Temple Beth-El Saturday AM Torah Study - Deuteronomy 23:16-21

Plaut:

18. Prostitute...prostitute. The force of the apparently paired terms קדשה-קדש is uncertain; the extent to which it is sexual, cultic, or both is disputed. For consistency, the translation [above] emulates Chaim Stern's rendering in Gen. 38:21 ("courtesan"). Others, "cult prostitute...cult prostitute"; "unauthorized type of priest...unauthorized type of priest"; or "prostitute...unauthorized type of priest." At any rate, the formerly widespread notion that sexual orgies were a part of ancient Near Eastern fertility rites has been discredited.

19. Fee of a whore. In the ancient Near Easy, temples often added to their income by renting out whores, much as they leased their livestock; neither venture was directly cultic.

Dog Here used as a pejorative, apparently to describe a male prostitute, The simile is found in a Phoenician inscription also. Regarding domesticated dogs in ancient Israel, the Bible mentions them being used for guarding and herding.

20. Deduct interest. נשך is relation to the word for "bite," the interest being seen as taking a bite out of the capital. Leviticus 25:36-37 introduced the additional terms tarbit (increase) and marbit, translated as "accrued interest," to be paid at the time of the loan's repayment; neshech is rendered as "advance interest."

18. ... The word ["kedesha"] might better be translated as "one set aside."

20-21. As Israelites must not sexually exploit one another (vv. 18-19), so must they avoid economic exploitation. This law builds on Exodus 22:25, which clarifies that, in this economy, lending served primarily as a means of social support for "the poor among you" (similarly Lev. 25:36-37). Charging interest would amount to profiteering from the misfortunes of others.

21. Foreigners, as distinct from the "resident alien" or "stranger," who fully participated in Israel's social welfare system.

Robert Alter's The Five Books of Moses

16. You shall not hand over to his master a slave. The scholarly consensus is that this injunction to offer asylum to runaway slaves (an unusual law in the ancient world) refers to foreign slaves. Israelite slaves, who were in essence indentured servants, would have been freed after six years.

17. cult-harlot...cult-catamite. The precise meaning of these two terms, qedeshah and qadesh, is disputed. There is no clear-cut evidence that ritual prostitution was practiced in the ancient Near East, though it remains and indeniable possibility. Exceptionally, the female qedeshah is presented here before the male qadesh, suggesting she was the more familiar type. The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 makes it clear that qedeshah was some sort of more refined or dignified designation for a prostitute: Judah takes Tamar for a "whore" (zonah); Hirah his emissary then refers to her more decorously as a qedeshah. Since the root means "sacred," it is a reasonable inference that the qedeshah was either a woman who prostituted herself as part of the cult (in that case, a fertility cult) or a prostitute working near the site of a sanctuary who devoted part of her professional income to the sanctuary. Since the pilgrim obligation to participate in the temple service was laid upon the males, the qadesh would in all likelihood have been a homosexual prostitue, as the translation "cult-catamite" is meant to indicate.

19. a whore's pay nor a dog's price. It is not clear whether the second of these phrases refers literally to what is gained by selling or bartering a dog or whether (perhaps more probably, because dogs had limited economic value in this society) "dog" is a contemptuous term for the qadesh. Dogs, we should recall, were despised in ancient Hebrew culture, thought of chiefly as unpleasant scavengers. They were not kept as pets and may not have been used for hunting or shepherding.

21. From the stranger may you exact interest but from your brother you shall not exact interest. The prohibition against interest is predicated on an agrarian society of "brothers" in which loans are extended as a form of temporary charity. The ban may not have included properly mercantile loans, and it was not generally applied as Israelite society became more fully urbanized. Foreigners can be required to pay interest because the paradigmatic case would be foreign merchants traveling among the Israelites for business purposes.

Rashi on Deuteronomy 23:18

There shall not be a prostitute: Heb. קְדֵשָׁה, one who is unbridled, prepared (מְקֻדֶּשֶׁת), and ready for prostitution.

and there shall not be a male prostitute: Heb. קָדֵשׁ, one [i.e., a male] ready for homosexual relations. - [Kid. 68b] Onkelos , however, renders: “A woman of the daughters of Israel shall not become a wife to a slave.” [Nevertheless, Onkelos 's explanation does not contradict that given above, for] such [a woman] is also susceptible to illicit relations, since this sort of marriage [between a Jewess and a slave] is not legally binding. For [slaves] are compared to donkeys, as it says,“Stay here with the donkey (עִם-הַחֲמוֹר)” (Gen. 22:5). [The choice of the word] עִם [rather אֶת [denotes] those compared to a donkey. - [Kid. 68a] [Abraham said this to his lads when he left them to take Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice. The lads were both slaves, both Eliezer and Ishmael, the son of his handmaid, Hagar. Similarly, the second half of the verse is rendered by Onkelos as follows:]“And no Israelite man shall take a maidservant as a wife,” since he too, becomes a קָדֵשׁ [“one reserved for illicit relations”] through her, because every time he cohabits with her, it is considered prostitution, since his marriage to her is not binding. — [See Pes. 88b]

Rashi on Deuteronomy 23:19

a prostitute’s fee: [For example,] if one gave her a lamb as her fee, it is unfit to be offered up as a sacrifice. — [Sifrei 23:127]

the price of a dog: If one exchanged a dog for a lamb [this lamb is unfit for a sacrifice]. — [Sifrei 23:127; Temurah 29a]

because both of them [are an abomination to the Lord, your God]:Heb. גַּם הֵם. [The extra word גַּם, lit.“also,” comes] to include [a prostitute’s fee or the price of a dog, which has been] converted [to another form]. For example, wheat, which he (sic) made into flour. — [Temurah 30b] [Sefer Yereim ch. 207 reads: which she made into flour.]