“Cover up your excrement”
when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement.… For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. (Deuteronomy 23:13–14 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A crude, out-of-place rule about toilet habits.
The cultural key
The striking thing is the reason attached to this sanitation rule. Soldiers were to carry a digging tool, go outside the camp to relieve themselves, and bury their waste. Practically, this is sound hygiene, but the Law gives a theological motive: 'the LORD your God walks throughout your camp,' so 'your camp must be holy,' lest He 'see anything indecent among you and turn away.' The idea is that God is genuinely present with His people, moving among them as their protector and warrior, and His holy presence sanctifies everything, right down to the latrine. Nothing, not even the most private and undignified bodily function, is outside the reach of reverence when the holy God dwells in the midst of the camp. It reflects a whole worldview in which the sacred and the everyday are not separated: holiness governs even sanitation because God is really there. A modern reader is surprised to find toilet rules in Scripture; the first hearers heard that God's nearness makes even this holy ground.
Recovered meaning
Waste was buried because God Himself was present, 'walking' in the camp, so even sanitation fell under holiness; nothing indecent should be in His sight. Reverence extended to the most ordinary and private acts because the holy God was genuinely there.