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23. Miscellaneous Laws

¹ In Hebrew texts 23:1-25 is numbered 23:2-26.No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.

² No one born of a forbidden marriage Or one of illegitimate birth nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation.

³ No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation. ⁴ For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim That is, Northwest Mesopotamia to pronounce a curse on you. ⁵ However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. ⁶ Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.

⁷ Do not despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you resided as foreigners in their country. ⁸ The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.

Uncleanness in the Camp

⁹ When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure. ¹⁰ If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there. ¹¹ But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp.

¹² Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. ¹³ As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. ¹⁴ For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

Miscellaneous Laws

¹⁵ If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. ¹⁶ Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

¹⁷ No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute. ¹⁸ You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute Hebrew of a dog into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the LORD your God detests them both.

¹⁹ Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. ²⁰ You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.

²¹ If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. ²² But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty. ²³ Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the LORD your God with your own mouth.

²⁴ If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. ²⁵ If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain.

7. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite. In order that the punishment denounced against the Moabites and Ammonites should be more strongly marked, he commands the Edomites and Egyptians to be admitted in the third generation; the former, because they derived their origin from the same ancestor, Isaac, since they were the descendants of Esau; the latter, because they had been their hosts. For hence it was manifest that the Ammonites and Moabites had been dis-honored on account of their guilt, when not even aliens were thus dealt with. Now, although Esau had cut himself off from the prerogative of believers, yet the door was again opened to his children, provided they returned to their source and origin, and in the humility of faith admitted the primogeniture of Jacob, who had been chosen when their father was passed by or degraded. But what is meant by this inequality of punishment, when the crime was identical? for Edom appeared in arms against Israel before Moab, and compelled them to take their journey by another way. It did not contend with hired imprecations for Israel’s destruction, but since, when humbly entreated on the score of their old relationship, it had not only refused them a passage, but had advanced against them with a great army, it should have been dealt with no less severity than Amalek or Ammon. Besides, being connected to them by a closer of blood, the Edomites were less excusable in their hostility. I find, then, no reason why God shewed greater clemency to them than the others whom He treated more severely; except that He wished to shew that it depends on His own will to chastise more lightly in some the same sins on which He takes more severe vengeance in others; and, inasmuch as all are deserving of utter destruction, He justly retains in His own hand the free right of sparing whom He will. We must here adore His judgments, into the depths of which we cannot penetrate. Nor is this inequality a ground for the noisy cavils of the ungodly, as if He were inconsistent with Himself, and acted in contradiction to the rules of His Law; since in so doing He does not judge in diverse ways, but, condemning all alike, indulges whom He pleases, or remits a part of their punishment. A question may also arise as to the Egyptians, why God lays His people under an obligation to them, because they sojourned in their land. For it was barbarous and inhospitable cruelty in them to oppress the wretched fugitives who had trusted to their good faith. But God here refers to their first reception; as in Isaiah 52:4, where, comparing the Egyptians with the Assyrians, He says that the latter oppressed them like robbers, whilst the former had ruled over them not without a cause, because the people had gone down thither of their own accord. Although, therefore, the Israelites had been unworthily oppressed by their fierce tyranny, still God would have their old kindness acknowledged; since their dearth and famine had been relieved, and the refugees were kindly received, when the inhabitants of Canaan were perishing of hunger.