An Ammonite or Moabite shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah; even their tenth generation shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah for ever;
Deuteronomy 23 lists who may and may not enter the assembly of the LORD, which older translations call the congregation. Here the door is shut on two neighbouring nations, and not for a season but "forever." The verses that follow give the reason. Scripture later shows what happened when grace met a woman born under this ban.
This assembly is God's own. One writer names what fits it and what does not, and draws a line between two ways God acts.
Here Jehovah names certain things that cannot fit with their place and relationship to Him. They must behave in a way that suits His congregation... Jehovah does not forget where it is a matter of government. He does forget — and that is exactly what He does — when it is a question of grace... So we see that this is not a question of hatred on our part. It is a question of being subject to God, taking the direction of our thoughts from His word, and forming our judgments and our conduct by it.
The next verses give the reason. These nations hired Balaam to curse Israel. That is why the ban falls on them, and why other nations fare better.
They are not condemned for their birth as such. They are condemned for their hostility to the true people of God, and for hiring Balaam to curse. But in the same way the false professing Christian, like an Ammonite or a Moabite, shows his birth today. The Edomite is the simple natural man, and for him there is more hope. The Egyptian is placed with him. Yet only in the third generation — dead and risen with Christ — could they enter the congregation of the Lord.
This word still bound Israel a thousand years later. One writer explains why time changed nothing.
These things had happened about a thousand years earlier. The passing of time in no way lessened the guilt of Ammon and Moab. God's sentence against them still stood, because God does not change, and because a thousand years are as one day to Him. We often think that a past sin against Christ and against His people simply drops out of sight, as it would in human affairs. Why bring these things up, we ask? They happened so long ago that no one remembers them... But we forget that we must look at the question from God's point of view. This was a case of not counting these two peoples as part of the congregation of the Lord.
Ruth was a Moabite woman. Her name stands in the family line of David and of Christ. One writer asks which woman in that line the law barred.
Ruth lay under the ban of the law. It is striking that it was this devoted, this lovely woman to whom the law applied — not Rahab, nor even Tamar. In this way God showed clearly what the law is like. It was not brought in to condemn the sinner and the prostitute, where people's minds would have put it. It was brought in as the very thing that would have shut out a Ruth, even with all her devotion to God. This taught plainly that it was man as man who was shut out from God — not merely in his sins, but in his righteousness.
But the ban did not have the last word. In her case the count of generations ran the other way.
But the law does not keep Ruth out. Moabite as she is, she does enter into the congregation of the Lord. The law is set aside on her behalf. Her descendants are not shut out to the tenth generation. Instead, her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne.
One writer turns this law on the reader. Ruth had no claim on Boaz's kindness, and neither has anyone else on God's.
What then could she have expected from Boaz but to be rebuked and driven out of his field? That same stern law cursed the Moabites and shut them out of blessing. It curses us all too, and shuts heaven against us... But thank God! The law "given through Moses" condemns the sinner. Yet "grace and truth" came through Jesus Christ, and they save him when he trusts that gracious Saviour... By nature she was a cursed Moabite, but her faith had saved her. The law condemned her, and faith justified her.
- Government — God shuts this door as ruler over His own assembly. In grace He acts another way: there He forgets.
- Ground — The ban rests on hostility to God's people, not on bloodline. Edomites and Egyptians met more hope, and could enter in the third generation.
- Memory — A thousand years later the guilt stood unchanged. Time does not shrink a wrong done to God.
- Reversal — Ruth the Moabite was the very person this law shut out. Grace brought her in, and her third generation sat on the throne.
- Ourselves — The same law that closed the congregation to Moab shuts heaven against us all. What opened it for Ruth opens it now: trust in a Saviour who saves those with no claim.
because they met you not with bread and with water on the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor, of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.
Deuteronomy 23:4 gives the reasons Ammon and Moab were shut out of the assembly of the Lord. One charge is a kindness they withheld. The other is a curse they paid for.
The verse names a failure first, then an attack. One writer takes them in that order.
God has a twofold controversy with Moab concerning the people of Israel. First, they did not meet Israel with bread and water on the way out of Egypt. Second, they hired Balaam to curse Israel (Deut. 23:4). We learn from this that sin can be negative as well as positive. He who neglects to do the will of God is as real a sinner as he who openly defies it.
But Moab did more than withhold food and water. The same writer shows what was really at stake in the hire of Balaam.
But these enemies went further. There was not mere neglect but also open hostility... So Balak and Balaam, stirred up by Satan, raised a great question against the people of Israel. It is important that we understand it, for it touches us closely... What was the record of those forty years? On Jehovah's part, goodness, faithfulness and patience; on the people's part, unbelief, ingratitude and persistent disobedience. With such a record, could the people be cursed? Could Jehovah be persuaded to cast Israel aside? This was the question raised and answered in the plains of Moab.
The word "hired" points to a man who could be bought. Balak paid before a word was spoken.
Balak's messengers went to Mesopotamia "with the fees for divination in their hand" (Num. 22:7). Balak knew that the false prophet "loved gain from wrongdoing" (2 Peter 2:15). So he made sure of him by sending cash in advance. But the treacherous deceiver brought Jehovah's name into it. He kept the messengers overnight, pretending to seek the mind of God.
The curse never touched Israel. The loss fell on the people who paid for it.
There is no divination or enchantment against Israel. And there is no angel, principality, or power that can separate the believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If God has taken up a people for blessing, and to make them a blessing, He will carry out in power what He has purposed in love... Moab was frustrating their own blessing, not the purpose of God, in hiring Balaam. Because of that they lost the privilege of entering the congregation of the Lord.
One writer separates how God governs from how He shows grace. He then points to what God says about the Edomite and the Egyptian.
Jehovah does not forget where it is a matter of government. He does forget (and it is precisely what He does) when it is a question of grace... But it is remarkable too that when speaking about the Edomite... He says, "He is your brother." And of those who once opposed Israel He says, "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land." So this is not a question of hatred on our part. It is a question of being subject to God. We take the direction of our thoughts from His word, and form our judgments and our conduct by it.
Long after Moses, God's people took up this instruction and acted on it.
They had even hired Balaam to curse Israel, which curse God changed into a blessing. But the Jews obeyed this instruction and separated from the mixed crowd. Mixtures of believers and unbelievers are also forbidden in the New Testament (2 Cor. 6:14-18)... yet evil keeps pushing its way in among the people of God, and it must be faced, as it was here.
Yet one woman from the nation this verse shuts out did enter.
But the law does not keep Ruth out. Moabitess as she is, she does enter into the congregation of the Lord. The law is set aside for her. It does not shut out her descendants to the tenth generation; instead, her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne.
Notice which woman the ban fell on.
It is striking that it was to this devoted, to this lovely woman that the law applied — not to Rahab nor even to Tamar... This taught in the clearest way that man as man was shut out from God — not only in his sins, but in his righteousness.
- Neglect counts. Moab's first charge is bread and water not given. Failing to do God's will is as real a sin as defying it.
- Hostility follows. Neglect hardened into a hired curse. Balak bought a prophet who loved gain from wrongdoing.
- The curse rebounds. Moab frustrated its own blessing, not God's purpose. Moab lost entry into the assembly.
- Government remembers. God does not forget in matters of government. He does forget when it is a question of grace. So the command calls for obedience, not hatred.
- Grace opens the door. Ruth the Moabitess still enters, and her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne. The law shuts out man even at his best. Grace lets him in.
But Jehovah thy God would not listen to Balaam; and Jehovah thy God turned the curse into blessing unto thee, because Jehovah thy God loved thee.
Moses recalls what Moab and Ammon did when Israel came up from Egypt. They refused food and water, and they hired a prophet named Balaam to curse the nation. This verse says why that curse never landed. The reason lies in God, not in anything Israel could see in itself.
Balak set the attack up out of sight. Israel never asked God for help here, because Israel never knew there was anything to ask about.
The great principle of the Balaam history is that God was the unasked Guardian and Blesser of His people. Enemies keep plotting, and Israel knows nothing about it. So Israel asks nothing from God. But He is active for His people out of His own grace toward them, and nothing escapes Him. "Who are these men who have come to you?" God says to Balaam. On the other hand, Balak is in complete darkness that twists everything. He sought a curse on Israel, though God had said that whoever blesses Israel is blessed and whoever curses Israel is cursed. So he was only bringing the curse on himself.
God did not just block the curse. Each new try to buy one pulled a fuller blessing out of the prophet's mouth.
His persistence in seeking the curse enlarged the blessing; it is always so. He does not know God. And God could not just repeat the blessing already given, so He unfolds it further each time.
Set what God was saying about Israel beside what Israel was doing at the time.
How little did Israel know or imagine what was going on between the LORD and the enemy. Perhaps they were grumbling in their tents. At that very moment God was setting out their perfection through the mouth of the greedy prophet. Balak would gladly have Israel cursed; but, blessed be God, He will not let anyone curse His people. He may have to deal with them Himself, in secret, about many things. But He will not let anyone else say a word against them. He may have to expose them to themselves; but He will not allow a stranger to expose them.
This is one of the first places in Scripture where God says in plain words that He loves His people.
God reveals His love when and as He will. So in the Old Testament He spoke of it, but only in connection with Israel. And He never even mentioned it in any message from God that has come down to us until the last days of the great lawgiver's life. Then in the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 4:37; 7:7; 10:15; 23:5) it is first disclosed. He had loved their fathers. He loved them too. He showed it above all by making Balaam bless them, though Balaam wanted to curse them... God speaks of His love to act, if possible, on those to whom He reveals it.
God kept His own law, and He also acted in mercy. Ruth came from Moab, the nation that hired Balaam.
So the Moabite woman was under the condemnation of the law of the LORD. Still, He could not righteously receive her under His own law. Yet He accepted her in grace, according to His own mercy. And out of the riches of His coming glory by Christ Jesus, He also gave her an honourable place in the royal records of the Son of God. As to the flesh, that Son came at the appointed time from the line of her great-grandson, David.
The curse failed because God loved Israel. Can our own failure undo God's purpose for us.
But can our shortcomings affect God's counsels of grace concerning us? Will He stop loving us, erase our names from the book of life, and throw us back to where He found us? Blessed be His holy name, NO!... In His righteous government He may discipline us, as He disciplined Israel long ago. But He will never abandon His counsels of grace... Listen to Moses in Deut. 23:5... similarly, all our blessings are secured in the risen Christ, and the Father loves us as He loves Him.
- Love unasked. Israel never knew about the plot, so they never prayed about it. God guarded them unasked, and nothing escaped Him.
- Love unstoppable. Every new try to buy a curse only enlarged the blessing God put in the hired prophet's mouth.
- Love undeserved. They may have been grumbling in their tents while God declared their perfection. He deals with His people Himself, and He lets no stranger accuse them.
- Love disclosed. In Deuteronomy God first puts His love for them into words. He reveals that love to work on the hearts that hear it.
- Love beyond the ban. The law condemned the Moabite, yet mercy gave Ruth an honourable place in the line of David.
Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever.
God gives Israel a standing rule about Ammon and Moab: never work for the good of these two peoples. Two questions follow. Why the permanent refusal? And how does it fit with the command of Jesus to love your enemies?
One writer separates two things here — how God governs His people, and how He acts in grace. He also shows what the rule asked of Israel:
The LORD does not forget where it is a matter of government. He does forget — and that is exactly what He does — when it is a question of grace. … But it is worth noticing that when He speaks of the Edomite, He says, "He is your brother." … So it is not a question of hatred on our part. It is a question of subjection to God. We take the direction of our thoughts from His word, and form our judgments and our conduct by it.
The exclusion rests on what these nations did, not on where they came from. One writer sets them beside two peoples who fared better:
The Moabite and the Ammonite are not condemned for their birth, but for their enmity to the true people of God and their hiring of Balaam to curse. Even so the one who falsely claims to be a believer, like an Ammonite or a Moabite, shows his birth today. The Edomite is the simple natural man, and for him there is more hope. The Egyptian is classed with him, though only in the third generation could they enter the congregation of the LORD.
One commentator lists the laws Jesus took up one after another. The last on that list is this verse:
He spoke of the sixth and seventh commandments, then of the law about divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1, then about oaths in Leviticus 19:12. Then came the law of retribution in Exodus 21:24 and elsewhere. Last of all came such a sanctioning of hatred towards enemies as we find in Deuteronomy 23:6.
Commentators differ here. Kelly traces that saying not to the law itself, but to what the Jews drew out of it. He also names where the new standard comes from:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'" This was the expression that the Jews drew from the general tenor of the law. … "But I say to you, Love your enemies … and pray for those who persecute you." Here was something the law never could teach — it is grace.
Ruth was a Moabite woman gleaning in an Israelite field. The law gave Boaz every right to send her away, and one writer turns that fact on the reader:
What then could she have expected from Boaz but to be rebuked and driven from his field? That same stern law cursed the Moabites and shut them out from blessing. It shuts heaven against us all too. It thunders, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." But thank God, if the law "given through Moses" condemns the sinner, the "grace and truth" which "came through Jesus Christ" saves him when he trusts that gracious Saviour.
Then how did a Moabite woman end up in the family line of David? Not by any softening of the law. God acted on another ground:
He could not righteously receive her under His own law. Yet He graciously accepted her under His own mercy. And out of the riches of His coming glory by Christ Jesus, He gave her an honourable place in the royal records of the Son of God. As to the flesh, that Son came at the appointed time from the line of her great-grandson, David.
One writer draws the rule into the present. He also notes how God overruled the opposition of that day:
God was above the opposition of Ammon and Moab. He turned their curses into blessing for Israel. In the same way, today He blesses His Church despite the opposition of false religion. Yet Israel was not to seek the peace or prosperity of these two nations forever. So believers today must refuse to encourage in any way the evils of such religious deception.
- Cause — Ammon and Moab were shut out for their enmity, not their ancestry. They hired Balaam to curse the people of God.
- Character — The rule governs Israel's public dealings. Kelly reads it as obedience to God's word, not permission to hate. Hole hears in it the approval of hatred that Jesus set aside.
- Contrast — "Love your enemies" is something the law never could teach. It comes from grace, not from a better reading of Moses.
- Grace — Ruth fell under this very ban. The law could not receive her; mercy did, and set her in the line from which David and Christ came.
- Conduct — The law that shut out Moab shuts heaven against us all. Believers still refuse to strengthen what it shut out: religious deception.