◄ Deuteronomy 23:18 ►
You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.
Study Bible
You must not bring
This phrase establishes a clear prohibition, emphasizing the seriousness of the command. The Hebrew root for "bring" is "בּוֹא" (bo), which means to come or to bring. This word is often used in contexts of entering or presenting something before God, highlighting the sanctity and purity required in offerings to the LORD.

the wages of a prostitute
The term "wages" refers to earnings or payment, and in this context, it is linked to "prostitute," which in Hebrew is "זֹנָה" (zonah). Historically, prostitution was prevalent in many ancient cultures, often associated with pagan worship practices. The prohibition underscores the need for moral purity and the rejection of practices that degrade human dignity and defile worship.

or the earnings of a dog
The "earnings of a dog" is a euphemism for male prostitution, as "dog" (כֶּלֶב, kelev) was a derogatory term used in ancient Israel to describe male prostitutes, particularly those involved in pagan rituals. This phrase reinforces the rejection of any form of sexual immorality and its proceeds in the worship of God.

into the house of the LORD your God
The "house of the LORD" refers to the sacred space designated for worship, initially the Tabernacle and later the Temple. This phrase emphasizes the holiness of God's dwelling place, where only offerings that reflect His purity and righteousness are acceptable.

to pay any vow
Vows were solemn promises made to God, often accompanied by offerings. The phrase "to pay any vow" indicates that even if the intention is to fulfill a vow, the source of the offering must be pure. This underscores the principle that the ends do not justify the means in God's economy.

because both are detestable
The word "detestable" (תּוֹעֵבָה, to'evah) is a strong term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe actions that are abominable or repugnant to God. This highlights God's absolute holiness and His rejection of anything that contradicts His nature.

to the LORD your God
This phrase personalizes the relationship between God and His people, reminding them of their covenant with "the LORD" (יהוה, Yahweh), the personal name of God. It emphasizes that their worship and offerings are directed to a holy and personal God who desires purity and righteousness from His people.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Moses
The author of Deuteronomy, delivering God's laws to the Israelites.

2. Israelites
The chosen people of God, receiving the law as they prepare to enter the Promised Land.

3. House of the LORD
Refers to the tabernacle or temple, the central place of worship for the Israelites.

4. Prostitutes (male and female)
Individuals engaged in sexual immorality, often linked to pagan worship practices.

5. Vows
Commitments made to God, often involving offerings or sacrifices.
Teaching Points
Holiness in Worship
God demands purity in worship. The Israelites were to avoid bringing anything associated with sin into His house. This principle applies today as we approach God with reverence and purity.

Integrity in Offerings
Our offerings to God should come from honest and righteous means. This teaches us to evaluate the source of our resources and ensure they honor God.

Rejecting Cultural Compromise
The Israelites were surrounded by cultures that practiced temple prostitution. God’s command was a call to stand apart and not conform to the sinful practices around them.

The Value of Purity
God’s detestation of the wages of prostitution underscores the value He places on sexual purity. This calls believers to uphold purity in all aspects of life.

Commitment to Godly Standards
The prohibition against using immoral earnings for vows highlights the importance of maintaining godly standards in all our commitments to God.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the command in Deuteronomy 23:18 reflect God's character and His expectations for His people?

2. In what ways can we ensure that our offerings to God are pure and come from righteous means?

3. How can we apply the principle of rejecting cultural compromise in our modern context?

4. What steps can we take to maintain sexual purity in a society that often promotes the opposite?

5. How do the teachings in Deuteronomy 23:18 connect with the New Testament's call to holiness and purity in worship?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Leviticus 18 and 20
These chapters outline various sexual sins and their detestable nature before God, reinforcing the call to holiness.

1 Corinthians 6
Paul addresses the issue of sexual immorality and the believer's body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing purity.

Proverbs 6
Warns against the dangers of adultery and the consequences of engaging in sexual immorality.

Matthew 21
Jesus cleanses the temple, highlighting the importance of purity in worship and the rejection of corrupt practices.
Sermons
Unacceptable OfferingsD. Davies Deuteronomy 23:18
Various PreceptsJ. Orr Deuteronomy 23:15-23
Money-Making Must be Above SuspicionR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 23:17-25
People
Aram, Balaam, Beor, Moses
Places
Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Pethor
Topics
Abomination, Almighty, Bring, Detests, Disgusting, Dog, Earnings, Female, Gift, Gods, Harlot, Hire, Loose, Male, Money, Oath, Offering, Pay, Payment, Price, Prostitute, Purposes, Sex, Votive, Vow, Wages, Whore, Worship
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 23:18

     5741   vows

Deuteronomy 23:17-18

     5707   male and female
     8299   love, in relationships

Library
Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or promulgation. In the first class, or Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five, [6370] which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four; [6371] ritual, including questions about clean and unclean,' twenty-three; [6372] concerning …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Here Then Shall These Persons in their Turn be in Another More Sublime Degree...
28. Here then shall these persons in their turn be in another more sublime degree of righteousness outdone, by them who shall so order themselves, that every day they shall betake them into the fields as unto pasture, and at what time they shall find it, pick up their meal, and having allayed their hunger, return. But plainly, on account of the keepers of the fields, how good were it, if the Lord should deign to bestow wings also, that the servants of God being found in other men's fields should …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Lessons for Worship and for Work
'Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. 3. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words. 4. When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Introductory Note to the Works of Origen.
[a.d. 185-230-254.] The reader will remember the rise and rapid development of the great Alexandrian school, and the predominance which was imparted to it by the genius of the illustrious Clement. [1865] But in Origen, his pupil, who succeeded him at the surprising age of eighteen, a new sun was to rise upon its noontide. Truly was Alexandria "the mother and mistress of churches" in the benign sense of a nurse and instructress of Christendom, not its arrogant and usurping imperatrix. The full details …
Origen—Origen De Principiis

Excursus on Usury.
The famous canonist Van Espen defines usury thus: "Usura definitur lucrum ex mutuo exactum aut speratum;" [96] and then goes on to defend the proposition that, "Usury is forbidden by natural, by divine, and by human law. The first is proved thus. Natural law, as far as its first principles are concerned, is contained in the decalogue; but usury is prohibited in the decalogue, inasmuch as theft is prohibited; and this is the opinion of the Master of the Sentences, of St. Bonaventura, of St. Thomas …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils

Jesus Defends Disciples who Pluck Grain on the Sabbath.
(Probably While on the Way from Jerusalem to Galilee.) ^A Matt. XII. 1-8; ^B Mark II. 23-28; ^C Luke VI. 1-5. ^b 23 And ^c 1 Now it came to pass ^a 1 At that season ^b that he ^a Jesus went { ^b was going} on the { ^c a} ^b sabbath day through the grainfields; ^a and his disciples were hungry and began ^b as they went, to pluck the ears. ^a and to eat, ^c and his disciples plucked the ears, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. [This lesson fits in chronological order with the last, if the Bethesda …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

That it is not Lawful for the Well Affected Subjects to Concur in Such an Engagement in War, and Associate with the Malignant Party.
That It Is Not Lawful For The Well Affected Subjects To Concur In Such An Engagement In War, And Associate With The Malignant Party. Some convinced of the unlawfulness of the public resolutions and proceedings, in reference to the employing of the malignant party, yet do not find such clearness and satisfaction in their own consciences as to forbid the subjects to concur in this war, and associate with the army so constituted. Therefore it is needful to speak something to this point, That it is …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Canaan
Canaan was the inheritance which the Israelites won for themselves by the sword. Their ancestors had already settled in it in patriarchal days. Abraham "the Hebrew" from Babylonia had bought in it a burying-place near Hebron; Jacob had purchased a field near Shechem, where he could water his flocks from his own spring. It was the "Promised Land" to which the serfs of the Pharaoh in Goshen looked forward when they should again become free men and find a new home for themselves. Canaan had ever been …
Archibald Sayce—Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations

Brief Directions How to Read the Holy Scriptures once Every Year Over, with Ease, Profit, and Reverence.
But forasmuch, that as faith is the soul, so reading and meditating on the word of God, are the parent's of prayer, therefore, before thou prayest in the morning, first read a chapter in the word of God; then meditate awhile with thyself, how many excellent things thou canst remember out of it. As--First, what good counsels or exhortations to good works and to holy life. Secondly, what threatenings of judgments against such and such a sin; and what fearful examples of God's punishment or vengeance …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Nature of Covenanting.
A covenant is a mutual voluntary compact between two parties on given terms or conditions. It may be made between superiors and inferiors, or between equals. The sentiment that a covenant can be made only between parties respectively independent of one another is inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture. Parties to covenants in a great variety of relative circumstances, are there introduced. There, covenant relations among men are represented as obtaining not merely between nation and nation, …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
BY A.E. GRIMKE. "Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, …
Angelina Emily Grimke—An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South

The Tenth Commandment
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.' Exod 20: 17. THIS commandment forbids covetousness in general, Thou shalt not covet;' and in particular, Thy neighbour's house, thy neighbour's wife, &c. I. It forbids covetousness in general. Thou shalt not covet.' It is lawful to use the world, yea, and to desire so much of it as may keep us from the temptation …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Deuteronomy
Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf. …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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