beardless man mixes easily with women to commit adultery. Ibn Ezra adds an interesting observation that this rule is not only the custom of Israel but of most people.” All these interpretations are based in the rabbinic extension of the verse.
A key to understanding our verse is the concluding phrase that tells us that such behavior is“abhorrent to the Lord your God .”“Abhorrent”(earlier translations say“an abomination”), is used to describe a number of forbidden practices. Louis Epstein speaks for many modern scholars of an earlier generation when he informs us with certitude:“The obvious meaning [of“abomination”] is a prohibition against the practice of homosexuality in any form, with which is generally associated wearing the garment of the opposite sex.”® Von Rad tells us that the expression“denotes cultic taboos which endanger the religion of Yahweh” and goes on to say that“we learn from a later source (Lucian of Samosata ) that in the worship of Astarte such masquerading took place.”” Eissfeldt comments that the editors of Deuteronomy took an expression that had been in local use and adopted it to emphasize the purity of the Yahweh cult.®
Moshe Weinstein makes a thorough investigation of the expression. He tells us that in the task of investigating all the occurrences of the phrase by examining its subject matter, its
“connection with miscellaneous moral, religious, and cultic interdictions... can be of little help ascertaining its original cultic significance. We shall learn more by investigating the general nature of the individual malefactions than from their specific subject-matter. Now the general feature common to them all is the two-facedness or hypocritical attitude of the malefactor.... It is this two facedness or false pretensions assumed when dealing with one’s fellow man or in the execution of one’s sacrificial dues that is an abomination to God .”
To Weinfeld, Deuteronomy is influenced by the Wisdom tradition of the Tanakh. He identifies a spirit in the book that he calls“humanism.” Part of the humanistic broadening of the law is its inclusion of women in laws concerning both interpersonal and cultic matters. Weinfeld is only partially helpful by changing the direction in our search for the meaning of“abomination unto the Lord.” Cross dressing is certainly a form of two-facedness, pretending to be what one is not. But it must mean more,