Okay, you can turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 23. One of the benefits, obviously, of consecutive expository preaching is that we're forced to deal with things we probably otherwise wouldn't. I don't know how many people with sane faculties would take chapter 23 as the subject for discussion, but this is consecutive, and it does have many good things to teach us concerning our God, concerning sanctity with reference to Israel, and a whole host of applications. So I'll just read chapter 23, beginning in verse 1.
He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord. and Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the 10th generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt.
And because they hired against you, Balaam, the son of Baor from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. Nevertheless, the Lord, your God would not listen to Balaam. but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. You shall not abhor an Edomite for he is your brother.
You shall not abhor an Egyptian because you were an alien in his land. The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp.
He shall not come inside the camp, but it shall be when evening comes that he shall wash with water, and when the sun sets, he may come into the camp. Also, you shall have a place outside the camp where you may go out, and you shall have an implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn and cover your refuse. For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and give your enemies over to you. Therefore, your camp shall be holy that he may see no unclean thing among you and turn away from you.
You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you. He may dwell with you in your midst in the place which he chooses within one of your gates where it seems best to him. You shall not oppress him. There shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel or a perverted one of the sons of Israel.
You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God. You shall not charge interest to your brother, interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest. To a foreigner you may charge interest, but to your brother you shall not charge interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess. When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, For the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you.
But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. That which is gone from your lips, you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container. When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's standing grain.
Amen.
Introduction and Chapter Overview
So the three broad categories that we find here, the first is found in verses one to eight, exclusion, those excluded from the assembly of the Lord. Secondly, The second aspect deals with cleanliness, specifically within the camp of the army. When the army goes out to battle, they are to maintain sanctity, they are to maintain ritual purity and cleanliness, which is befitting the people of God. One commentator said, cleanliness really is next to godliness, as we find here in verses 9 to 14.
And then there are various miscellaneous laws in verses 15 to 25, specifically dealing with escaped slaves, ritual prostitution, lending with interest, making vows, and eating from a neighbor's field. Again, all of these things peculiar to the theocracy, the people of God, the covenant community. Remember they're poised on the plains of Moab getting ready to enter into the land of Canaan and God is calling them to live in a very particular way. Meredith Klein says the theme of these chapters is the sanctification of the theocratic kingdom.
They were to be distinct among the people. They were to be a people that were a peculiar possession of God the Lord in the way that they ate, in the way that they farmed, in the way that they loaned money. in the way that they granted sanctuary or asylum to escaping slaves. All of these things are befitting the people of God Most High. Now, as I've had cause to remind us many, many times, as soon as we end the book of Deuteronomy and we actually get into the Promised Land, They didn't obey these particular mandates, they didn't obey these particular commandments.
In the history of Israel you'll see the prophets come and indict the people for their failure to obey the covenant stipulations that God the Lord had enacted with the people of Israel. So let's just move through this particular chapter. Some of it's very clear and doesn't need a lot of amplification, so we may just end early tonight. Pretty straightforward.
Some things require a little bit of explanation, but
Exclusion from the Assembly
let's look first at the exclusion from the assembly of the Lord. Notice that phrase there, the assembly of the Lord. This is the Qahal. That's the Hebrew word.
The Greek translation of the Old Testament translated with the word ekklesia. We know that word as church. Interesting though, church derives from the word kuriake, not from ekklesia. A better rendering of ekklesia is assembly or congregation.
Church comes from the Scottish word kirk, which kirk comes from kuriake, the Greek word which means something that belongs uniquely to the Lord. That word kuriake is used twice in the New Testament. Once with reference to the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 and once with reference to the Lord's Day with reference to Revelation 1.10. This is one of the means by which or one of the evidences for a Christian Sabbath.
Yes, The Lord Jesus owns all food. The Lord Jesus is sovereign over every meal that we have together. But there is the Lord's Supper. There is that unique one set apart for his specific use.
Yes, Jesus is sovereign over all seven days of the week. but he has separated or sanctified a particular day, called it his, so that his people could indeed engage in rest and blessing and all those things that God the Lord has established for us. So the assembly of the Lord, remember the design of God was to bring Israel into the land and to make them a kingdom of priests. to testify of His glory, to testify of His honor, to publish throughout the nations of the earth at that particular time the glory of the God of Israel. So this assembly of the Lord refers to the covenant people of God, particularly when they are gathered in His presence. Thus, to enter the assembly of the Lord would indicate a person who became a true Israelite and who therefore shared in the worship of the Lord.
So there is a restriction placed upon certain categories, whether it be physical issue, which is the first two, or ethnic, which is the next two. There is, under God, times when certain persons are restrained or kept from or barred from the assembly of the Lord. The fact that persons were excluded from the assembly indicated the sacredness of the assembly. You didn't play around or you didn't play games, in the presence of God Most High.
You did things the way He stipulated. You did things according to the way He stipulated. You were not to be innovative. You were not to be created.
God regulated His worship and God regulated the approach that man was to take. to come into his presence. And
Excluded for Physical Concerns
the ones excluded due to physical concerns. Notice first is one who is castrated. Verse 1, he who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Now probably this does not refer to those who had this happen accidentally.
It probably doesn't refer to somebody who perhaps contracted testicular cancer or had an illness, but rather it was the deliberate and willful choice to do this, probably connected to some sort of a religious obligation. Most commentators that I have read agree that this does not include accident or illness, but idolatry. One man said, the self-castrated who carry on their bodies the sign of their recognition of another God shall not enter the congregation." So the idea seems to be someone who engaged in this particular activity of his own choice in order to mark himself as one for use in the service of a competing God. And so if that was the case, you bore in your body the very marks of that idol, and so God the Lord restricts access and says that you are forbidden to come into the assembly of the Lord.
The second one excluded due to physical concerns. Verse 2, one of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord. If you notice for just a moment, the Ammonite and the Moabite are forbidden down to the tenth generation as well.
But it's qualified, or it's amplified, or it's given more of a definition at the end of verse 3. Even to the 10th generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord." Notice, forever. The 10th generation probably is a symbolic use of the number 10 to indicate completeness. When we drop down to two particular qualifications with the Edomites and the Egyptians, they are restricted from entering in until the third generation.
But a grandchild, having been raised in Israel, having shown himself faithful to the Lord God Almighty, was given access into the assembly of the Lord. But with reference to the self-castrated, with reference to the illegitimate child, the Ammonite and the Moabite, they were restricted from entering the assembly of the Lord forever, and he gives specific reasons in the text. Now when we pick up this statement, one of illegitimate birth, we might have a problem with Jephthah, for instance. He was a judge in Israel and he was the son of a harlot.
There's about three different ways of looking at this word illegitimate. The first idea is that it is not the normal word for illegitimate that we find. The only other use of this particular form of the word is found in Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 6. We'll get to that in just a moment.
But some commentators suggest that what is forbidden here are the children born of an incestuous relationship. The children born of an incestuous relationship are always restricted from entering into the assembly of the Lord. A second view is it is the children that are in view or the children that come as a result of the ritual prostitution condemned in verses 17 and 18. More on that in just a moment.
When you get to 17 and 18, This isn't garden variety harlotry. This isn't garden variety homosexuality. Not suggesting that that's somehow okay. But this ritual or cultic prostitution.
Remember that the deities of the pagans or the deities of the Canaanites very often were what? They were fertility gods. How do you think the fertility gods were worshipped? They were worshipped in expression of fertility ritual.
How do men and women exhibit that particular ritual but through fornication? And so connected to the pagan deity, you had ritual prostitutes, whether they were female or whether they were male. That's the dog of verse 18. That is a homosexual ritual prostitute.
So some have speculated the illegitimacy in verse 2 is either the children of an incestuous relationship or the children of these ritual harlots that were conducting themselves in these ungodly sorts of ways. Zechariah 9.6 says a mixed race, this is the word here, the illegitimacy, a mixed race shall settle in Ashdod and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. One commentator says the reference in Zechariah 9.6 may give the best clue as it refers to the mixed population of Ashdod. Here the word could well refer to children born of mixed parentage.
Any child of a Hebrew pagan marriage would be excluded until the 10th generation, which probably means forever, as the number 10 was symbolic of completeness. But interestingly enough, when we get to the Ammonites and the Moabites, how did they come about? Through incest, right? I think it's a tough one to nail down, this illegitimate child of verse 2.
There's sort of some evidence supporting each of the particular views. I wouldn't die on any of these particular interpretations, because I'm just not the Hebrew scholar that competent. But those are the three positions. It probably doesn't refer to a child that is born in a way that is, again, I don't want to say garden variety as if to excuse it.
But we want to make sure we don't think any, or we don't want any child to think that they were born illegitimately, and therefore they are not heaven bound, or they cannot be I don't think that's what's in view here. It's either incestuous, it is the children of these ritual harlots, or it is this sort of mixed idea with the pagans and the Hebrews and the children that they would have. But regardless, that one qualifying in verse 2 is restricted from entering the assembly of the Lord.
Excluded for Ethnic Concerns
and then the ones excluded due to ethnic concerns. I've already referenced them, the Ammonite and the Moabite. They are excluded even to the 10th generation. The Ammonite specifically is excluded because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt.
This is highlighted in chapter 2 as well, verses 26 to 30, as Moses is rehearsing their history. The Ammonite did not respond graciously to the Israelite. And so God says they are not allowed to enter the assembly of the Lord Forever. The Ammonites are outside of the pale of the covenant community in the Old Testament.
But as well, the Moabites. What did the Moabites do? They took or they paid Balaam, son of Baor, to curse Israel. Now God, in His grace and in His mercy, did not allow that to happen.
The curse ultimately falls upon Balaam, and blessing falls upon Israel. And note the reason why God did this. Numbers 22 to 24 is the Balaam narrative. The whole idea is summarized here for us in a small compass in verse 5.
Nevertheless, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. Here's some John 3.16 in the midst of Deuteronomy 23. The covenant community is loved by God. You see, when we read these stipulations about those excluded from the assembly, how we're to deal with our waste when we're soldiers out on military campaign, how we are to deal with all these various things spoken of here, We need to remember it's all in the context of God's love for his people.
This isn't a machine acting upon subordinate machines. This is a loving, gracious, heavenly father who knows what's best for his children and is regulating their conduct in the land for his own glory and for their well-being. Again, when we get to verses 12 to 14, for just a Just an illustration. The fact that God has them bury their excrement cuts down on a great deal of disease.
Cuts down on a great deal of sickness and illness. God knew all about germ theory long before anybody in the created realm figured it out. Bury it, because if you don't, flies and other insects will take that bacteria and land on people and they'll get sick. So when we read through this, we think, boy, that seems kind of odd.
Well, remember, there are people mixing among pagans, going into combat with them, and God doesn't want them to get sick. God wants them to maintain sanctity and sanctification. and holiness and all of those concerns to be sure, but he and his love is protecting them and watching over them. We've already seen this in Deuteronomy. When you go into the land, I'm going to keep you from getting the diseases that were rampant in Egypt.
Remember in Egypt, elephantiasis and other forms of disease were rampant. Well, it's no fun to inherit the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and having all of these blessed benefits, and then contracting a disease and dying. God loves his people. God loves the covenant community.
And specifically, he says, he turned this curse of Balaam into a blessing because the Lord your God loves you. So make sure you receive it in the context in which it's giving. We can approach these things as outdated, antiquated, having no relevance for us whatsoever, or we could see a gracious Heavenly Father caring for His people under tutelage in the New Covenant, caring for His people in and through the person of His Son and by His Holy Spirit. The same loving Father on the plains of Moab is the same loving Father that is over us now.
Verse 6 is a prohibition against entering into treaty. or covenant with the Ammonites or the Moabites. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever." That doesn't mean they go out and necessarily try and promote everything good and happy and well-being in the land of Ammon. or in Moab. No, it is a prohibition against a treaty or a covenant, a political treaty with these persons. If we look at these concepts used in the Old Testament, peace and prosperity is the language of treaty and of covenant.
So they are prohibited from engaging in this sort of a thing with these particular nations. So God had a genuine axe to grind against Ammon and Moab, and they are forbidden to enter into the assembly of the Lord. And then notice, the third category,
Excluded for a Season
those are the ones excluded for a season. The ones excluded for a season. You shall not abhor an Edomite. Why?
It's your brother, Jacob and Esau. Right? That's who the Edomites were, the descendants of Esau. He is your brother.
Again, this isn't the language of acceptance with God. This isn't the language of they're saved. This isn't the language of they're heaven bound necessarily. It is the language of life in the land with reference to Edomites.
If they want to proselytize, be proselytes within Israel, Don't abhor them. Don't despise them. He is your brother. Same with the Egyptians.
You shall not abhor an Egyptian because you were an alien in his land. The specific stipulation is found in verse 8. The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. Again, Alan Harmon says, after three generations, those of these groups could enter the assembly.
Time was needed to ensure the immigrants were truly one with the covenant community. We want to make sure you're of us before we let you into the assembly of the Lord. We actually think you should speak Hebrew. We're not going to make voting pamphlets in your native tongue.
You're going to learn our customs. You're going to learn about our God. You're going to swear fidelity to Him. And in the third generation, when you've proven yourself well as an Edomite or an Egyptian, we'll let your grandchildren in to the assembly of the Lord. immigration, they weren't anti-proselytization, but it had to be done in a proper biblical way.
Nations can learn things from this. It's not about immigration. We're not anti-immigration. We're anti-illegal immigration.
Do things the right way and God, well not God necessarily, but hopefully everybody will be happy and life will be good in the land. that the children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. Time was needed to ensure the immigrants were truly one with the covenant community in their faith and in obedience. So that's exclusion. Are those persons excluded from the assembly of the Lord?
Cleanliness in the Military Camp
Notice secondly, broad category, cleanliness in the military camp. Verse 9 gives us the general rule. When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing." Don't do what Achan's going to do.
Achan should have listened to this. What did Achan do? He saw these good things, he coveted, he took, and he buried them in his tent. And so God says to Joshua and the people of Israel, stone them to death.
That's a no-no. It's under the ban. It's anathema. It's under that principle of It is something devoted to destruction.
So when the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. Now it's talking about cleanliness, ritual purity, and overall hygiene within the camp of the soldiers as they're out battling against the enemies of the Lord.
The Unclean Man and Waste Disposal
Notice the specific examples, too. First, the unclean man, and secondly, the disposal of waste. Again, this is the word of the living God, just as much as Romans 9 is, or Ephesians 1, or Matthew 11. Verses 10 and 11, if there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp.
He shall not come inside the camp. Now, people compare this with Leviticus 15, 16, And see this is what some have called a nocturnal emission. More than likely that's not what's in view here. It's a different word that's used.
Probably what verse 10 speaks to is urination. The man doesn't want to go outside the camp. The man doesn't want to walk that distance. Perhaps either he had an accident, hopefully he's not a bedwetter in the armies of Israel out in the middle of, you know, fighting their enemies.
More than likely, he's a lazy guy that doesn't want to walk outside the camp. But you were supposed to dispose of waste outside the camp, maintain the sanctity and the purity and the hygiene concerns within the camps. It's probably urination, as we see in verses 12 and following, what we see there is defecation. So how do we keep the camp pure and clean?
Verse 11, it shall be when evening comes that he shall wash with water, and when the sun sets he may come into the camp. Now notice I'm not jumping to the New Covenant with some directly relevant applications. Use your bathrooms properly. That's the application to us today.
If you find yourself out battling in the, you know, for the wars of the Lord, make sure you go outside the camp when you need to take care of those bodily needs. And then specifically with reference to the disposal of waste in verses 12 to 14. Also, you shall have a place outside the camp where you may go out. There was a place specifically designated outside the camp where soldiers were to go to take care of this particular need.
God regulates the conduct of his people. God regulates their practice, ritual purity, to be sure, as well hygiene. You shall have an implement among your equipment. And when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn and cover your refuse.
You're not the pagans. You're not the heathen. Don't live in squalor. Don't live in garbage.
Control yourself and function appropriately. This is a great text for moms when you're trying to police your children. In fact, I think my wife used this passage, at least a loose application of it, to exhort our children to cleanliness. God is a God of order.
And when we look at these particular concerns, verses 9 to 13, the temptation is to say, well, this is so mundane, it is so worldly, it is so carnal in nature.
The Theological Reason for Holiness
But look at the underlying reason given in verse 14. It is theological in nature for You are to dispose properly of your excrement, and if you are unclean because you violated the purity law, the rule with reference to the camp, you need to go out, wash, wash with water when the sun sets, then you may come back into the camp. There is a rule and a reason for these things indicated in verse 14. For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and give your enemies over to you.
Therefore your camp shall be holy that he may see no unclean thing among you and turn away from you. Remember the word holy. We think of holy as if I don't do this or I do do this. Holy not only means moral purity, but it means set apart.
It's sanctified. It is not for common use. Well, the people of God Most High were holy. They were sanctified.
They were set apart. They were not common among the the nations of the earth. Even when they were engaged in military campaign, the armies of Israel must conduct themselves according to the purpose of God so that he may be glorified. For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp.
I think this is how Rebecca used it. The Lord your God is proud. Don't let your room look like this. That's not pleasing to the Lord.
That's not glorifying to God. It's not good stewardship. It's not honoring to him. He's a God of order.
He's a God of discipline. Those are good things. So the Lord gives a theological reason for this particular situation. Harmon says the holiness of the covenant bond had to be reflected even in physical cleanliness and hygiene lest the Lord take note of their breach of his stipulations, he sees anything indecent among you, and turn himself away from them." And don't think this principle is lost even in the secular realm.
You know being a soldier yourself. They spend a lot of time teaching you how to be clean. You don't go into the camp of Israel and stink. You don't go out into the camp of Israel and be a disease-carrying person.
This was necessary to fight effectively the wars of Yahweh so that they could accomplish the task of dispossessing the land of the Canaanites. This pleases the Lord God Almighty. Meredith Klein said, in war as in peace. By the way, Meredith Klein, who I quote often, was a man.
I don't know why his parents named him Meredith. I've never heard that name applied to a man. Not that women commentators are necessarily evil. I'm just making the qualification that Meredith Klein was a man.
He's in heaven now. But anyways, he said, in war as in peace, God was present among his people and his name must be hallowed. Physical cleanliness was the appropriate symbol of the holiness of the covenant relationship. So all the parents tonight with little children are going to go home and crack the whip.
You better be clean, right? You better hop too. I got a sermon for you. Listen to this.
Deuteronomy 23, 9 to 14. This is great for potty training your two-year-old as well. Well,
Miscellaneous Laws for the Community
let's look finally at the last section, verses 15 to 25, miscellaneous laws for the community.
Escaped Slaves and Asylum
Verses 15 and 16 deal with escaped slaves, and probably it's dealing with escaped slaves from foreign escaped slaves. In other words, probably not slaves within Israel. Remember, there are rules speaking to that situation in Deuteronomy 15. And the slavery there wasn't what we oftentimes associate with slavery, the shadow slave, the African slave trade, or some of the abuses we've seen.
It's more of a business or more of an employer-employee relationship. than what we are usually prone to consider. But more than likely, this is when they were going about in their wars in Canaan when a slave escaped and sought sanctuary or asylum in Israel. Notice the rule. Verse 15, you shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you.
And probably the reason for this, at least if the commentators are to be believed, that the nations surrounding Israel had agreements, basically saying that if a slave left his master and sought asylum or sanctuary or refuge in another country, they had extradition laws in place. You see, Israel was forbidden to enter into those alliances with the nations around them. So when a slave came from Canaan, for instance, to Israel, and he said, I've escaped from my master, you granted him asylum. You didn't send him back to that particular country, because that would have been, again, to operating in terms of treaty or covenant with those other nations.
So the primary emphasis is probably seen in that very thing. You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you, because it will involve you in the larger problem that was already condemned in chapter 7. You are not to enter into any alliances whatsoever with these pagan nations. But then notice, not only does the man gain asylum, not only does the man gain sanctuary, but he's free to live wherever he wants in Israel.
This is a good place to be, wasn't it? I mean, look at the text. He may dwell, verse 16, with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your gates, where it seems best to him. And what would be a benefit for this man?
He'd come in to the covenant community. He could gain instruction concerning Yahweh of Israel. It was a win-win situation for the parties involved. It was as well a means of evangelizing.
When this guy comes in, what do you do? You teach him the ways of the God of Israel. And then at the end, in verse 16, you shall not oppress him. Don't oppress him.
Don't lay heavy burdens upon this man. Let him come in to Israel. It's a pretty amazing thing, isn't it? You know, you see the rhetoric sometimes, especially, you know, we just read we're in Sudan and in Somalia, where they want to impose Sharia.
People say, well, Sharia is just like Old Testament law. No, it isn't. It is not like Old Testament law. Not at all like Old Testament law.
Old Testament law had built into it great humanitarian concern. I mean, just tonight I saw in Egypt that they're sending these sex mobs upon women in Egypt to rape them. I mean, this is coming from the government. It's terrible.
They don't treat women well in these countries. What happens in Israel? If you see a female captive of war, you can bring her into your home. You can marry her.
Well, that's just not typical of the nation surrounding Israel. There is great humanitarian concern within Old Covenant law. Something absent from Sharia.
Prohibition of Cult Prostitution
Verses 17 to 18 deals with, as I've already mentioned, ritual prostitution. or cultic prostitution. Notice if you have the New King James in verse 17 you have a marginal note where it says harlot and perverted one. It's got a number 3 and a number 4. Well basically what the margin tells you is that it's Kedoshah and it's from the, that's the feminine noun from the masculine Kedash.
You know what that word Kedash means? Holy. They're holy. I mean, Israel wouldn't look at them as holy, but the pagan deities and the Canaanites would look at these ritual prostitutes as holy.
They were set apart for the service of their deity. It is cultic or ritual prostitution that is in view here. And so what God prohibits, verse 17, there shall be no ritual harlot. How does the ESV get that? cult prostitute, another good rendering, there shall be no ritual harlot of the daughters of Israel or a perverted one of the sons of Israel.
So the harlot is the female, the perverted one is the male. So what you have here is a female cult prostitute and a male cult prostitute. You are not supposed to allow such things in Israel. This is an abomination.
It is prohibited. This is wrong. This is bad. Verse 18, as I've already mentioned, when it says, you shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog.
The price of a dog probably is that male homosexual cult prostitute. And so what is in view in verses 17 and 18 are actually two prohibitions. The first is the prohibition against ritual prostitution. The second is the prohibition against a perverse vow offering.
So if there is money made by a ritual harlot, which I don't think in verse 18 is even a ritual harlot. It could just be a garden variety harlot. She makes money or a male homosexual makes money. They are not to give that to Yahweh of Israel.
You don't say, well, you know, this is the way I make my money, so I'm going to give a tithe to the Lord. God doesn't want your filthy money. That is what is prohibited here. You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the Lord your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.
So the both of these is the act of ritual prostitution and this giving of a perverse offering. Remember in Revelation 22.15 there is a mention of dogs being excluded from the New Jerusalem. That's not canines. It's male homosexuals who engaged in cult prostitution, or just the male homosexual.
So what we find in verses 17 and 18 is something that was rampant among the Canaanites. Cult prostitution was practiced frequently in the worship of God, or their gods. God of Israel says, don't do that. It is an abomination to the Lord.
Lending with Interest
The third miscellaneous law is lending with interest. Lending with interest. What's the rule? Don't do it.
Unless it's a foreigner. Then you can charge interest. And it was Kelvin that made the distinction between what we might call a business loan and a hardship loan. I don't know if he used these exact words.
But what we find prohibited here, you shall not charge interest to your brother, interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest. When we review or when we compare other passages, it's probably not, you know, some guy has a good idea and he needs a bit of startup capital, so you loan him some money. And you charge him a bit of interest. That's like renting a tractor.
You don't rent the tractor for free. You pay to rent the tractor. Well, in the case of some startup capital for a business, you're renting the money. I don't know that that's necessarily denounced here.
What is in view is a man who's in poverty. A man who is hungry, a man who has nothing, a man who is in an impoverished state. Obviously, you do not charge interest to your brother because there's two problems if you do. You only compound his poverty if you do.
Your brother's starving and you say, I'll give you 100 bucks and I'll charge you 20. You're not helping him. You may think you are, and you may pat yourself on the back, but you're not helping him one bit. You're compounding his problem.
And secondly, you're not exhibiting that love of covenant community that is to be practiced within Israel. If you have an impoverished brother, somebody that's about to die, he needs food, he needs shelter, he needs clothing. Give him money without usury. Give him money without charging him this interest.
But with reference to foreigners, probably traders, foreign traders. This was a promise, or this will be a promise later in Deuteronomy. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow from them. It's a good thing.
You're lending to these foreign traders. Yeah, hit them with some interest. Make some money for the Commonwealth. Then you can pay your tithes and everybody benefits. in that arrangement.
But you shall not charge interest to your brother, interest on money or food or anything that is lent out at interest."
Making Vows to God
The fourth miscellaneous is making vows to God. Our confession makes a distinction or defines the difference between an oath and a vow. An oath is between men. A vow is a solemn promise to the Lord.
That's the difference between an oath and a vow. An oath is to men and a vow is to the Lord. Well, it is not a sin to abstain from making an oath. Notice, when you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it.
For the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. So if you make the vow, pay it. If you make the vow, do what you vowed to do. That's the principle.
But notice in verse 22, if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. You might take the real practical instance. I'm commanded to give a tithe, but I'm going to vow to the Lord to give an extra 5%. If you vow to the Lord to do that, then you better do it.
But if you don't make that vow and you still obey the law to tithe, you're not in sin, you're not in jeopardy, you're free to take that vow on. That, verse 23, which has gone from your lips, you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vow to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth. Wisdom cautions us against hasty vows. Wisdom tells us we need to consider ourselves properly.
It is a snare for a man to devote rashly something as holy and afterward to reconsider his vows. I'm going to give the Lord 40%! And then you start saying, wait a minute, I didn't really think this through, did I? Well, you made a vow, man.
This is why wisdom says, be careful. Ecclesiastes 5.4, when you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it, for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.
You see, nobody's putting a gun to your head to make this vow, but if you make this vow, be a man of your word. Be a man of integrity. The Lord God of truth, the Lord of the covenant, calls his people to function in like manner. Don't be a liar, don't be a cheat, and don't be deceitful.
Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?" So this idea of vowing is very clear. You make a vow to the Lord, here it is, bang it. Think about it before you make the vow.
Don't devote something rashly as holy and then say, wait a minute, I don't know what I did. Make sure you know what you're doing before you make this particular vow. And then
Eating from a Neighbor's Field
the last miscellaneous law, number five, is eating from a neighbor's field. Verses 24 and 25, pretty simple. When you come into your neighbor's vineyard, you can eat grapes. A little laughter going on.
Have you eaten grapes recently? What's the prohibition? Don't stuff your container with grapes. When you're in your neighbor's field, you can pluck the heads of grain.
You're hungry. But don't use a sickle. Now obviously the law applies to travelers. I do not think we're supposed to assume that you're sitting in your house and you're hungry so you go to your next door neighbor's vineyard or into his standing grain.
Remember in Matthew 12, Jesus and his disciples are walking through the grain field. And his disciples pick the heads of grain, and they eat. And the Pharisees called Jesus not on the act of eating the grain. That was lawful.
It was OK. If you were traveling through your neighbor's standing grain, you could pick enough to eat so that you wouldn't die. The issue in Matthew 12 was that they did it on the Sabbath. That was the big crime in view.
But you see, very specifically here, within the covenant community, we are supposed to be gracious. Somebody takes a few grapes, you know, don't shoot them when the baby died. like I want to do with these crows that are all over this roof. I mean, I hear this all day long. If you were here, you'd say somebody's knocking at the door.
No, it's all my friends, the crows. I like to sit out in the back with a gun and shoot them. But I don't think that would look good on the Chilliwack Progress. Mike, my son-in-law, told me the other day, you've got to shoot them with a BB gun.
I said, I don't know that that would look good. Pastor on Wellington shoots birds. He said, yeah, you're right. He said, you ought to come and sit here during the week and clock them off.
But what we find here is that there is this gracious, benevolent attitude. We're not supposed to want to destroy somebody because they eat some of our grapes or they eat some of our grain. Now, if they're stuffing buckets with our grapes, it betrays the reality that they're just hungry and need an immediate meal. If they pull out their sickle and start chopping up our grain, we can surmise they're looking for a little bit more than enough to fill their belly.
So the law encourages kindness. It discourages theft. It is another law that speaks to a person's property. The person is given the privilege for sustenance, but not for profit.
Certainly you're not going to fill your pail with grapes and then go sell them somewhere, or take your sickle out and chop down a bunch of grain and then go sell it somewhere. No, you eat enough as is sufficient for you without fearing your neighbor's BB gun or his .22. And in the same token, you're not going to rip off your neighbor. Again, Klein says the law of crops provided such liberty as to satisfy the principle of brotherly hospitality.
But it prohibited the changing of liberty to license in violation of the property rights of this brother. So you could take grapes, you could take grain, enough as to eat in a traveling day. Not just because you could see his grapes, you would run over there and eat it. So those are some miscellaneous laws that were pertinent for life in the land.
We learn from this holiness. Again, sanctity, a set-apartness. The community is holy. They are set-apart. from the nations surrounding them.
This is reflected in the assembly, in hygiene, and in the various ways they relate within the community itself. Perhaps if you were in the Canaanite nations, you could take your tractor and take everything your neighbor possessed. And there was no law. Actually, there were laws.
There were law codes that restricted that sort of thing, even in those nations as well. But as well, we see they're regulated. The community is regulated by God. Israel was not left to be creative when they entered the land, as that would have most certainly meant imitating the pagans around them.
It's like your kid. You have to regulate your kid so he doesn't do foolish things, right? Well, that's something that I think we garner from the book of Galatians, that Israel, Old Covenant Israel, was sort of like the the adolescent phase of God's redemptive plan. God's redemptive plan included this Mosaic Covenant where he hedged the people in and regulated everything so as to keep them from doing foolish things with the nations around them.
If they didn't have a rule, if they didn't have a law, they'd look over at their Canaanite neighbors and they'd do what they were doing. Now, God says you're to function in a distinctive way. As well, ethics is highlighted in this section. The community is to reflect justice and equity in their dealings with other covenant members, and above all, with the Lord of the covenant.
There is to be righteousness in our practice. There is to be godliness and holiness in the way that we conduct ourselves within the community toward one another and toward our covenant Lord. And then as well, we learn something of new covenant expansion. In Isaiah 56, it is prophesied that eunuchs would enter the assembly of the Lord.
In Isaiah 56, the prophet is preaching the messianic age. He is preaching Jesus Christ. And isn't it interesting? The way we find Acts chapter 8, an Ethiopian eunuch, comes upon Philip.
And what book is Philip reading? Isaiah the prophet. And from Isaiah 53, Philip preaches Jesus to that eunuch. That eunuch is baptized.
He enters into the assembly of the Lord God Most High. With reference to the New Covenant, there is no nation barred to the 10th generation. There is no nation under the ban in terms of they cannot come to the assembly of the Lord. Matthew 28, Jesus says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, not avoiding those ones because they are under the ban. until the 10th generation.
No, go make disciples of all nations. So there are some distinctive differences in the New Covenant in terms of a global approach. to God's redemptive plan, to save a people from every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every nation. So Old Covenant Israel was God's dealings with adolescents. When we get to the New Covenant, God is dealing with his son, his firstborn son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's in him that we are given the task to preach the gospel to eunuchs, to preach the gospel to heathen, to preach the gospel to all nations, and call them to believe on Him and to enter into the assembly of the Lord. Let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank You for Your Word and we thank You for these wonderful, wonderful lessons and the laws that You have given. We just pray that You would give us the mind of Christ to receive these things, to make the applications in our own hearts, in our own lives, that we would learn something of the character and nature of God, that we would learn something of the character and nature of holiness before you, that we would see the things that you despise, and that we would likewise despise them. As well, we would see the joy and the blessing that we have in the new covenant, and we do pray that this gospel would be proclaimed throughout the earth, and that you would be pleased to save to the uttermost all who draw nigh unto you through your Son, the Lord Jesus. And it's in His name that we pray.
Amen.