Ruth and the Law of Assembly

3 “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, 4 because they did not 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. 5 But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you. 6 You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.

In his book Old Testament Narrative Books: The Israel Story (review soon), Gary Schnittjer believes that this law was not to be understood literally, neither racially nor ethnically. If so, not only would Ruth and her family have been excluded from Israel, but so would her great-grandson David.

Schnittjer writes, “This would erase the Davidic covenant and its hopes for a son of God to rule forever” (155). The Old Testament shows that this law is not about ethnic Moabites and Ammonites, but “people who act treacherously, like the ancient Moabites when they refused to provide food for Israel and hired Balaam to damn them” (Deut 23:4–5, p.155).

We ought to look at whom this law is applied:

• The Babylonians who destroyed the temple of Yahweh.
  • Lamentations 1:10
    The enemy has stretched out his hands
    over all her precious things;
    for she has seen the nations
    enter her sanctuary,
    those whom you forbade
    to enter your congregation.
  • Isaiah 52:1
    Awake, awake,
    put on your strength, O Zion;
    put on your beautiful garments,
    O Jerusalem, the holy city;
    for there shall no more come into you
        the uncircumcised and the unclean.
• Any foreigner who rejected God’s covenant.
  • Nehemiah 13:1–3
    1 On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3 As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.

Just as Paul wrote that not all Israel is Israel (Rom 9:6), not all Moabites are Moabites. Unlike the unwelcoming Moabites of Deuteronomy 23:3–4, Ruth acted with hospitality by providing grain for Naomi. And although she was born in Moab, she placed herself under the Lord’s covenant (Ruth 1:16-17; 2:18) and became part of his people.

See my review (upcoming) of Gary Schnittjer’s Old Testament Narrative Books: The Israel Story!

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