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Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 23:2

Annotations upon the Holy Bible. Browse this work.

Deuteronomy23:2

2 A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD: even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

So the word is commonly rendred, and so it notes a person base-born, or born in Fornication or Adultery, or by incestuous or any prohibited mixtures of man and woman. Obj. 1. This Law seems harsh, and too severe for the innocent Bastard. Ans. 1. It was onely an exclusion from Government, which was a tolerable burden. 2. It was a necessary caution to prevent and brand the sin of uncleanness, to which the Jews were more than ordinarily prone. Obj. 2. Pharez and Iephthe were both Bastards, yet advanced to great Honour and Authority. Answ. God gives laws to us, and not to himself, and therefore he might, when he saw fit, confer what favour or power he pleased upon any such person, as he did to these. But some add, that the Hebrew word mamzer signifies not every Bastard, but a Bastard born of any strange Woman, as the word may seem to intimate; and as such persons generally seem to have been, because of that special provision that there should be no whore of the daughters of Israel, as it is here below, v. 17.

Or, his tenth generation, as it is in the Hebrew, and so in the following verses.

Matthew Poole and continuators, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, Deuteronomy 23:2. Public domain.

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