Deuteronomy 23:3

Summary

The verse excludes the Ammonite and the Moabite from entering the assembly of Yehovah. It reinforces this exclusion by stating that even a tenth generation descendant of these peoples will not be admitted, using the phrase "forever" to mark the duration of the prohibition.

Key words

• ya.Vo' ("he will go", H0935G) — qal imperfect, repeated twice (positions 2 and 13), expressing ongoing/future prohibition ("will not enter") for both the Ammonite/Moabite and the tenth generation.
• k.Hal ("[the] assembly of", H6951) — masculine singular construct noun, appearing twice (positions 7 and 17), linking grammatically to Yah.weh to form "assembly of Yehovah."
• Dor 'a.si.Ri ("a generation... tenth", H1755 + H6224) — noun plus ordinal number, specifying a bounded but distant future generation.
• la.Hem ("of/to them", H9005 + H9038) — preposition with third-person masculine plural suffix, referring back to the Ammonite and Moabite as a collective group whose descendants are meant.
• 'ad 'o.Lam ("until perpetuity", H5704 + H5769G) — preposition plus noun, marking the temporal extent of the restriction as unending.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parallel clauses, both using the negation lo' ("not", H3808) followed by the qal imperfect ya.Vo' ("he/it will go", H0935G). The first clause names the excluded groups directly: amoNi ("an Ammonite", H5984H) and, joined by the conjunction u ("and", H9002), mo'aVi ("a Moabite", H4125), both gentilic singular forms functioning generically for the peoples as a whole. This clause is completed by the prepositional phrase bi-k.Hal Yah.weh ("in the assembly of Yehovah", H9003+H6951+H3068G), a construct chain where k.Hal ("assembly of") governs the divine name.

The second clause repeats the verb ya.Vo' and the same prepositional phrase bi-k.Hal Yah.weh, but shifts the subject to Dor 'a.si.Ri ("a generation, tenth", H1755+H6224), introduced by the adverb gam ("also", H1571). The pronominal suffix in la.Hem ("of them", H9005+H9038) ties this tenth generation back to the Ammonite/Moabite group named earlier, indicating that the restriction extends to their descendants across generations. The clause closes with 'ad 'oLam ("until perpetuity", H5704+H5769G), a temporal phrase indicating the prohibition's extended duration. The repetition of the verb and prepositional phrase across both clauses creates a structural parallelism that emphasizes the scope of the exclusion — both immediate and generational.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's two separate clauses (each with its own ya.Vo') somewhat differently: it uses εἰσελεύσεται ("will enter") twice as well, but connects the tenth-generation clause with καὶ ἕως ("and until"), producing a slightly different logical flow than the Hebrew's parallel gam ("also")-led clause. The Vulgate condenses both Hebrew clauses into a single sentence ("Ammonites et Moabites etiam post decimam generationem non intrabunt... in æternum"), omitting the second occurrence of "assembly of the Lord" (k.Hal Yah.weh) that appears twice in the Hebrew and once more in the LXX. The BSB translation interprets la.Hem ("of them") more explicitly as "any of their descendants," making the referent of the pronominal suffix explicit rather than leaving it implicit as in the Hebrew.