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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 23:4 and Judith 14:10

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

Deuteronomy 23 prohibits the inclusion of Ammonites and Moabites in Israel due to their past hostility, establishing their permanent exclusion. Judith, however, depicts Achior, a Gentile who aids Israel, being circumcised and allowed into the community.

Passages

Deuteronomy 23:4

Hebrew Bible
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.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Judith 14:10

Deuterocanon
5 But before you do these things, summon Achior the Ammonite to me, that he may see and know him that despised the house of Israel, and that sent him to us, as it were to death. 6 And they called Achior out of the house of Ozias; but when he came, and saw the head of Holofernes in a man’s hand in the assembly of the people, he fell upon his face, and his spirit failed. 7 But when they had recovered him, he fell at Judith’s feet, bowed down to her, and said, “Blessed are you in every tent of Judah! In every nation, those who hear your name will be troubled. 8 Now tell me all the things that you have done in these days.” And Judith declared to him in the midst of the people all the things that she had done, from the day that she went out until the time that she spoke to them. 9 But when she finished speaking, the people shouted with a loud voice, and made a joyful noise in their city. 10 But when Achior saw all the things that the God of Israel had done, he believed in God exceedingly, and circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and was joined to the house of Israel, to this day.
100 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Judith

References

"... Both Tobit and Tobias are in all respects exemplary Jews living in a Gentile environment, solicitous in prayer (3:1–6; 12:8), almsgiving (1:16–17; 4:7–11), fasting (12:8), dietary regulations (1:10–11), and care for the dead (1:17–20; 2:3–8). Tobit marries a woman from his own clan (1:9) and warns his son against marriage with a woman outside of the extended kinship network (4:12–13), but this admonition is simply in keeping with the immemorial custom of clan-endogamous marriage, not for reasons of ritual purity. Judith is almost ostentatiously scrupulous in such matters as dietary laws (Judith 11:12; 12:1–4, 19), fasting (8:6), ritual washing (12:7–8), and tithing (11:13–15), and she remains a widow after the death of her husband (16:22). The author presents her as the female ideal of piety and strict adherence to the law, yet permits Achior to be circumcised and admitted to the household of Israel in defiance of the Deuteronomic law (Judith 14:10; Deuteronomy 23:4–7). The Moabite woman Ruth is also accepted into the Israelite people notwithstanding the same exclusionary law ..."
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Essays on Judaism in the Pre-Hellenistic Period (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 211.

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 23:4 and Judith 14:10

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