Deuteronomy 23:18

Thou shall not bring the hire of a whore,.... Which was given to her as a reward for the use of her body: or the price of a dog; not of the firstborn of a dog, the price for the redemption of it, as

Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

This is opposed to the practice of the Gentiles, who allowed both such persons and their oblations they made out of their wicked and infamous gains; and some of them kept lewd women, who prostituted themselves in the temples, and to the honour of their false gods, and offered part of their profit to them. See ; /APC ; Herodotus in the end of his first book, and Strabo in his eighth book. The price of a dog; either, 1. Properly; the dog being a vile and contemptible creature in those eastern parts, 24:14 , and unclean by God’ s designation, which yet should have been redeemed by virtue of that law. , had it not been for this prohibition. And this may be here prohibited, either, 1. That by this one instance, put for all others of the like kind, they might be taught not to offer to God what cost them nothing, or was worth nothing. Or, 2. To bring contempt upon the creature, which divers of the Gentiles offered up to their gods, and the Egyptians worshipped as gods. Or, 3. That by comparing whores and dogs together, and equalling the prices of them, he might expose whores to the highest disgrace and infamy. Or, II. Metaphorically, as that word is oft used in Scripture, as ,20 Isaiah 56:10,11 Mt 7:6 ; and particularly it is used for unclean or filthy persons, ; as Horace also calls whores bitches; which name doth most properly agree to them in respect of that impudence, and filthiness, and insatiableness, for which both of them are branded. And this sense may seem most proper in this place, because it agrees with all the other expressions; and as the hire of a whore answers to the whore, , so the price of a dog may seem to answer to the sodomite, , and so all concerned the same thing, whereas the price of a dog, properly so called, may seem to be quite incongruous, and foreign to the place. It is true which is objected, that lawgivers use to deliver their laws in proper, and not in metaphorical terms, to prevent mistake and ambiguity; but there seems to be no great danger of mistake here, where the metaphor is so clearly explained and determined by so many words joined with it. For any vow; and much less in other sacrifices, which being of a higher nature, and prescribed by God, must needs require more exactness than those which depended much upon a man’ s will and choice, as vows and free-will offerings did. Both these, i.e. the whore and the dog, and therefore the price of either of them cannot be acceptable.

Deuteronomy 23:18 Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these [are] abomination unto the LORD thy God.Ver. 18. Nor the price of a dog.] Plutarch tells us that it was not permitted to a dog to enter into the chief tower or temple at Athens, for his heat in venery and ill savour. The Hebrews understand this text literally, according to Isaiah 66:3. Others metaphorically, as Revelation 22:15, either of impudent cynics, such as Antisthenes, that shame not to commit uncleanness in the sight of others; these are worse than Absalom. Or else of Sodomites, buggerers, Meritorii, as they call them, men that have put off all manhood, and are become dogs, worse than dogs. "Am I a dog’ s head?" said Abner to Ishbosheth - that is, shamelessly lecherous. διατουακολαστουκαιδυσωδους. - Plut. Eλληνικ.

(18) The hire of a whore.—Even a lamb or a kid might not be sacrificed for them, if obtained as the wages of sin (Genesis 38:17). The price of a dog.—The ass might be redeemed with a lamb, and the lamb could be sacrificed. The dog could not be treated thus. Yet “the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” But there is a “dog that turns to his own vcmit again,” and of these it is written that “without are dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Revelation 22:15).

Verse 18. The hire of a whore, or the price of a dog] Many public prostitutes dedicated to their gods a part of their impure earnings; and some of these prostitutes were publicly kept in the temple of Venus Melytta, whose gains were applied to the support of her abominable worship.

Another Gentile practice, connected with the one alluded to in the preceding verse, is here forbidden. The word “dog” is figurative (compare Revelation 22:15), and equivalent to the “sodomite” of the verse preceding.

18. Thou shalt not bring the hire — The wages of prostitution were not, as among the heathen, to be devoted to religious purposes. The word rendered dog in our version is equivalent to the sodomite of the preceding verse.