Deuteronomy 15:2-3

15:2 This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; ¹  he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, ²  for it is to be recognized as “the Lord’s cancellation of debts.” 15:3 You may exact payment from a foreigner, but whatever your fellow Israelite ³  owes you, you must remit.

Deuteronomy 15:2

15:2 This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; ⁴  he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, ⁵  for it is to be recognized as “the Lord’s cancellation of debts.”

Deuteronomy 23:1

Purity in Public Worship

23:1 A man with crushed ⁶  or severed genitals ⁷  may not enter the assembly of the Lord. ⁸ 

[15:2]  ¹ tn Heb “his neighbor,” used idiomatically to refer to another person.

[15:2]  ² tn Heb “his neighbor and his brother.” The words “his brother” may be a scribal gloss identifying “his neighbor” (on this idiom, see the preceding note) as a fellow Israelite (cf. v. 3). In this case the conjunction before “his brother” does not introduce a second category, but rather has the force of “that is.”

[15:3]  ³ tn Heb “your brother.”

[15:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “his neighbor,” used idiomatically to refer to another person.

[15:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “his neighbor and his brother.” The words “his brother” may be a scribal gloss identifying “his neighbor” (on this idiom, see the preceding note) as a fellow Israelite (cf. v. 3). In this case the conjunction before “his brother” does not introduce a second category, but rather has the force of “that is.”

[23:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “bruised by crushing,” which many English versions take to refer to crushed testicles (NAB, NRSV, NLT); TEV “who has been castrated.”

[23:1]  ⁷ 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.”

[23:1]  ⁸ 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.