An old word with a hard edge, it appears only a few times in the King James Bible. Its best-known use is in Hebrews 12:8, where the writer says that if people are “without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” The point is that a father’s correction is a sign of belonging, not rejection. Zechariah 9:6 uses the word differently, of a mixed people living in Ashdod. To see the first sense in context, read Hebrews 12:5 through 11.
4 verses
And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.
And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
In the Old Testament the rendering of the Hebrew word mamzer’, which means “polluted.” In Deut. 23:2, it occurs in the ordinary sense of illegitimate offspring. In Zech. 9:6, the word is used in the sense of foreigner. From the history of Jephthah we learn that there were bastard offspring among the Jews (Judg. 11:1-7). In Heb. 12:8, the word (Gr. nothoi) is used in its ordinary sense, and denotes those who do not share the privileges of God’s children.
William Smith, 1884
Among those who were excluded from entering the congregation, even to the tenth generation, was the bastard. (23:2) The term is not, however, applied to any illegitimate offspring, born out of wedlock, but is restricted by the rabbins to the issue of any connection within the degrees prohibited by the law.