The book of Deuteronomy contains a stern prohibition of allowing Moabites or Ammonites into "the assembly of the Lord", yet Ruth is said to be the great-grandmother of King David, not exactly someone shunned from Yahweh's assembly. Should he have been, according to Deuteronomy? The degree to which and duration for which the Moabites were not to be treated in an entirely identical manner to other foreigners, which is in turn how Israelites are to be treated since all people are humans with the same rights and obligations (Leviticus 19:33-34, Numbers 15:15-16), are not what many claim. The reasons why the Old Testament does not contradict itself on Moabite exclusion and inclusion are nuanced, but nonetheless simple due to the logical necessities that link one concept or text to another.
Below are the central passages:
Deuteronomy 23:3-6--"No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam and turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live."
Ruth 1:4, 22--"They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth . . . So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was begining."
Ruth 4:13, 16-17--"So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son . . . Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, 'Naomi has a son!' And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David."
The truth of the matter relates to many key points about what is and is not being said, the length of the obligatory exclusion from God's assembly, and the fact that mere behavior in a narrative does not contradict that behavior being condemned elsewhere (though Ruth and the Israelites who welcome her are not sinning). For one thing, I want to point out the very narrow scope of the Deuteronomy 23:3-6 commands one way or another. The text does not say to kill Moabites or Ammonites on sight (see Deuteronomy 2:9 as well) or do things to them that the Torah elsewhere condemns as inherent sins (Exodus 20:15, Deuteronomy 24:14-15, and so on). Nor does it permit them without utter prescription. All it literally commands about the Moabites is to not include them in the assembly of God or make a national treaty with them for ten generations. Adherents of Rabbinic Judaism, that incredibly irrationalistic and unbiblical worldview, however, mistook this for a sexist passage--they believe that Deuteronomy prohibits only male Moabites and Ammonites from this privilege but does not apply to women.
Even if this did not contradict the Bible, it would contradict logic, for sexism is irrational and unjust: there is no valid stereotype of men or women, since gender is only a type of physical body, and something doable by either gender could not be immoral for only one of them. Indeed, though contradicting logic is far more important since this alone renders something inherently impossible, everything about this is Biblically erroneous. The real reasons why Deuteronomy 23 does not contradict Ruth have nothing to do with sexism. It is not that Ruth has the right to mingle fully with the Israelites because she is a woman, which would be absolutely sexist against men.
Still, since these distorters of Judaism think the "masculine" language referring to Moabites in the original Hebrew means women are excluded from the meaning despite how the verses never differentiate between men and women, let us explore why they are linguistically incorrect anyway. Explicitly male words like "man" and "his" absolutely can and often do refer to men and women alike, and sometimes both are mentioned and then referred to in male terms. For just a handful of verses displaying this trend while speaking of moral obligations (all in same the Torah as Deuteronomy 23, not even counting other Old Testament books), see Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27, Leviticus 13:29-39, Numbers 5:5-10, 6:1-21, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, and 15:12-18 in older or more word-for-word translations like the King James Version. Male words do not in themselves logically require that whatever is said is not meant for or applicable to women as well, regardless of the Bible, but the Old Testament uses male language like this rather frequently, directly specifying that women are included.
Certainly, sexist fools have selectively and erroneously tried to pretend like Biblical verses include or exclude women in accordance with whatever their personal or cultural philosophical assumptions are, not in accordance with what does and does not logically follow from the literal concepts articulated or what other parts of the Bible already illuminate about this. These Rabbis and their philosophical blunders are stupid on every possible level, though Rabbinic Jews must all but revere them if they choose to hold to the illogical and unbiblical societal conditioning they face. If forbidding Moabite men from the assembly but allowing Moabite women is not why there is no contradiction in the Old Testament on the inclusion of Moabites, then, what is?
People not obeying their moral obligations as described in Mosaic Law does not contradict the idea that the Law is correct, so Deuteronomy 23 and Ruth 4 do not conflict on this level. Perhaps some moral philosophy other than the one in the Torah is truly correct, yes. In this case, people could still disregard or actively trample upon any given obligation, and this would not nullify the obligation itself. But the obligation to keep Moabites out of the assembly of God nonetheless is put forth in Deuteronomy 23 itself as having a time-restricted nature. The tenth generation really is the tenth generation. After this, Moabites are free to fully coexist among the Israelites like other foreigners. The tenth generation is not presented as a euphemism for an indefinite number of generations, as many hold, which would absolutely then contradict Leviticus 19:33-34 and many other such verses as it is.
Even aside from the clear limitation on how long this exclusion from Yahweh's assembly was to last, do not assume that that the phrase "as long as you live" in the NIV must refer to all Israelite generations without a limit. The word forever is how other translations state this part ("for ever" in translations like the KJV), but in no way does this have to mean literally forever. See Exodus 21:5-6 and even Deuteronomy 15:16-17 in the very same book, which are clearly speaking of at most a particular person's lifetime using this wording, as a servant who declares lifelong commitment to their master/mistress is not said to either have eternal life in this world or remain a perpetual slave in some afterlife in order to continue their servitude. Then there is Jonah 2:6, where the prophet Jonah's relatively brief time in the ocean before being swallowed by a giant sea creature is called "for ever" or "forever" depending on the translation. Obviously, neither of these situations involved any sort of unending duration. The same could be true of Deuteronomy 23 from this alone aside from the boundary of the tenth generation.
Inside and outside the Bible's teachings, there is simply nothing correct about the philosophical foundations of the stance of Rabbinic Judaism on Moabites and the assembly of Yahweh. Certain common or historically impactful interpretations of Deuteronomy 23 absolutely contradict both logic and the Bible, including Deuteronomy 23! The passage teaches nothing racist or sexist. If it did, that would not make racism or sexism valid. Logic would render this part of Biblical philosophy false. Perhaps nothing is in reality good or evil, but logical contradictions cannot be true, and actions that can be done by anyone are by nature good or evil for anyone. Morality is Biblically universal (Leviticus 20:22-24, Deuteronomy 9:5-6, 18:9-13, and many more): Moabites are not subhuman and do not have more or fewer obligations or human rights than Jews. Ruth is not an exception to some eternally inferior Moabite status because of her gender and she is not lesser than Israelites because of her ancestry, and David is not an imposter king of Israel because he is descended from her.
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