H1: Two Steps to Keep the Army Camp Pure (Deuteronomy 23:9)
Because the strength of God’s army lay in God Himself, not in the physical prowess of its combatants, it makes sense that the camp itself must be kept pure.
Moses argues in this passage that God Himself “walks in the midst of the camp” (Deuteronomy 23:14). However, most scholars don’t believe this refers to the direct presence of the Lord (à la Adam and Eve) as much as it does to His understood presence (Deuteronomy 20:4).
For that reason, Moses sets a few rules in place to maintain camp purity.
The first regards “nocturnal emissions” (Deuteronomy 23:10). This should come as no surprise since Leviticus 15 deals with this at length, and the regulations are similar to this one in Deuteronomy: bathing and unclean til sundown.
Where this Text builds on this idea is in the “nocturnal” part of it, which refers to unintentional nocturnal emissions. Since men were already told to keep themselves from women during wartime (1 Samuel 21:5; 2 Samuel 11:11), this law protects the holiness of the camp during these less frequent moments of uncleanliness.
The second rule that Moses puts in place concerns human waste. Surprisingly, excrement doesn’t elicit the same type of impurity that emissions do. It’s an “indecent” thing, but not necessarily an “impure” thing. God does want every soldier in the camp to have a shovel, though, so that when the event occurs, they can bury it underground.
On a practical level, this command predates, by centuries at least, any form of modern-day latrine system. In fact, what Moses tells the army here is more akin to the “leave no trace” rule that many hikers and campers abide by in nature. Whatever you take into the field with you comes out; that which can’t be taken out is usually covered up.
In contrast, most ancient armies simply allowed their soldiers to walk away from camp, take care of business, and leave it unattended. As you can imagine, this setup would undoubtedly cause disease, which could decimate an entire army. The simple fact of burying it in the ground saved countless lives.
To our modern eyes, these two rules may or may not seem like rocket science. But to a nation like the Israelites, they were just a few of the many ways that holiness was maintained among a holy army.