Bastard

In the Old Testament the rendering of the Hebrew word mamzer', which means "polluted." In Deut. 23:2, it occurs in the ordinary sense of illegitimate offspring. In Zech. 9:6, the word is used in the sense of foreigner. From the history of Jephthah we learn that there were bastard offspring among the Jews (Judg. 11:1-7). In Heb. 12:8, the word (Gr. nothoi) is used in its ordinary sense, and denotes those who do not share the privileges of God's children.

one born out of wedlock. A bastard among the Greeks was despised, and exposed to public scorn, on account of his spurious origin. In Persia the son of a concubine is never placed on a footing with the legitimate offspring; any attempt made by parental fondness to do so would be resented by the relations of the legitimate wife, and outrage the feelings of a whole tribe. The Jewish father bestowed as little attention on the education of his natural children as the Greek: he seems to have resigned them, in a great measure, to their own inclinations; he neither checked their passions, nor corrected their faults, nor stored their minds with useful knowledge. This is evidently implied in these words of the Apostle: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons,” Heb. xii, 7, 8. To restrain the licentious desires of the heart, Yahweh by an express law fixed a stigma upon the bastard, which was not to be removed till the tenth generation; and to show that the precept was on no account to be violated, or suffered to fall into disuse, it is emphatically repeated, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord,” Deut. xxiii, 2.