(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Deuteronomy 23:9–14, “When the host goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing. If there be among you any man, that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night, then shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall not come within the camp: But it shall be, when evening cometh on, he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again. Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.”
When the Lord told Abraham about the fact that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt, the Lord told him that the sin of the Amorites was not yet full. (Gen 15:16, “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”) This means that, by the time Israel reached the borders of the Promised Land their iniquity had reached the stage where Divine Judgment was necessary. In fact, as long as Israel kept being the source of blessing to all the families of the earth by keeping the covenant of the Land they would always be in a position to defend the Lord’s good Name and act as His agents of judgment in the world. If this was so, then they would have to make sure that each person in their armies was ceremonially clean before he went into battle to act as the Lord’s agent. The Lord HImself moved among His armies when they went into battle and we know that the Lord cannot look on iniquity. (Habakkuk 1:13, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?”) The Lord would no longer move among His people if they were not ceremonially pure and they would lose the battle rather than win victory and let their enemies know that the Lord is the Lord (compare, for example, Ex 7:5, “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.”) Any man in the army who was ceremonially unclean in any way was to leave the camp and not participate in the battle.
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