seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 23:1 [a]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(b) 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[c] 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.
2 No one born of a forbidden marriage(b) 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[c] 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.
a. Deuteronomy 23:1 In Hebrew texts 23:1-25 is numbered 23:2-26.
b. Deuteronomy 23:2 Or one of illegitimate birth
c. Deuteronomy 23:4 That is, Northwest Mesopotamia
Cutting is a big deal these days. Some hateful people use Deuteronomy 23:1 in an attempt to scare cutters. I know a girl who was a cutter.... she had enough on her plate without someone telling her she would never go to heaven because she cut a line in her thigh. I googled "self mutilation definition Deuteronomy 23:1" and found biblehub.com sitting in the list. We've used biblehub a lot going through these Bible verses. I put the link here.
The King James translation says this....
Deuteronomy 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
On top of that GodVine offers this commentary on the verse.
A phrase denoting an eunuch. Shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord - Shall not be admitted to honours and offices either in the church or commonwealth of Israel; and so the congregation of the Lord doth not here signify, the body of the people, but the society of the elders or rulers of the people. Add to this, that the Hebrew word, Kahal, generally signifies a congregation or company of men met together; and therefore this cannot so conveniently be meant of all the body of the people, which could never meet in one place, but of the chief rulers, which frequently did so. Nor is it strange that eunuchs are excluded from government, both because such persons are commonly observed to want that courage which is necessary for a governor, because as such persons ordinarily were despicable, so the authority in their hands was likely to be exposed to the same contempt.
So Verse 1 is about eunuchs not cutters in general. Remember too, Daniel [who got his own Book in the Bible] was castrated by the enemy making him a eunuch.... so God uses everyone, not just the perfect people....
So it's back to the easy English commentary this morning for the rest of the verses.
These people could not belong to the Lord’s people. They must not join in worship. People that were not perfect in their bodies could not give offerings to the Lord. However, they could eat a share of the offerings. Sometimes the Canaanites cut off a man’s sex parts on purpose. Sometimes an Israelite man or woman married someone with a different religion. Their children could not belong to the Lord’s people. The Israelites did not include Ammonites and Moabites as part of their nation. They did not help the Israelites when they left Egypt. Balaam had tried to curse the Israelites. (See Numbers chapters 22-24.) But because God loved the Israelites, the curse became a blessing. Israelites should be friends with the people from Edom. They were the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother. And the Israelites were descendants of Jacob. Also Israelites should be friends with the Egyptians, because the Israelites had lived in Egypt in the past.
