17 There shall be no prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
This passage is akin to the foregoing; for in the first clause He forbids that girls should be prostituted. Some think that a whore is called in Hebrew qdsh, kedeshah, because she is exposed to, and prepared for sin; [1] but her pollution, the opposite of sanctity, seems rather to be expressed by antiphrasis. At any rate, a precept of chastity is given, that it should not be lawful for unmarried girls to have connection with men. In the second clause there is some ambiguity, "There shall be no qds, kadesh, of the sons of Israel;" for in other passages it is clearly used for a catamite, or male harlot, but there is no reason why it should not be rendered a fornicator. In this sense the word seems to be used in the Book of Job: "The hypocrites shall die in youth, (or in the flower of their age,) and their life is among the qdsym, kedeshim," which is equivalent to their being infamous and shameful in life. (Job 36:14.) But if it be preferred to apply it to sodomy, all impurity is condemned by synecdoche
1 - The Hebrew verb qds has the double signification of sanctum esse and praeparare, (Taylor's Concordance,) though only, it would appear, to prepare by sanctifying.
Compare the marginal reference. Prostitution was a common part of religious observances among idolatrous nations, especially in the worship of Ashtoreth or Astarte. Compare Micah 1:7; Baruch 6:43.
There shall be no whore - See on Genesis 38:15-21 (note).
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel,.... The word for "whore" is "kedeshah", which properly signifies an "holy" one; and here, by an antiphrasis, an unholy, an impure person, one that is defiled by man; See Gill on Genesis 38:18. Jarchi interprets the word, one that makes herself common, that is sanctified, or set apart; that is, one that separates herself for such service, and prostitutes herself to everyone that passes by: but some understand this not of common harlots in the streets, but of sacred whores, or such as were consecrated to Heathen deities, as such there were to Venus. Strabo (x) tells us that the temple of Venus at Corinth was so rich, that more than a thousand of those sacred harlots were kept, whom men and women had devoted to that goddess; and so a multitude of the same sort were at Comana, which he calls little Corinth (y); now these of all harlots being the most abominable are forbidden to be among the daughters of Israel:
nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel: by the same rule that "kedeshah" is rendered "a whore" in the preceding clause, "kadesh" should be rendered "an whoremonger" here, as in the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions; though Aben Ezra interprets it passively, one that is lain with, and Jarchi one that is prepared to lie with a male, that prostitutes his body in this unnatural way; and it looks as if there were such sort of persons sacred to idols, since we read of the houses of the sodomites, which were by, or rather in the house of the Lord, 2-Kings 23:7.
(x) Geograph. l. 8. p. 261. (y) lb. l. 12. p. 385.
On the other hand, male and female prostitutes of Israelitish descent were not to be tolerated; i.e., it was not to be allowed, that either a male or female among the Israelites should give himself up to prostitution as an act of religious worship. The exclusion of foreign prostitutes was involved in the command to root out the Canaanites. קדּשׁ and קדשׁה were persons who prostituted themselves in the worship of the Canaanitish Astarte (see at Genesis 38:21). - "The wages of a prostitute and the money of dogs shall not come into the house of the Lord on account of (ל, for the more remote cause, Ewald, 217) any vow; for even both these (viz., even the prostitute and dog, not merely their dishonourable gains) are abomination unto the Lord thy God." "The hire of a whore" is what the kedeshah was paid for giving herself up. "The price of a dog" is not the price paid for the sale of a dog (Bochart, Spencer, Iken, Baumgarten, etc.), but is a figurative expression used to denote the gains of the kadesh, who was called κίναιδος by the Greeks, and received his name from the dog-like manner in which the male kadesh debased himself (see Revelation 22:15, where the unclean are distinctly called "dogs").
No whore - No common prostitute, such as were tolerated and encouraged by the Gentiles, and used even in their religious worship. Not that such practices were allowed to the strangers among them, as is evident from many scriptures and reasons, but that it was in a peculiar manner, and upon special reasons, forbidden to them, as being much more odious in them than in strangers.
*More commentary available at chapter level.