    • When you sit down outside to relieve yourself, you shall dig with it.
    • You shall turn back and cover your excrement.
  14. 23:14
    • The LORD your God walks about in the middle of your camp.
    • He walks there to rescue you.
    • He walks there to give your enemies over before you.
    • Therefore your camp shall be holy.
    • The purpose is that he not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.
  15. 23:15
    • You shall not hand over a slave to his master when that slave has escaped to you from his master.
  16. 23:16
    • The escaped slave shall dwell with you, among you.
    • He shall dwell in the place he chooses within one of your towns.
    • He shall dwell wherever it pleases him.
    • You shall not oppress him.
  17. 23:17
    • No daughter of Israel shall be a cult prostitute.
    • No son of Israel shall be a cult prostitute.
  18. 23:18
    • You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute into the house of the LORD your God for any vow.
    • You shall not bring the price of a dog into the house of the LORD your God for any vow.
    • Both of these are detestable to the LORD your God.
  19. 23:19
    • You shall not lend at interest to your brother.
    • This includes interest on money.
    • This includes interest on food.
    • This includes interest on anything that is lent at interest.
  20. 23:20
    • You may lend at interest to a foreigner.
    • You shall not lend at interest to your brother.
    • The purpose is that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to.
    • The blessing is in the land you are entering to possess.
  21. 23:21
    • When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it.
    • The LORD your God will surely require it of you.
    • Failing to pay it would be sin in you.
  22. 23:22
    • If you refrain from vowing, there is no sin in you.
  23. 23:23
    • What has gone out of your lips you shall keep and do.
    • This applies to a freewill offering.
    • It is to be done according to what you vowed to the LORD your God.
    • It is what you promised with your mouth.
  24. 23:24
    • When you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes as you please.
    • You shall not put any grapes into your container.
  25. 23:25
    • When you enter your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand.
    • You shall not swing a sickle against your neighbor's standing grain.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

23:1
"The assembly of the LORD" is the gathered community of Israel, the body that met for worship and for public decisions. Being barred from it meant exclusion from full membership in that body, not expulsion from the country. The KJV's "wounded in the stones" and "privy member" are 1611 English for crushed testicles and the penis; castration was practiced in the surrounding cultures, both as a punishment and to produce court officials and certain cult personnel.
23:2
The Hebrew word here, *mamzer*, is rare and its exact sense is disputed. It does not simply mean a child born outside marriage; ancient interpreters took it to mean a child of incest, of adultery, or of a union the law forbade. The rendering "forbidden union" keeps that uncertainty open. "To the tenth generation" is an idiom for an indefinitely long time rather than a count anyone was expected to track.
23:3
Ammon and Moab were small kingdoms east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, Israel's near neighbors and frequent rivals. Israelite tradition traced both peoples to Lot, Abraham's nephew, which made them relatives, part of why their treatment is singled out here.
23:4
Balaam was a professional seer, hired for a fee to pronounce curses or blessings; the story of the Moabite king Balak hiring him against Israel is told in Numbers 22–24. In the ancient world a spoken curse from such a specialist was believed to have real force, which is why hiring one counted as an act of war. Pethor lay in "Aram of the two rivers" (the KJV's Mesopotamia), the region of the upper Euphrates, several hundred miles north.
23:5
A blessing is the opposite of a curse. It is words asking for good things to happen to someone.
23:6
"Seek their peace and prosperity" is diplomatic language. To seek another people's peace and good was to enter into a treaty of friendship with them; the instruction is about not making alliances, not about private feeling.
23:7
Edom lay south-east of the Dead Sea. Israelite tradition traced the Edomites to Esau, Jacob's twin brother, which is why an Edomite is called "your relative", literally "your brother." The reason given for the Egyptian is Israel's long residence in Egypt before the exodus.
23:8
"The third generation" means the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of such a person, depending on where the count starts, the point is a short wait, in contrast to the ten generations of verses 2 and 3.
23:9
Verses 9–14 treat a war camp as sacred ground, because God is pictured as present in it (verse 14). What follows is therefore about ritual purity in that space, not about hygiene or morality in the modern sense.
23:10
"Unclean" is a ritual state, not dirtiness and not guilt. Various ordinary bodily events (emissions of semen, menstruation, childbirth, contact with a corpse) put a person temporarily outside the sphere of worship until time had passed and washing had been done. No wrongdoing is implied, and the condition here lasts less than a day.
23:11
In Israelite reckoning a new day began at sunset, so waiting until the sun was down meant the period of uncleanness had run its full course.
23:12
In the King James Version, "without" usually means outside. A camp of thousands of people needed a rule like this to stay healthy.
23:13
The KJV's "a paddle upon thy weapon" is literal: the Hebrew word covers a soldier's equipment generally, and the instruction is to carry a small spade or tent-peg-like digging tool along with weapons and kit.
23:14
"Holy" means set apart for God's use rather than morally pure. The image is of God moving through the camp as a king inspects his army, and "turn away" means withdraw his presence and protection.
23:15
Treaties between ancient Near Eastern states routinely required each side to return the other's runaway slaves, and extradition clauses of this kind are common in surviving texts. This law reverses that expectation. Most read it as covering a slave who escapes from a foreign master into Israel, though the wording does not say so explicitly.
23:16
The city gate was where courts sat and public business was done, so "thy gates" is standard Hebrew shorthand for a town. "Where it liketh him best" is 1611 English for "wherever he likes best": the choice of where to settle belongs to the escaped slave, not to the person taking him in.
23:17
The Hebrew words used (*qedeshah*, *qadesh*) mean literally "consecrated woman" and "consecrated man", people attached to a shrine. Whether they performed sex acts as part of worship, as ancient and most later writers assumed, or formed some other class of dedicated shrine personnel, is disputed among scholars; the text here places them alongside ordinary prostitution.
23:18
"The house of the LORD" is the sanctuary. Money or goods could be pledged to it to fulfill a vow, and this rules out paying such a pledge with earnings from prostitution. The KJV's "the price of a dog" is word-for-word Hebrew; "dog" appears to have been a contemptuous term for a male prostitute.
23:19
The KJV's "usury" meant any interest at all in 1611, not only an excessive rate. Lending within the community was mainly emergency lending to neighbors who had fallen into poverty, not commercial credit; "food" is included because loans were often made in grain rather than silver.
23:20
The foreigner in view is the *nokri*, an outsider passing through or trading, distinct from the resident foreigner living permanently among Israelites, who elsewhere in the law is protected like an Israelite.
23:21
A vow was a voluntary promise to God, usually to hand over something (an animal for sacrifice, silver, produce, or a period of service) often conditional on a request being granted. Nobody had to make one, but once the words were spoken the obligation was binding and enforceable.
23:23
The KJV's "freewill offering" points to the same idea: the promise was made under no compulsion, which is precisely why breaking it counted against the person who made it.
23:24
This is a recognized customary right for travelers and day laborers passing through farmland: eating on the spot to satisfy hunger was permitted, while carrying produce away in a basket or bag counted as theft. The line is drawn at the container, not at the quantity eaten.
23:25
A sickle is the curved blade used to cut standing grain, the harvester's basic tool. Picking a few heads by hand was eating; putting a sickle to the crop was harvesting someone else's field.

Read Deuteronomy 23