Deuteronomy 23:2

Summary

The verse states that a mamzer ("a bastard", H4464) is barred from entering the qehal Yehovah ("assembly of Yehovah", H6951 + H3068). The prohibition is then extended explicitly to the tenth generation of descendants, repeating the same phrase about the assembly of Yehovah.

Key words

• mamzer ("a bastard", H4464) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the first clause; the term denotes a specific category of person whose exact defining criteria are not specified within this verse's data.
• yavo' ("he will go/enter", H0935G) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, used twice; the imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing or future-oriented prohibition rather than a single past event.
• qehal ("assembly of", H6951) — masculine singular construct noun, meaning it must be followed by another noun to complete its meaning ("assembly of X"); here it links to Yehovah both times.
• dor 'asiri ("a generation, tenth", H1755 + H6224) — the ordinal number 'asiri ("tenth") modifies dor ("generation"), marking the temporal limit of the restriction stated in the second clause.
• lo ("him", H9033) — a pronominal suffix attached to the preposition bi ("in", H9003) with the article, forming "in him" / "to him," referring back to the mamzer of the first clause and connecting the second clause's subject (the tenth generation) to the original person.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel negative clauses, each governed by the negation lo' ("not", H3808) followed by the qal imperfect yavo' ("he will go/enter", H0935G). The first clause has mamzer ("a bastard", H4464) as its subject and states that this person will not enter bi-qehal Yehovah ("in the assembly of Yehovah"), using the preposition bi ("in", H9003) attached to the construct noun qehal ("assembly of", H6951), which is bound to the divine name Yehovah (H3068G).

The second clause is introduced by gam ("also", H1571), signaling an additional or reinforcing statement, and its subject is dor 'asiri ("a generation, tenth", H1755 + H6224). This clause repeats the same negation and verb form, lo' yavo', but adds the phrase lo ("of him/his", H9005+H9033), a preposition-plus-suffix construction meaning "belonging to him," which grammatically ties the "tenth generation" back to the mamzer mentioned in the first clause. The clause then closes with the identical phrase bi-qehal Yehovah ("in the assembly of Yehovah"), creating a structural repetition that frames the entire verse — the same restriction applies both to the individual and, through the possessive suffix, to his line extending ten generations.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) adds an explanatory gloss not present in the Hebrew: "hoc est, de scorto natus" ("that is, born of a prostitute"), offering a definition of mamzer that the Hebrew text itself does not provide. The Vulgate also renders the two Hebrew clauses as a single continuous sentence ("usque ad decimam generationem," "up to the tenth generation"), rather than preserving the Hebrew's two-part repeated structure with gam ("also") and the doubled phrase "assembly of Yehovah." The English versions (BSB, RV1909) and SBLIBRE retain the two-clause structure more closely, though BSB uses "descendants" to render the sense carried by the suffix lo ("of him", H9033) rather than translating it as a literal pronoun.