Deuteronomy 14:21

14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages 1  and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. 2 

Deuteronomy 23:14

23:14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat 3  your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent 4  among you and turn away from you.

Deuteronomy 33:2

33:2 He said:

A Historical Review

The Lord came from Sinai

and revealed himself 5  to Israel 6  from Seir.

He appeared in splendor 7  from Mount Paran,

and came forth with ten thousand holy ones. 8 

With his right hand he gave a fiery law 9  to them.

1 tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).

2 sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the Lord and fittingly concludes the topic of various breaches of purity and holiness as represented by the ingestion of unclean animals (vv. 3-21). See C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid In Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35.

3 tn Heb “give [over] your enemies.”

4 tn Heb “nakedness of a thing”; NLT “any shameful thing.” The expression עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers specifically to sexual organs and, by extension, to any function associated with them. There are some aspects of human life that are so personal and private that they ought not be publicly paraded. Cultically speaking, even God is offended by such impropriety (cf. Gen 9:22-23; Lev 18:6-12, 16-19; 20:11, 17-21). See B. Seevers, NIDOTTE 3:528-30.

5 tn Or “rose like the sun” (NCV, TEV).

6 tc Heb “to him.” The LXX reads “to us” (לָנוּ [lanu] for לָמוֹ [lamo]), the reading of the MT is acceptable since it no doubt has in mind Israel as a collective singular.

tn Heb “him”; the referent (Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

7 tn Or “he shone forth” (NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

8 tc With slight alteration (מִמְרִבַת קָדֵשׁ [mimrivat qadesh] for the MT’s מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ [merivvot qodesh]) the translation would be “from Meribah Kadesh” (cf. NAB, NLT; see Deut 32:51). However, the language of holy war in the immediate context favors the reading of the MT, which views the Lord as accompanied by angelic hosts.

9 tc The mispointed Hebrew term אֵשְׁדָּת (’eshdat) should perhaps be construed as אֵשְׁהַת (’eshhat) with Smr.