Ulangan 23:3

23:3 An Ammonite or Moabite ¹  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever ²  do so, ³ 

Ulangan 23:1

Purity in Public Worship

23:1 A man with crushed ⁴  or severed genitals ⁵  may not enter the assembly of the Lord. ⁶ 

Kisah Para Rasul 11:1

Peter Defends His Actions to the Jerusalem Church

11:1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted ⁷  the word of God. ⁸ 

Nehemia 13:1

Further Reforms by Nehemiah

13:1 On that day the book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing ⁹  of the people. They found ¹⁰  written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite may ever enter the assembly of God,

Nehemia 13:26

13:26 Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made ¹¹  him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin!

¹ sn An Ammonite or Moabite. These descendants of Lot by his two daughters (cf. Gen 19:30-38) were thereby the products of incest and therefore excluded from the worshiping community. However, these two nations also failed to show proper hospitality to Israel on their way to Canaan (v. 4).

² tn The Hebrew term translated “ever” (עַד־עוֹלָם, ’ad-’olam) suggests that “tenth generation” (vv. 2, 3) also means “forever.” However, in the OT sense “forever” means not “for eternity” but for an indeterminate future time. See A. Tomasino, NIDOTTE 3:346.

³ tn Heb “enter the assembly of the Lord.” The phrase “do so” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁴ tn Heb “bruised by crushing,” which many English versions take to refer to crushed testicles (NAB, NRSV, NLT); TEV “who has been castrated.”

⁵ tn Heb “cut off with respect to the penis”; KJV, ASV “hath his privy member cut off”; English versions vary in their degree of euphemism here; cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, NLT “penis”; NASB “male organ”; NCV “sex organ”; CEV “private parts”; NIV “emasculated by crushing or cutting.”

⁶ sn The Hebrew term translated “assembly” (קָהָל, qahal) does not refer here to the nation as such but to the formal services of the tabernacle or temple. Since emasculated or other sexually abnormal persons were commonly associated with pagan temple personnel, the thrust here may be primarily polemical in intent. One should not read into this anything having to do with the mentally and physically handicapped as fit to participate in the life and ministry of the church.

⁷ tn See BDAG 221 s.v. δέχομαι 5 for this translation of ἐδέξαντο (edexanto) here.

⁸ tn Here the phrase “word of God” is another way to describe the gospel (note the preceding verb ἐδέξαντο, edexanto, “accepted”). The phrase could also be translated “the word [message] from God.”

⁹ tn Heb “ears.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “it was found.” The Hebrew verb is passive.

¹¹ tn Heb “gave.”