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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 23

1 A man with crushed or severed genitals may not enter the assembly of the Lord. 2 A person of illegitimate birth may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so.⁠ 3 No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord;⁠ to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever do so,⁠ 4 for they did not meet you with food and water on the way as you came from Egypt,⁠ and furthermore, they hired Balaam son of Beor of Pethor in Aram Naharaim to curse you. 5 But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam and changed the curse to a blessing, for the Lord your God loves you. 6 You must not seek peace and prosperity for them through all the ages to come. 7 You must not hate an Edomite, for he is your relative; you must not hate an Egyptian, for you lived as a foreigner in his land. 8 Children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. 9 When you go out as an army against your enemies, guard yourselves against anything impure. 10 If there is someone among you who is impure because of some nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp; he may not reenter it immediately. 11 When evening arrives he must wash himself with water, and then at sunset he may reenter the camp. 12 You are to have a place outside the camp to serve as a latrine. 13 You must have a spade among your other equipment, and when you relieve yourself outside you must dig a hole with the spade and then turn and cover your excrement. 14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat your enemies for you.⁠ Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. 15 You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you.⁠ 16 Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him. 17 There must never be a sacred prostitute among the young women of Israel nor a sacred male prostitute among the young men of Israel.⁠ 18 You must never bring the pay of a female prostitute or the wage of a dog30, a male prostitute, into the temple of the Lord your God⁠ in fulfillment of any vow, for both of these are abhorrent to the Lord your God.⁠ 19 You must not charge interest on a loan to your fellow Israelite, whether on money, food, or anything else that has been loaned with interest.⁠ 20 You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess. 21 When you make a vow to the Lord your God you must not delay in fulfilling it, for otherwise he will surely hold you accountable as a sinner.⁠ 22 If you refrain from making a vow, it will not be sinful. 23 Whatever you vow, you must be careful to do what you have promised, such as what you have vowed to the Lord your God as a freewill offering.⁠ 24 When you enter the vineyard of your neighbor you may eat as many grapes as you please, but you must not take away any in a container. 25 When you go into the ripe grain fields of your neighbor you may pluck off the kernels with your hand, but you must not use a sickle on your neighbor’s ripe grain.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 23:25 and Matthew 12:1

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Matthew 12 shows the disciples picking grain because they are hungry, an act allowed in Deuteronomy 23 but questioned since it happens on the Sabbath. Jesus answers through a common Jewish legal debate, arguing from exceptions in the Torah.

Passages

Deuteronomy 23:25

Hebrew Bible
23 Whatever you vow, you must be careful to do what you have promised, such as what you have vowed to the Lord your God as a freewill offering. 24 When you enter the vineyard of your neighbor you may eat as many grapes as you please, but you must not take away any in a container. 25 When you go into the ripe grain fields of your neighbor you may pluck off the kernels with your hand, but you must not use a sickle on your neighbor’s ripe grain.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Matthew 12:1

New Testament
1 At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pick heads of wheat and eat them. 2 But when the Pharisees saw this they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is against the law to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry— 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the sacred bread, which was against the law for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are not guilty?
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... The controversy begins with Jesus and his disciples walking through a grain field on the Sabbath and the disciples, not Jesus, pick and eat grain. Matthew omits “made a way” (ὁδὸν ποιεῖν) from Mark. Perhaps it is distracting from the main halakic issue at hand (i.e., mercy for the hungry on the Sabbath). “ὁδὸν ποιεῖν” could possibly be construed as doing work, and Matthew is only concerned with justifying the disciples’ act of picking grain on the Sabbath. While Deuteronomy 23:25 permits gleaning by hand in a neighbour’s grain field, it makes no such allowance on the Sabbath. Matthew, however, adds to his Markan source that the disciples were “hungry” (ἐπείνασαν). It is on this point that the Matthean Jesus’ builds his halakic argument. Seeing the disciples glean the grain field, the Pharisees accuse them of doing what is not lawful/permissible (ἔξεστιν) on the Sabbath. Here, for the first time in the narrative, they make their objection directly to Jesus. He is responsible for the actions of his followers. First-century Sabbath interpretation is diverse, but mentioning the detail about the disciples’ hunger shows Matthew concedes that the Pharisees’ accusation that the disciples are working has some merit. Indeed, the Matthean Jesus’ following response implies this as well. However, Jesus will argue that there are certain circumstances for work and types of work that are permissible on the Sabbath, of which, his disciples’ grain picking is one. Jesus never abolishes or disregards the Torah, rather, like many Second Temple authors, he develops and grows Torah tradition by explaining and declaring what constitutes permissible work on the Sabbath ..."
Steven J. Stiles, Jesus' Fulfilment of the Torah and Prophets: Inherited Writing Strategies and Torah Interpretation in Matthew's Gospel (University of Edinburgh, 2017), 176–177.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 23:25 and Matthew 12:1

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