Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 23:1-8
Interpreters are not agreed what is here meant by entering into the congregation of the Lord, which is here forbidden to eunuchs and to bastards, Ammonites and Moabites, for ever, but to Edomites and Egyptians only till the third generation. 1. Some think they are hereby excluded from communicating with the people of God in their religious services. Though eunuchs and bastards were owned as members of the church, and the Ammonites and Moabites might be circumcised and proselyted to the Jewish religion, yet they and their families must lie for some time under marks of disgrace, remembering the rock whence they were hewn, and must not come so near the sanctuary as others might, nor have so fre…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Deuteronomy 23:2
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,.... That is born of whoredom, as the Targum of Jonathan; and for the sake of avoiding whoredom and deterring from it was this law made, according to Maimonides (h), that adulterers might see, as he observes, that they affect their whole family with an irreparable stain, should they commit such an infamous action; though the Jews commonly interpret it of one that is born of any of those incestuous copulations forbidden in Leviticus 18:1 which they gather from this following upon, and being near unto one of those incests mentioned in the last verse of the preceding chapter (i); and it is a rule with them (k), that persons born of suc…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Deuteronomy 23:1-2
Deuteronomy 23:1, 2
1. He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
1. Non ingredietur qui contusione fractos aut abscissos habet testiculos, in congregationem Jehovae
2. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
2. Non ingredietur spurius congregationem Jehovae: etiam genereatione decima non ingredietur congregationem Jehovae
1 He that is wounded. What is here delivered respecting those who are mutilated, and who are bastards, has a similar object; lest the Church of God should be onctaminate by foul stains, and…