Deuteronomy 23:1
No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the Lord.
He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into the Lord’s assembly.
He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the assembly of Jehovah.
Read Deuteronomy 23 in context
Related passages
From the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, grouped by the word they explain.
- wounded
- Leviticus 21:17–21; Leviticus 22:22–24; Galatians 3:28
- shall not enter
- It is evident that his law was not meant to exclude such Israelites either from the common benefits of civil society, or any essential religious advantages; but merely to lay them under a disgraceful distinction. This would tend to discourage parents from thus treating their children; a practice which was exceedingly common in those ages and countries. To this they were induced by the custom which prevailed, of employing such in the houses of the great and the courts of princes; so that they often rose to the highest posts of honour and authority. Some expositors therefore consider the phrase, "shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord," as meaning, that they should be incapable of bearing any office in that government which was placed over the people of God, who must thus enter a protest against this custom, and deliver selfish parents from this temptation.
- Deuteronomy 23:2, 3, 8; Nehemiah 13:1–3; Isaiah 56:3, 4; Lamentations 1:10