UPDV Updated Bible Version

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Sissy: What Deuteronomy 23:18 Actually Says

You will not bring the wages of a whore, or the price of a sissy, into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow: for both of them alike are disgusting to Yahweh your God. – Deuteronomy 23:18

The word 'sissy' in the UPDV translates the Hebrew כֶּלֶב (kelev), which literally means 'dog.' The KJV and ASV kept 'dog'; the NIV, NRSV, and NET render 'male prostitute.' In the structure of Deuteronomy 23:17–18, 'dog' is read here as a contemptuous epithet for the male counterpart to the whore.

🔗What the Verse Itself Says

Read the two verses together:

17 There will not be a pagan whore among the daughters of Israel, neither will there be a pagan whore among the sons of Israel. 18 You will not bring the wages of a whore, or the price of a sissy, into the house of Yahweh your God for any vow: for both of them alike are disgusting to Yahweh your God.

The sequence supports a four-slot reading. Verse 17 explicitly pairs the female qedeshah with the male qadesh. Verse 18 then pairs אֶתְנַן זוֹנָה, 'the wages of a whore,' with מְחִיר כֶּלֶב, 'the price of a dog.' Read with verse 17, the second pair continues the female-male movement, and 'dog' functions as a contemptuous counterpart rather than another occupational title. Van der Toorn reads the second pair as the male counterpart of the first: for him the 'dog,' 'a euphemism for the catamite,' parallels the qadesh.5 Thomas equates the two outright: כֶּלֶב 'is equivalent to קָדֵשׁ,' 'a sacred person, a male prostitute.'2 Alter separately judges the qadesh 'in all likelihood' a male prostitute and considers 'dog' more probably a contemptuous term for that qadesh.8

Bird points to a biblical parallel: when Ahab's chariot is washed, 'the dogs licked up his blood (now the whores washed themselves [there])' (1 Kings 22:38). She calls dogs and prostitutes there 'the ultimate symbols of dishonor.'7

That parallel supports the contempt register; the four-slot reading supplies the male identification. Together they support the UPDV's reading of the 'dog' as a man whose sexual earnings are as shameful as a whore's.

🔗What the Verdict Word Means

Deuteronomy does not merely call the offering wrong. It calls it תּוֹעֵבָה (to'evah), 'disgusting,' a word the book uses for idols and their silver (7:25–26), child burning (12:31), blemished sacrifices (17:1), divination (18:9–12), a man in a woman's garment (22:5), this offering, remarriage after an intervening marriage (24:4), and false weights (25:13–16). Weinfeld argues that the common feature is 'the two-faced or hypocritical attitude of the malefactor,' and he lists this verse among 'sacral offerings financed from the earnings of sacral prostitutions.'6

The nearest parallel in Deuteronomy is one chapter earlier: 'A woman will not wear that which pertains to a man, neither will a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is disgusting to Yahweh your God' (22:5). The two passages share the same verdict and, on this reading, the same gender-role logic.

Leviticus supplies the Pentateuchal language for the gendered sexual role: 'You will not plow a male as one plows a female: it is disgusting' (18:22); 'both of them have done something disgusting' (20:13). Olyan and Walsh disagree about which party the Leviticus law originally addressed, but both analyze the receptive position as the woman's part.3 On this reading, Deuteronomy's 'dog' belongs to that Pentateuchal register: a male who takes the female-coded role and whose earnings are rejected as disgusting.

🔗Comparative Evidence

Mesopotamia knew a class of Ishtar's cult personnel called the assinnu. The Erra epic describes men whom Ishtar changed from men into women, and one omen speaks of a man having intercourse with an assinnu. Greenberg and Burns argue that these sources describe a feminized sexual role.19

🔗The Septuagint Preserves Both Dimensions

The Septuagint renders Deuteronomy 23:17–18 (MT 23:18–19) with a double approach:

  • v. 17: קְדֵשָׁה → πόρνη (pornē, 'whore') + τελεσφόρος (telesphoros, 'initiated one')
  • v. 17: קָדֵשׁ → πορνεύων (porneuōn, 'one who whores') + τελισκόμενος (teliskomenos, 'one being consecrated')
  • v. 18: זוֹנָה → μίσθωμα πόρνης (misthōma pornēs, 'payment of a whore')
  • v. 18: כֶּלֶב → ἄλλαγμα κυνός (allagma kynos, 'price of a dog')10

The translators gave the qedeshah and qadesh both sexual and cultic language, but left the 'dog' literal. Hosea 4:14 makes the same distinction between זוֹנוֹת (zonot, 'whores') and קְדֵשׁוֹת (qedeshot, 'consecrated women').

🔗Why 'Pagan Whore' and 'Sissy'

🔗קְדֵשָׁה / קָדֵשׁ → 'pagan whore'

The UPDV renders both the feminine and masculine forms as 'pagan whore.' This preserves:

  • the sexual dimension, because the surrounding biblical contexts pair these terms with זנה (zanah) language;
  • the cultic dimension, because 'pagan' marks the cult as foreign even when the practice appears among the sons and daughters of Israel;
  • one English label for the masculine and feminine lexemes. The forms at 1 Kings 14:24 and 22:46 are collective masculine singulars; those at 15:12 and 2 Kings 23:7 are masculine plurals.

Older English versions rendered the masculine form as 'sodomite(s)' (KJV, ASV). The UPDV instead represents the sexual and cultic dimensions of the Hebrew term.

🔗כֶּלֶב → 'sissy'

The UPDV renders כֶּלֶב (kelev) as 'sissy' for two reasons:

First, on the four-slot reading, the Hebrew author uses a contemptuous epithet. There, 'dog' identifies a person and supplies the contempt. 'Male cult prostitute' describes the role but loses the register. The UPDV uses a contempt-word to preserve the source's register.

Second, this reading identifies the 'dog' as the passive partner. Alter argues that the male obligation to attend the sanctuary makes the qadesh likely a male prostitute.8 Brunet and Burns argue that this male seller served male buyers in the receptive role. Brunet put the point in classical terms: the qadesh 'was not an erastes: he was an éromène. Like the qedeshah, he held the passive role' (translated from French).4 Burns argued from the canine epithet and submissive posture to 'the passive homosexual prostitute proffering his backside for penetration.'9 'Sissy' names that role: a male in the receptive, female-coded position, viewed with contempt by the author.

The Deuteronomy footnote identifies the literal 'dog,' links this article, and points to Revelation 22:15. Revelation carries the reciprocal pointer and article link. The cross-testament echo is visible in both text and footnote.

🔗See Also

1 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, vol. 1, A, part 2 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1968), 341, s.v. assinnu; Beatrice A. Brooks, 'Fertility Cult Functionaries in the Old Testament,' Journal of Biblical Literature 60 (1941): 227–253, at 250; David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), chapter 3, at 96–101.

2 D. Winton Thomas, 'Kelebh "Dog": Its Origin and Some Usages of It in the Old Testament,' Vetus Testamentum 10 (1960): 410–427, at 425.

3 Saul M. Olyan, '"And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman": On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13,' Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 179–206; Jerome T. Walsh, 'Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: Who Is Doing What to Whom?' Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 201–209.

4 Gilbert Brunet, 'L'hébreu kèlèb,' Vetus Testamentum 35 (1985): 485–488, at 488.

5 Karel van der Toorn, 'Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel,' Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989): 193–205, at 201.

6 Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 267–269; quotation from 268.

7 Phyllis Bird, 'Of Whores and Hounds: A New Interpretation of the Subject of Deuteronomy 23:19,' Vetus Testamentum 65 (2015): 352–364.

8 Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019), note on Deuteronomy 23:18–19.

9 John Barclay Burns, 'Devotee or Deviate: The "Dog" (keleb) in Ancient Israel as a Symbol of Male Passivity and Perversion,' Journal of Religion & Society 2 (2000): 1–10, at 1, 2–3 and 7–8 (abstract; paras. 5, 17–19).

10 Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart, eds., Septuaginta, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006), Deuteronomy 23:18–19; Hosea 4:14.