Cross dressing to get out of war - Deuteronomy 22:5

I've been marking this week, and the set passage includes a verse which people often laugh about because it's so weird. It's the (in)famous prohibition against cross-dressing, which is normally translated as follows:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this. (NIV11)

It's a pretty straightforward verse, two parallel clauses followed by an explanation:

A     A woman must not wear men's clothing
A`    and a man must not wear women's clothing
B            for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.

But when we dig into the Hebrew there are a couple of extra features which are obscured by the translation:

1. The word order in the first two clauses is (1) prohibition, (2) man, (3) woman. The only real difference is the placement of the word for clothing (which are different, see below), which in A comes between (1) and (2), and in A` comes between (2) and (3). 
2. The word for clothing is different. In A the word is כלי, which is elsewhere translated vessel/cup or weapon or article. In A` the word is an unremarkable word for clothing/garment.
3. The word for man, in contrast with the usual word for woman or wife, אשׁה ('ishsha), is not, as we might expect, אישׁ ('ish) or even the broader אדם ('adam), but גבר (gever), a word which often has militaristic connotations - "warrior" works well in lots of contexts.
4. The word for getting dressed is only there in A`, it's just the verb "to be" in A. 

All this suggests to me that perhaps it's not (just) a command against cross-dressing, although that wouldn't be massively out of place in the Pentateuch, especially when you consider other commands against gender confusion (note that in a few verses the command will be against unnaturally mixing seed, animals and fabric). But additionally, I think that there's a very real possibility that preparations for war are on the horizon, as they are about to cross over to take the promised land by force. Rather than a man's clothing, it could be the armour or weaponry of a (male) warrior. As such, the verse could reasonably translated to prohibit women from fighting in the place of men, and to warn men against escaping by cross-dressing:

A     The equipment of a man shall not be upon a woman,
A'     and a man shall not dress [in] garments of a woman
B            For an abomination [against] Yhwh your God [are] all these deeds.

Mulan, then, would be in trouble, and while Mrs Doubtfire might not be the explicit target, trying to get out of wartime duties by cross-dressing is an abomination to Yhwh.

Duane Christensen (WBC) notes that these chapters are focussed around "four central issues: warfare, marriage, social ethics, and humanitarian commands." (2002; p466) This verse then could be not so much about marriage as it is about warfare, shaping Israel to be a nation who are prepared to fight for the land to which Yhwh has brought them.

Anzac Day and Qohelet

I often feel guilty on Anzac day. I've never fought in war; my immediate line includes only a grandfather who went to Darwin a bit too late for anything of consequence. For 30 years I've stayed away from the marches; even then I was on duty for any of the onlookers who might need a bandaid. I occasionally watch the Gallipoli dawn service, because at least that's on at a reasonable hour. But for the last few years,  nothing. 

But as the years go by, so increases my cynicism. I saw a picture of my cousin marching - why? For whom? Where did he get those medals? And why is the only mention of this rich history he feels he belongs to a secret the rest of the year, discoverable only through a facebook post? (He may have good reason - we've just never talked about it!)

But then I think about the causes of war, and with the rare exception, they're meaningless. Chasing land, resources, energy, prestige. At best, a principle misunderstood by most and forgotten not long into it. At least in the good old days, the kings and generals were in the fight and a loss would mean their life. 

But wars are fought and won and lost and life just goes on around it all. Death, disease, rape, pillage, destruction, PTSD, buried and forgotten landmines, retributive attacks… and then, once you've buried your dead, you are all supposed to get back to whatever life is left to you. 

I don't mean to say war isn't inevitable, but when is it ever best? When does it ever achieve what it's supposed to? Seriously, think back to any war you can, and when did it achieve good? It may have gone some ways to halting great evil, but did it bring about good? 

Reading the book of Ecclesiastes these last weeks has forced me to reflect on what we can actually grasp hold of - what is not just a chasing after wind? And whatever it is we seek in war, it always turns out to be such a task - trying to hold on to something intangible and elusive. 

So today we had lunch with family and friends. We made the most of life under the sun, because, despite the glory of the Commando comics I devoured as a child, war is hell, and life is too short to spend it fighting someone else's fight.