Deuteronomy 23:1

23:1-8 We ought to value the privileges of God's people, both for ourselves and for our children, above all other advantages. No personal blemishes, no crimes of our forefathers, no difference of nation, shuts us out under the Christian dispensation. But an unsound heart will deprive us of blessings; and a bad example, or an unsuitable marriage, may shut our children from them.

Deuteronomy 23:1-2 . He that is wounded — It is generally agreed that Moses is here speaking of eunuchs. Shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord — The meaning is, not that they should be debarred from the public worship of the true God, as the phrase sometimes signifies, for that privilege was granted to all nations indiscriminately, provided they renounced idolatry, Exodus 12:48 ; Leviticus 22:18 ; Numbers 9:14 . But the sense seems to be, that such a one should not be deemed an Israelite, nor have his name entered in the public register; and especially that he should not be admitted to honours or offices, either in the church or commonwealth of Israel, or be allowed to be one of the society of elders, or rulers of the people, or to sit in council with them. The same privilege was denied to those here termed bastards, under which name the Jews comprehended not only those begotten in simple fornication, but also the offspring of all such incestuous marriages, as are prohibited Leviticus 18. One chief reason of this law, no doubt, was, to deter people from such unlawful connections as would both offend God, and leave an indelible blot upon their posterity.

(1) The rule that a eunuch should not enter into the congregation was doubtless intended to prevent the Israelitish rulers from making eunuchs of their brethren the children of Israel. As a set off to this apparent harshness towards the man who had been thus treated, we must read Isaiah 56:3-4 , in which a special promise is given to the eunuchs that keep God’s Sabbaths and take hold of His covenant. God will give to them within His house and within His walls “ a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters —an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” As a special calamity it was foretold to Hezekiah that some of his descendants should be eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon. But Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in whom this prophecy was fulfilled, have ennobled the “children that are of their sort” for evermore. We have no means of knowing whether the eunuchs that were in the service of the kings of Israel or Judah (1Samuel 8:15; 1Kings 22:9; 2Kings 8:6; 2Kings 9:32, &c.) were Israelites by birth or not. Ebedmelech, the Ethiopian, who received a special blessing from Jeremiah (Jeremiah 39:15-18), was a foreigner, and so very possibly were most, if not all, of his kind in Israel. As to the second clause of this verse, it must be remembered that circumcision was the sign of the covenant of Jehovah; mutilation a form of heathen self-devotion. (See Gal. 5, 12, Revised New Testament, Margin, and Bishop Lightfoot’s comment on that place.) St.

Verse 1. - Mutilation was performed by the two methods here specified - crushing and excision. The exclusion of persons who had suffered this from the congregation, i . e . from the covenant fellowship of Israel, the πολιτεία τοῦ Ισραὴλ ( Ephesians 2:12 ), was due to the priestly character of the nation. Israel was a kingdom of priests ( Exodus 19:6 ), and the admission into it of one in whom the nature of man, as made by God, had been degraded and marred, would have been unfitting; just as all bodily blemish unfitted a man for being a priest, though otherwise qualified ( Leviticus 21:16-24 ). This law, however, was one of the ordinances intended for the period of nonage; it had reference to the outward typical aspect of the Israelitish constitution; and it ceased to have any significance when the spiritual kingdom of God came to be established. Even under the theocracy, eunuchs were not excluded from religious privileges; they could keep God's Sabbaths, and take hold of his covenant, and choose the things pleasing to him, and so be part of the spiritual Israel, though shut out from the fellowship of that which was outward and national (cf. Isaiah 56:4 ). Deuteronomy 23:1

Compare Leviticus 21:17-24 . Such persons, exhibiting a mutilation of that human nature which was made in God's image, were rejected from the covenant entirely. However, they could be proselytes (compare Acts 8:27 ). The Old Testament itself foretells Isaiah 56:3-5 the removal of this ban when under the kingdom of Messiah the outward and emblematic perfection and sanctity of Israel should be fulfilled in their inner meaning by the covenanted presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

CHAPTER 23 De 23:1-25. Who May and Who May Not Enter into the Congregation. 1-3. 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. The rule was that strangers and foreigners, for fear of friendship or marriage connections with them leading the people into idolatry, were not admissible till their conversion to the Jewish faith. But this passage describes certain limitations of the general rule. The following parties were excluded from the full rights and privileges of citizenship: (1) Eunuchs—It was a very ancient practice for parents in the East by various arts to mutilate their children, with a view to training them for service in the houses of the great. (2) Bastards—Such an indelible stigma in both these instances was designed as a discouragement to practices that were disgraceful, but too common from intercourse with foreigners. (3) Ammonites and Moabites—Without provocation they had combined to engage a soothsayer to curse the Israelites; and had further endeavored, by ensnaring them into the guilt and licentious abominations of idolatry, to seduce them from their allegiance to God.Who are to be excluded from the congregation, Deu 23:1-6. An Edomite and Egyptian not to be abhorred, and why, Deu 23:7,8.

No uncleanness to be in the camp, Deu 23:9-14. No filthiness, Deu 23:17. No abominable sacrifice must be, Deu 23:18. No usury, but to strangers, Deu 23:19,20. Vows must be kept, Deu 23:21-23. The liberty that was lawful in their neighbour’s field or vineyard, Deu 23:24,25. Heb. wounded by compression, or attrition, or contusion, to wit, of the stones, which was the course the Gentiles took with infants to make them eunuchs. And these eunuchs and bastards, Deu 23:2, seem to be not only those of other nations, as some understand it, without any foundation for such restriction, but also of the Israelites; the reason of this law being the same in all, to wit, that God would bring into disgrace those heathenish practices of making eunuchs, and getting bastards, which doubtless he would especially do among his own people.