Ruth 1 · a question people ask
Ruth is from Moab. Doesn't the Law keep Moabites out of the LORD's assembly?
The Law says, "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever" (Deuteronomy 23:3). It gives the reasons: "because they didn’t meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam" (Deuteronomy 23:4). (Where Moab came from is told in Genesis 19:37.) Ruth was one of "the women of Moab" (1:4), and she said, "Your people will be my people, and your God my God" (1:16). The book of Ruth never mentions Deuteronomy 23. It calls her "Ruth the Moabitess" (1:22), and it ends with her son Obed, "the father of Jesse, the father of David" (4:17). Christians hold these together in two main ways. Both agree on what the text shows: a woman of Moab took the LORD as her God and was received in Israel.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The law kept out Moab as a people
Those who read it this way note that the reasons given are what Ammon and Moab did as peoples: "they didn’t meet you with bread and with water" and "they hired against you Balaam" (Deuteronomy 23:4). Ruth left Moab and took the LORD as her God (1:16), and Boaz later blesses her as one who has come to the LORD, "under whose wings you have come to take refuge" (2:12). They hold that the law kept out Moab, not one who had left Moab to join herself to the LORD, and point to the LORD's word through Isaiah: "Let no foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD speak, saying, ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people.’" (Isaiah 56:3).
Deuteronomy 23:4 · Ruth 1:16 · Ruth 2:12 · Isaiah 56:3
Mercy beyond what the law allowed
Those who read it this way take "forever" (Deuteronomy 23:3) as it stands, as the people did in Nehemiah's day when "it was found written in it that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever" (Nehemiah 13:1). They hold that Ruth's place in Israel is the LORD's own doing, pointing to "the LORD enabled her to conceive" (4:13) and to the women's words, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you today without a near kinsman" (4:14), and read her story as the LORD's mercy reaching one the law kept out.
Deuteronomy 23:3 · Nehemiah 13:1-3 · Ruth 4:13-14
The verses
“An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever, because they didn’t meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”
“The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day.”
“They took for themselves wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years.”
“Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God.”