Deuteronomy 23:12

12 "And there shall be for you a designated place outside the camp; {and you shall go there to relieve yourself},

Deuteronomy 23:12 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 23:12

Thou shalt have also a place without the camp
A place prepared, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, provided on purpose for the use hereafter suggested; so Ben Melech:

whither thou shalt go forth abroad;
to do the necessities of nature, which they were to do without the camp, not in any place they thought fit and most convenient, but what was appointed for that purpose.

Deuteronomy 23:12 In-Context

10 "If [there] is among you a man that is not clean because of a seminal emission {during the night}, he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come within the camp.

11 {And then} toward the {coming} of the evening, he shall bathe with water, and at the going down of the sun, he may come to the midst of the camp.

12 "And there shall be for you a designated place outside the camp; {and you shall go there to relieve yourself},

13 and a digging tool shall [be included] in addition to your [other] utensils for yourself; {and then} {when you relieve yourself} outside [the camp] you shall dig with it, and [then] you shall turn, and you shall cover your excrement.

14 For Yahweh your God [is] walking about in the midst of your camp to deliver you and {to hand your enemies over to you before you}, and so let your camp be holy, so that he shall not see in it {anything indecent}, and he shall turn away {from going with you}.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "and you shall go out there, outside [to relieve yourself]"