Verse 18
18. Blemish The blemishes may be classified as 1.) essential physical defects, rendering the adequate performance of the service impossible, and 2.) aesthetical defects, where the powers may be unimpaired but the appearance is repulsive. Of the former are the blind, the lame, and various kinds of maimed.
A flat nose Furst, following the Seventy, renders it snub-nosed. The Vulgate has three nasal blemishes, si parvo, vel grandi, vel torto naso, “if he has a small, or a huge, or a twisted nose.”
Superfluous The original occurs elsewhere only in Leviticus 22:23, and Isaiah 28:20, and seems to signify limbs disproportioned in length. The Vulgate limits it to the nose. The Seventy translates it “with the ears cropped or slit.” The Targum of Palestine says, “mutilated in the thigh.”
Keil inclines to our English rendering any thing superfluous, as more than ten fingers or toes, or any thing beyond what is normal, such as an ill-formed bodily member.
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