Isaiah 56 · a question people ask
How do 56:3-7 stand beside Deuteronomy 23?
Isaiah 56 names no law, and these notes don't make it answer one. It gives what each might say: "The LORD will surely separate me from his people" and "Behold, I am a dry tree" (56:3). It says whom the LORD will bring: foreigners "who join themselves to the LORD" (56:6), and eunuchs "who keep my Sabbaths, choose the things that please me, and hold fast to my covenant" (56:4). Deuteronomy 23 names some who may not enter the LORD's assembly (Deuteronomy 23:1-3). Its honest question What is "the LORD’s assembly" that some may not enter? sets Isaiah 56:4-5 beside it, and notes that Isaiah doesn't use the word assembly or name Deuteronomy 23, and that his word for eunuch, saris, isn't one of the words of Deuteronomy 23:1. Its other question, on Moab and Ruth, sets out the main views, and one of them points to 56:3. The text doesn't say how the passages fit together. These notes don't ask those questions again or pick among the views, and they apply the chapter's words about eunuchs and foreigners to no one today.
The verses
“He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly. A person born of a forbidden union shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one of his enter into the LORD’s assembly. An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever,”