With the beginning of a new section, Moses should be reintroduced as the speaker.

Testicles are crushed: this could have happened either by an accident or in battle. Good News Translation “has been castrated” is possible (Septuagint,Vulgate, also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum); most translations, however, are like Revised Standard Version, and translators should follow this interpretation.

Male member is cut off: New Revised Standard Version reflects modern American usage, “whose penis is cut off” (see also Good News Translation). Contemporary English Version uses the euphemism “private parts”: “If a man’s private parts have been crushed or cut off.” Translators should employ language that will not be offensive to the reader or hearer. Such men could not be priests (Lev 21.20).

Shall not enter the assembly of the LORD: this sounds like going into an assembly hall. But what it means is “shall not belong to the assembly” or “… the LORD’s people” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version). The Hebrew word qahal is translated in the Septuagint by ekklesia, which is the Greek word in the New Testament translated “church.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .