Deuteronomy Chapter 23 verse 1 Holy Bible
He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the assembly of Jehovah.
read chapter 23 in ASV
No man whose private parts have been wounded or cut off may come into the meeting of the Lord's people.
read chapter 23 in BBE
He that is a eunuch, whether he have been crushed or cut, shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah.
read chapter 23 in DARBY
He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
read chapter 23 in KJV
He that is wounded or mutilated in his secrets, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
read chapter 23 in WBT
He who is wounded in the stones, or has his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh.
read chapter 23 in WEB
`One wounded, bruised, or cut in the member doth not enter into the assembly of Jehovah;
read chapter 23 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 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).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(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. . . .
