Imamat 22:24

22:24 You must not present to the Lord something with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off; ¹  you must not do this in your land.

Ulangan 23:1

Purity in Public Worship

23:1 A man with crushed ²  or severed genitals ³  may not enter the assembly of the Lord. ⁴ 

Yesaya 56:3

56:3 No foreigner who becomes a follower of ⁵  the Lord should say,

‘The Lord will certainly ⁶  exclude me from his people.’

The eunuch should not say,

‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

[22:24]  ¹ sn Compare Lev 21:20b.

[23:1]  ² tn Heb “bruised by crushing,” which many English versions take to refer to crushed testicles (NAB, NRSV, NLT); TEV “who has been castrated.”

[23:1]  ³ tn Heb “cut off with respect to the penis”; KJV, ASV “hath his privy member cut off”; English versions vary in their degree of euphemism here; cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, NLT “penis”; NASB “male organ”; NCV “sex organ”; CEV “private parts”; NIV “emasculated by crushing or cutting.”

[23:1]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew term translated “assembly” (קָהָל, qahal) does not refer here to the nation as such but to the formal services of the tabernacle or temple. Since emasculated or other sexually abnormal persons were commonly associated with pagan temple personnel, the thrust here may be primarily polemical in intent. One should not read into this anything having to do with the mentally and physically handicapped as fit to participate in the life and ministry of the church.

[56:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “who attaches himself to.”

[56:3]  ⁶ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.