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VERSES ABOUT EUNUCHS

Deuteronomy 23:1, Isaiah 56:1-7, Acts 8:26-39

In chapter 2 we noted that eunuchs were the main group of gender variant people in biblical times, at least according to the biblical record. Since procreating was so necessary for Israel’s survival and thus highly valued in Jewish culture, to be castrated or to be a eunuch from birth and unable to produce heirs made one highly gender variant. In considering what the Scriptures have to say about eunuchs we may learn some principles relevant to gender variant people today.

DEUTERONOMY 23:1

In Deuteronomy 23:1 we find a verse prohibiting eunuchs from the assembly. Let’s consider this passage in its context.

¹No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.

²No one born of a forbidden marriage [footnote: or one of illegitimate birth] nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation.

³No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. ⁴For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. ⁵However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.

⁷Do not despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you resided as foreigners in their country. ⁸The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord. (Deut. 23:1–8)

The New International Version of the Bible, from which these verses are taken, introduces them with the heading “Exclusion from the Assembly” because this passage has to do with who was in and who was out—who was included and who was excluded from the “assembly,” the term for the sacred gathering of God’s people in that day, similar to the gathering of Christians for worship in churches today. During Israel’s early history, eunuchs and “foreigners” (all people who were not Israelites) were on the “excluded” list.

Was that prohibition binding for all time? No. Within scripture itself we see the prohibition regarding eunuchs and foreigners change over time.

ISAIAH 56:1–7

In Isaiah 56 the prophet writes about how God relates to all those whose actions show that they are following God, including eunuchs and foreigners, the very people who were excluded from the Lord’s assembly in Deuteronomy 23.

¹This is what the Lord says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed. ²Blessed is the one who does this—the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

³Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”

⁴For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—⁵to them I will give within my temples and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.

⁶And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—⁷these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. (Isa. 56:1–7)

Here the prophet Isaiah foretells a time when God will lift the prohibitions on those who were formerly outsiders and outcasts; all gender variant eunuchs and foreigners who love God will be honored and included in the assembly.

ACTS 8:26–39

Moving forward in Jewish history, we see this inclusion come to pass in the New Testament as the good news about Jesus begins to spread. Acts 8:26–39 tells the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.

²⁶Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship,

²⁸and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

³¹“How can I ,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³²This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

³³In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.”

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. (Acts 8:26–35)

It is important to note that this passage of scripture the eunuch is reading is the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, commonly known as the “Suffering Servant” passage because it foretells what happens during Jesus’s trial and crucifixion. I think it is also important to note that this Suffering Servant passage that the eunuch is reading occurs just three chapters before the preceding passage from Isaiah 56, where Isaiah foretold God’s acceptance of eunuchs. Since Acts 8:35 says that Philip began with that Suffering Servant passage of scripture from Isaiah 53, perhaps Philip ended up three chapters over, in Isaiah 56, telling the Ethiopian eunuch how Jesus demonstrated this radical welcome of eunuchs and foreigners that Isaiah foretold. It seems likely that Philip continued on to chapter 56 because of what happens next.

³⁶As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” (Acts 8:36)

The way the eunuch asks that question—“What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”—implies that this person is used to having people and things stand in the way of his full acceptance in society. The eunuch’s boldness in asking that question suggests that whatever Philip shared gave him the courage to believe that he, too, was loved and welcomed and accepted by God. Here’s how the story ends.

³⁸And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:38–39)

Here in the book of Acts, during the early days of the Christian Church, God’s desire to include eunuchs and foreigners in the assembly, foretold in Isaiah 56, comes to pass. A gender variant, probably black, African eunuch is baptized into the family of God!

THE SHIFT FROM EXCLUSION TO INCLUSION

Thus, the Bible clearly shows a change in attitude towards the inclusion of eunuchs in God’s assembly…from Deuteronomic prohibition, to Isaiah’s prophesy of inclusion, to the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch recounted in the book of Acts. Such a movement from exclusion to inclusion mirrors the entire contextual trajectory of the Scriptures in general.

Exclusions concerning Gentiles are another case in point. Much to the surprise of Jesus’ first Jewish followers, God breaks the barriers between Jews and Gentiles by baptizing Gentiles with the Holy Spirit, thus signifying God’s acceptance of them (Acts 10, 11, and 15). Likewise, one of the main reasons Jesus was crucified was because he chose to include people on the grounds of love instead of excluding them on the basis of the Old Testament law.

The fact that the Bible itself shows a historical movement and shift in the Israelites’ understanding of how God would have them relate to the gender variant people of their day suggests that God may also have an accepting, affirming, and inclusive attitude towards the gender variant people of our day. If that is God’s attitude, then gender variant people everywhere should rejoice, and those of us who profess to be Christ’s followers should exhibit the same acceptance, affirmation, and inclusion of gender nonconforming individuals that the Bible reveals.

WHY WERE THERE EXCLUSIVE LAWS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

This historical movement from exclusion to inclusion, which is prevalent in the Scriptures, causes me to wonder: “What was the basis for all those exclusions in the first place? Why were passages like Deuteronomy 23:1 ever even written?” In case you may also wonder about this, I offer my thoughts on what I have come to understand about this.

The biblical stories themselves testify that the Israelites were just one small tribe struggling for survival among other tribes, some of them much larger, that were fighting for the same territory they wanted to occupy. This means that the laws in Deuteronomy were given to people who struggled with the fear of being wiped out by their neighbors.

Those of us who have lived through or studied recent American history are familiar with the kind of exclusionary mentality that such fears create. Not so many years ago, when Americans felt threatened after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it became national policy to exclude Japanese Americans. Consequently, thousands of these innocent, loyal U.S. citizens were rounded up and sent to internment camps. Even more recently, after 9/11, we heard many stories of Middle Eastern– looking individuals who experienced harassment and detainment as a result of the fear that gripped our country. Likewise, we may have heard stories of first, second, and even third generation immigrant parents wanting their children to “marry their own kind” to help preserve their culture so it does not get lost in American culture, that is, become blended in with the “larger tribe.” Such thinking is humorously portrayed in the movies My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 1 and 2! These are contemporary examples of exclusionary actions that have resulted from threats to national security and cultural survival.

These examples help me understand the thinking that may have given rise to the exclusionary laws found in Deuteronomy and also in Leviticus. (See the next chapter for more about this.) Obviously the writers of the Old Testament believed they were writing God’s words to them and God’s will for them. Yet the New Testament reveals through Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, through the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Gentiles that inclusion, not exclusion, is God’s will. Consequently, these ancient Israelites may have been hearing God’s word to them through the lens of their own fears, so they wrote that it was God’s will that they exclude others…a perspective God later corrected through Isaiah, Jesus, and the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

This is not to say that the Bible is not God’s Word, that it is merely the words of people. No. I suggest this perspective because the Bible itself testifies that God can only give God’s people what they are able to accept. This principle is revealed in 1 Samuel 8 when God tells Samuel that God’s intent was to be Israel’s one and only king. However, because Israel rejected Yahweh and served other gods, Yahweh allowed them to have a human king. In the same way, perhaps God was aware that, because of their fears and insecurities, the Israelites would only be able to accept exclusionary, “circle the wagons,” “take care of me and mine” rules and regulations, so God allowed that, as a less than best option. Then, in the fullness of time, God revealed God’s true intent, through Isaiah and through the Word made flesh: God’s intention to include all people in God’s assembly, to include foreigners and eunuchs, the Gentiles, and the gender variant.

This is just one explanation for why we see in scripture a movement from the exclusion of eunuchs in God’s assembly to the inclusion of eunuchs in the family of God. In the next chapter I will suggest another possible reason for this change. While these speculations have value, the most important thing for us to keep in mind is that a significant change did occur; the Ethiopian eunuch, a member of the gender variant, foreign outcasts described in the Old Testament, was welcomed as a baptized follower of Christ in the New Testament.