Deuteronomy 23:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall have a place also outside of the camp, where you shall go forth abroad:

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מִח֖וּץ

chûwts

H2351

“from · outside”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 164× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 6:14

Full BDB Definition

Origin: (both forms fem. in the pl.) from an unused root meaning to sever

TWOT: 627a

outside, outward, street, the outside

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition
1 adverb

Verb forms

תִּהְיֶ֣ה Qal · Imperfect
וְיָצָ֥אתָ Qal · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מִח֖וּץ outside H2351 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 23:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְיָד֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לְךָ֔ מִח֖וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֑ה וְיָצָ֥אתָ שָׁ֖מָּה חֽוּץ

You shall have a place also outside of the camp, where you shall go forth abroad:

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 23:12 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἰμί ὁ πρός ἑσπέρα λούω ὁ σῶμα αὐτός ὕδωρ καί δύω ἥλιος εἰςἔρχομαι εἰς ὁ παρεμβολή

And you shall have a place outside of the camp, and you shall go out there,

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיהֵי לְמִפְנֵי רַמְשָׁא יַסְחֵי בְמַיָא וּכְמֵעַל שִׁמְשָׁא יֵעוּל לְגוֹ מַשְׁרִיתָא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיהֵי לְעִידוֹנֵי רַמְשָׁא יַסְחֵי בְּמוֹי וּכְמִטְמוֹעַ שִׁמְשָׁא יֵיעוֹל לְגוֹ מַשְׁרִיתָא

But at evening time let him wash with water, and on the going down of the sun he may come within the camp.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 23:12 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Deu 23:12 Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad:

Ver. 12. And shalt turn back and cover.] How much more curious should they be of soul defilements? Sin is the soul’s excrements, and defiles a man worse than any excement. {Mat 7:15; Mat 7:20; Mat 7:23}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

23:12 outside the camp: Defecation is a normal bodily function, but it brought ritual impurity and therefore violated God’s holiness.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

For the necessities of nature.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 12. &c.] These directions may appear trifling to some, but they were essentially necessary to this people in their present circumstances. Decency and cleanliness promote health, and prevent many diseases.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Thou shalt have also a place without the camp,.... A place prepared, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, provided on purpose for the use hereafter suggested; so Ben Melech:

whither thou shalt go forth abroad; to do the necessities of nature, which they were to do without the camp, not in any place they thought fit and most convenient, but what was appointed for that purpose.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

To wit, to ease thyself, as it follows, Deu 23:13.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

Moses speaks to the Israelites as if they were one man, so the words "you" and "your" here are singular. (See: Forms of You)

you will have something among your tools to dig with

"you should have a tool that you can use to dig with"

when you squat down to relieve yourself

This is a polite way of saying to defecate. AT: "when you squat down to defecate" (See: Euphemism)

you must dig with it

"you must dig a hole with the tool"

cover up what has come out from you

"cover up your excrement"

so that he may not see any unclean thing among you

"so that Yahweh may not see any unclean thing among you"

translationWords

earth

God

walk

hand

holy

clean

turn

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

והיה לפנות ערב BUT IT SHALL BE WHEN EVENING COMETH ON, [HE SHALL LAVE HIMSELF WITH WATER] — He should immerse himself close before the setting of the sun, for under no circumstances is he clean without having waited for the sunset (cf. Sifrei Devarim 256:2).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 8 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is chûwts (“outside”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word chûwts carries the sense “outside.” How does it shape the verse?
What does the repetition of “outside” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«תִּהְיֶ֣ה» is a Qal Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
“outside” occurs 2× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.