Deuteronomy 23:9-14

Introduction

The seventh of the Ten Commandments says in Deuteronomy 5:18…

Deuteronomy 5:18 NASB95

18 ‘You shall not commit adultery.

It’s a command calling for faithfulness between husband and wife in the covenant of marriage.

But it’s also a command calling for the faithfulness of God’s people in their covenant with God.

If Israel engaged in the worship of idols it would be described as spiritual adultery.

If Israel is going to avoid this spiritual adultery, it will have to be unlike the other nations.

It will have to be clean.

It will have to be holy.

We this call to absolute holiness in Deuteronomy 23:9-14 where God, through Moses, is giving cleanliness or holiness commands for Israel encamped at war…

Deuteronomy 23:9–14 NASB95

9 “When you go out as an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing. 10 “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp. 11 “But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp. 12 “You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, 13 and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. 14 “Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

[PRAYER]

[TS] This passage follows a simple outline…

In v. 9, we have a general command—keep yourself from every evil thing.

In vv. 10-11, we have a specific example regarding nocturnal emissions.

In vv. 12-13, we have a specific example regarding excrement.

And in v. 14, we have the ultimate reason for holiness.

Let’s begin in v. 9 with the general command…

Exposition

The General Command (Deut. 23:9)

Deuteronomy 23:9 NASB95

9 “When you go out as an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

Israel is preparing to go out as an army to take the Promised Land. They set up camp in the vicinity of their enemies. As they do so, they must keep themselves from every evil thing.

The word is “evil” but some translations say Israel was to keep itself from anything “offensive,” “impure,” or “improper.”

The question is, of course, “Offensive to who? Impure by who’s definition? Improper according to who’s consideration?”

The Israelites all knew the answer: “According to God.”

He alone determines what is evil, impure, improper, or offensive.

[TS] Look at the first specific example in Deuteronomy 23:10-11…

The Specific Example Regarding Nocturnal Emissions (Deut. 23:10-11)

Deuteronomy 23:10–11 NASB95

10 “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp. 11 “But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp.

As the fighting men were encamped one of them may have had an involuntary emission from the body while asleep. Leviticus 15:16 speaks of this same thing.

Although it seems this would have been accidental, the man would have to go outside the camp and stay outside until dusk when he was to bathe and reenter the camp.

The standard of God’s holiness is so high that it doesn’t take a purposeful uncleanness to fail to live up to it.

An accidental one will do.

[TS] Let’s look at the other specific example regarding excrement…

The Specific Example Regarding Excrement (Deut. 23:12-13)

Deuteronomy 23:12–13 NASB95

12 “You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, 13 and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement.

Even modern armies encamped against their enemies have to deal with sanitary concerns. The ancient Israelite army was no different.

It was to have a designated area outside the camp where the fighting men were to dispose of their excrement.

They were to keep a digging tool with them.

The NASB uses the word “spade,” but the literal word is “peg.”

I think translations like the CSB and NIV do best by saying the soldier had to keep with him “a digging tool” or “something to dig with.”

One paraphrase says, “a stick.”

In any event, they were to dig a hole and then dispose of their excrement by covering it with dirt.

Everything had its proper place and a proper way to handle it.

[TS] Let’s look at v. 14, the ultimate reason for this call to cleanliness or holiness…

The Ultimate Reason for Cleanliness (Deut. 23:14)

Deuteronomy 23:14 NASB95

14 “Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

For the Israelites this war would be worship. God would be in their camp fighting for them—fighting to deliver them and defeat their enemies.

But God is holy and for his presence to dwell in the camp it had to be holy.

If God saw anything indecent in the Israelite camp, he would turn away from them.

That would mean Israel’s defeat.

The word “indecent” is interesting. Most translations translate it that way, but the KJV says “unclean”—He must not see anything UNCLEAN among you or he will turn away from you.

The word is most literally “nudity” or “nakedness” but it means something that is “unseemly” or “unbecoming.”

It’s the same word used in Exodus 20:26 when the priests were told…

Exodus 20:26 NASB95

26 ‘And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, so that your nakedness will not be exposed on it.’

If anything indecent, unseemly, or unbecoming was left on display in the camp of Israel’s fighting men, then their great warrior, the LORD himself, would no longer fight for them.

[TS] …

Illustration

In his commentary of this passage, Matthew Henry said, “Sin taints valor… sin makes cowards… [and] soldiers are often tempted with all manner of sin...”

But he said, “Times of war should be times of reformation…”

In other words, times of war should be times of holiness—times of cleanliness before the Lord.

If you have come to Jesus as your Savior and Lord—if you have trusted in his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead to save you from the wrath of God—then you have been enlisted in a spiritual war.

That’s the way the NT speaks of it.

2 Corinthians 10:3–4 ESV

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

Ephesians 6:12 NASB95

12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

As those who have trusted in Christ for salvation, we are at war.

That means its time for reformation.

That’ means it’s time for holiness.

[TS/INTER] What can we learn about holiness in Deuteronomy 23:9-14?

There are several things.

Application

Holiness is absolutely prohibitive.

Deuteronomy 23:9 says, “…keep yourself from EVERY evil thing.”

Holiness doesn’t take a holiday.

In every place in creation and in every moment in our lives God has said, “Be holy as I am holy.”

First Thessalonians 5:22 says, “Stay away from every kind of evil” or “Avoid even the appearance of evil.”

Many people view their teenage and young adults years as a time to “sow their wild oats,” which is an idiom for sexual immorality.

Some people view life after divorce as a time to throw off all moral restraint.

And some view what they do in the privacy of their own homes as no business of God’s.

But it is all done before the face of God.

And the holiness God is absolutely prohibitive of every evil thought, word, or action—of every evil thing—at all time in all places no matter who you are.

[TS] …

Holiness is absolutely inclusive.

[EXP] Deuteronomy 23:10-11 talks about uncleanness or unholiness in the camp.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14 talk about uncleanness or unholiness outside the camp.

In either case, the uncleanness had to be handle in the way prescribed by God.

Let me stress, there is no place where we are allowed to be unclean or unholy.

Holiness is inclusive of every area of our lives; every area must line up with God’s holiness.

[ILLUS] There’s a joke that we sometimes make, and I understand that it’s just a joke, but we need to be careful with it lest we start to find a little truth in it.

It goes like this: Someone will say something like, “Rocky, you sure looked good in your coat and tie this morning.”

And then someone else will say, “You’re not supposed to lie in church.”

Or maybe someone tells an off-color joke, and someone says, “You’re not supposed to tell those jokes in church.”

Again, I know it’s a joke, but it becomes no laughing matter when we really believe that we can’t lie in church but we can lie in other places—or when we believe we can’t crudely joke in church but we can crudely joke in other places.

Real holiness—God’s holiness—demands that we be holy everywhere, in the camp and outside the camp.

[TS] …

Holiness is absolutely orderly.

[EXP] Deuteronomy 23:10-11 says that the man with the nocturnal emission has to go out of the camp, bathe himself with water as evening approaches, and then reenter the camp.

That’s order of holiness for him.

Deuteronomy 23:12-13 says the man defecating had to go to the designated area, use a spade to dig a hole, and then cover his excrement by filling in the hole with the dirt.

That’s the order of holiness for him.

Holiness is absolutely orderly.

[ILLUS] Years back we had a singing group come to the church. The man leading the group talked about being at another church—one where the Holy Spirit really moved. He said, “That church didn’t have an order of service. Y’all do, but they didn’t.”

I don’t know all that he meant to communicate with that statement, but I understood it as, “The Spirit must not move here because y’all have an order of service.”

But the Holy Spirit is not a God of confusion. He loves order. Listen to 1 Corinthians 14:40…

1 Corinthians 14:40 NASB95

40 But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.

In that verse, Paul is talking about order in the church, but the same is true in our lives.

Just as the Holy Spirit leads us in an orderly manner in the church, so he leads us in an orderly manner in our lives.

We must get our lives in order—we must get our lives organized—because holiness is absolutely orderly.

[TS] …

Holiness is absolutely important.

[EXP] Deuteronomy 23:14 says, “Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp… therefore your camp must be holy…”

Do you want to feel God’s presence walk with you?

Then you must be holy.

Do you want to feel God’s presence in your home?

Then your home must be holy.

Do you want to feel God’s presence in this church?

Then together we must be pursuing holiness.

Holiness is absolutely important because without it the Lord doesn’t walk with us.

[ILLUS] Decades ago now I talked with a young man (I was young man then too, but he was younger) who said, “I can’t feel God’s presence anymore.”

As we talked a bit about that, he revealed that he had not read the Bible on his own in a very long time and that he had not even prayed in over a year.

I told him that I was no spiritual Columbo, but I think I could detect the problem.

He was not pursuing holiness in any way, so he could not feel the Lord’s presence.

If we would feel the Lord’s presence as much as we can this side of eternity, we must keep ourselves clean.

We must pursue holiness.

[TS] …

Holiness is absolutely fleeting.

[EXP] The uncleanness of Deuteronomy 23:10-11 seems to be accidental. The uncleanness of Deuteronomy 23:12-13 is unavoidable.

If the accidental and unavoidable can make us unclean before God what hope do we have of maintaining our cleanliness before God?

Whether we are talking about physical cleanliness, ritual cleanliness, or moral cleanliness before God, we have no hope of holiness apart from Christ Jesus.

[ILLUS] There’s a praise song that Bryant, Cheryl, and I have done before called, Lord I Need You. The chorus says…

“Lord, I need You, oh, I need You Every hour I need You My one defense, my righteousness Oh God, how I need You”

But the second verse has a lyric I love. It says…

“Where sin runs deep Your grace is more Where grace is found is where You are Where You are, Lord, I am free Holiness is Christ in me”

Jesus is the holiness we need.

He is the only holiness we never lose.

He is our holiness within the camp and without.

[TS] …

Conclusion

[PRAYER]