Deuteronomy 23:10

10 If a man is among you, that is defouled in his night sleep, he shall go out of your tents; and he shall not turn again (If there is a man among you, who is defiled during his night's sleep, he shall go away from your tents; and he shall not return)

Deuteronomy 23:10 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 23:10

If there be among you any man that is not clean
Any unclean person in the army, that was even ceremonially unclean in any of the instances the law makes so, one of which put for the rest is mentioned:

by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night;
through pollution by a nocturnal flux, as the Septuagint version, or a gonorrhoea, an involuntary one, occasioned by impure thoughts and imaginations in dreams; the same case as in ( Leviticus 15:16 )

then shall he go abroad out of the camp;
out of the army, lest others should be defiled by such; they not having houses to retire to, and chambers to keep themselves in separate from others, as when at home:

he shall not come within the camp;
that is, not till he has done what is prescribed him in the next verse. Jarchi says, he might not come into the camp of the Levites, and much less into the camp of God.

Deuteronomy 23:10 In-Context

8 They that be born of them, shall enter in the third generation into the church of the Lord. (They who be born of them, from the third generation onward, can be part of the Lord's congregation.)
9 When thou shalt go out into battle against thine enemies, thou shalt keep thee from all evil thing (thou shalt keep thyself from all evil things).
10 If a man is among you, that is defouled in his night sleep, he shall go out of your tents; and he shall not turn again (If there is a man among you, who is defiled during his night's sleep, he shall go away from your tents; and he shall not return)
11 before that he be washed in water at the eventide, and after the going down of the sun, he shall turn again into the tents. (until he is washed in water in the evening, and then, after the going down of the sun, he shall return to the camp.)
12 Thou shalt have a place without the tents, to which thou shalt go out to (do the) needful things of (man)kind;
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.