THE GEAR OF A MAN — two words that stand in one verse of the Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 22:5, and carry the whole difficulty of the cross-dressing law. ⭐ Keli is Hebrew's broadest word for a made thing — a vessel, a tool, a weapon, a piece of equipment; it is the word for the temple's vessels. It is NOT a clothing word, and the clause does not use a wearing verb either: it says keli gever shall not BE UPON a woman. The verse's second half is built differently — there a man may not WEAR (yilbash) a woman's simlah, a named garment. ⚠ Because of that asymmetry the verse has been read as three separate laws: against costume, against a woman bearing arms, and against a cultic transvestism attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East. This project does not choose between them. ⚠ Gever is not the neutral ish but the word for a man in his strength. ⭐ The shelf keeps the asymmetry in its older witnesses and loses it in the newer ones, version by version: 'that which pertaineth unto a man' against 'a woman's garment' (KJV, ASV), 'garb' against 'mantle' (NWT 1984), «hábito» against «ropa» (RV 1909) — and then 'the clothing of a man' / 'the clothing of a woman' in the NWT 2013, «ropa» / «ropa» in the NVI, and 'men's clothing' / 'women's clothing' in the NIV. → first discussed at Deut 22:5