Strangers in the Land: Ger 29

Deuteronomy 23:1-7

“He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. 

“One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord. 

“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loves you. You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. 

“You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an ger in his land. The children of the third generation born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord."

What Does It Say?

First, a note on the NKJV translation - it translates ger as "alien" again in verse 7, which at least makes some sense here. It makes some sense to say the Israelites were aliens in Egypt and it might keep a casual reader from being confused by the term "stranger."

Moving onto the text proper, we finally see some distinctions between different nationalities of foreigners. Ammonites and Moabites are never permitted it enter the qahal (the assembly, discussed previously here). If memory serves, extermination orders were ordered for the Ammonites, so they were obviously excluded from the legal protections of ger.

Edomites and Egyptians, on the other hand are allowed to become part of the qahal after three generations. This appears to becoming fully accepted as part of qahal Yehovah, if not as elah ben Yisra'el.

It's interesting to see that reasons are given both for rejecting the Ammonites/Moabites and for accepting the Egyptians/Edomites. At this point, it's debatable as to whether or not other nationalities could become part of the qahal or not. Presumably, there would be no explicit reason to exclude them as with the Ammonites/Moabites, but on the other hand, there's no explicit reason to include them. We will suspend judgement until a passage deals with this explicitly.

You're gonna make an exception for Ruth

My suspicion is that anyone who is not part of an explicitly excluded group would be allowed to join. For example, Ruth was a Moabite woman, which apparently allowed her a pass on the ban. If the exclusion applies exclusively on Moabite men, that's a good indication that anyone not very explicitly excluded would be allowed in.

There are other examples of non-Egyptians and non-Edomites being accepted into the community, but there's no point in listing examples ad nauseum.

Next: Deuteronomy 24