The Holy Camp Still Has Debts, Appetites, and a Shovel

Two Hebrew phrases lie behind the English: one for crushing, one for cutting off. Both describe damage done to a man, and ancient courts made eunuchs deliberately to serve kings. Leviticus 21:20 already barred a priest with “his stones broken” from offering; this verse extends a related bar from the altar to the whole assembly.

“Bastard” is mamzer, a word found in only one other place, Zechariah 9:6, where “a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod” seems to mean a mongrel or mixed population. The verse says “shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD” twice, bracketing the tenth generation between the two.

Ammon and Moab descend from Lot’s two daughters (Genesis 19:36–38). Their clause adds “for ever” to the tenth generation, which suggests ten was a way of saying never. The Mishnah (Yevamot 8:3) read the ban as “a Moabite, not a Moabitess”, which is how Ruth could marry into Judah.

Moses had said in 2:29 that the Moabites of Ar did sell Israel food and water on the road, so the grievance is probably hospitality refused as a gift. Pethor lay by the Euphrates (Numbers 22:5), some four hundred miles off: Moab paid to import a curse from the far side of the desert.

Nehemiah 13:2 quotes this verse almost word for word when the law was read to the returned exiles. Balaam was hired three times and blessed three times (Numbers 23–24). The reason given is love alone, “because the LORD thy God loved thee”, the same ground 7:8 gave for choosing Israel at all.

“Peace” and “prosperity” are shalom and tovah, words at home in ancient treaties, so the command forbids a formal alliance of friendship. Ezra 9:12 cites the verse against marriages with the peoples of the land. Jeremiah 29:7 would later tell exiles to “seek the peace of the city” in Babylon, using the same verb and noun.

“Abhor” is the verb from the same root as “abomination”, the strongest word of disgust the law has. The reasons given differ: Edom is kin, through Esau, and Egypt was once host. Of all the nations that harmed Israel, the one that enslaved it is named for its welcome in Joseph’s day.

The third generation means the grandchildren of the Edomite or Egyptian who settled in Israel, against the ten generations of verses 2–3. Doeg the Edomite would later serve as Saul’s chief herdsman (1 Samuel 21:7), and Solomon’s first marriage was to Pharaoh’s daughter.

“Host” is the camp on the march, machaneh. “Every wicked thing” is literally every evil davar, a word that means both a thing and a word, so Jewish interpreters took the verse to cover evil speech in the camp as well as evil acts.

“Chanceth him by night” is miqreh laylah, a nocturnal happening, from the same root as Ruth’s “hap” when she lighted on Boaz’s field (Ruth 2:3). “Abroad” carries its 1611 sense of out of doors, outside the tents. Leviticus 15:16 treats the same condition in ordinary life.

Israel counted the day from sunset, so washing as evening turns and returning after the sun is down brings the man back at the start of a new day. The condition lasts only as long as the day in which it happened.

“A place” is yad, literally “a hand”, used for a marker or monument: Saul set up a yad at Carmel (1 Samuel 15:12), and Absalom’s pillar is called his yad (2 Samuel 18:18). Here the camp posts a sign for its latrine, outside the lines.

“Paddle” is yated, a peg or stake, the word for the tent nail Jael drives through Sisera’s temple (Judges 4:21). “Weapon” is azen, found only here, probably the soldier’s kit. Each man carries his own digging tool and covers after himself; no servant is assigned the job.

“Walketh” is the reflexive verb used of God walking in Eden (Genesis 3:8). “Unclean thing” is erwat davar, literally the nakedness of a thing, and the same phrase returns in 24:1 as the “uncleanness” that grounds a divorce. The camp is holy because of who walks through it.

Law codes around Israel went the other way. Hammurabi’s code (laws 15–16) put to death anyone who harboured a runaway slave. Here the escaped servant has fled “unto thee”, and the one who receives him is forbidden to give him up.

“In one of thy gates” means any town in the land, not a camp or a set refuge. “Where it liketh him best” is literally “in what is good in his eyes”. “Oppress” is the verb used for wronging the stranger in Exodus 22:21, which puts the fugitive in the stranger’s protected place.

Both Hebrew nouns, qedeshah and qadesh, are built on the root for holy: they mean a consecrated one. Genesis 38 uses both words of one woman, Judah calling Tamar a zonah and his friend asking for the qedeshah. The King James “sodomite” is the translators’ word; Asa and Josiah later removed the qadesh from the land (1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 23:7).

“Hire” is ethnan, a harlot’s fee. Micah 1:7 uses the same word for Samaria’s idols, gathered from “the hire of an harlot” and returning to it. The phrase “for any vow” shows how such money might reach the sanctuary: as payment of a promise made to God.

“Usury” is neshek, from the verb “to bite”: interest is the bite taken out of what a man borrows. The verse repeats the word four times and names three kinds, money, food and “any thing”, so that a loan of seed grain repaid with extra grain falls under it as much as coins.

“Stranger” here is nokri, the foreigner passing through on business, not the ger, the resident alien whom the law protects repeatedly. Interest on a trading loan to an outsider is allowed; a brother in need is not a commercial customer. The promised blessing attaches to the loan left interest free.

“Slack” means delay. Ecclesiastes 5:4 echoes this verse closely: “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it”. “Require” is darash again, the searching verb of 22:2: God himself will come looking for what was promised.

Twelve words, and among the few verses in the law that tell the reader what is not sin. Nothing obliges a vow. The Book of Judges will later show in Jephthah (Judges 11:30–31) what a vow can cost when it is spoken too easily.

“Freewill offering” is nedavah, a gift nobody required. Once it has been spoken as a vow, it becomes as binding as any required offering. The verse opens with the lips and closes with the mouth, holding the whole obligation between the two.

“Thy fill at thine own pleasure” is literally “according to thy soul, thy satisfaction”: as much as appetite wants. “Vessel” is keli, the same word as the “that which pertaineth” of 22:5. A traveller may leave full; he may not leave loaded.

“Corn” in 1611 meant any grain, wheat or barley, not maize. “Standing corn” is qamah, grain still on the stalk. The word for sickle, chermesh, occurs only here and in 16:9, where the count of weeks to Pentecost begins when the sickle is first put to the grain.