Puzzling Passages

Moabites forbidden to worship Yahweh, yet David was of Moabite descent!

Ammonites and Moabites were excluded from participating in the worship of the LORD. The Ammonites were forbidden because they failed to offer hospitality (bread and water) to the Israelites; the Moabites because they attempted to use Balaam to bring down a curse of God upon the Israelites.

How then do we explain the fact that David's grandmother Ruth was a Moabitess, and yet David as a descendant of a Moabite participated freely in the worship of the LORD? Does the Bible contradict itself?

There are four possible answers in explaining why David, a Moabite descendant, and his sons, were allowed to participate in the religious rituals of Israel:

1) God overturned His own law prohibiting the exclusion of Ammonites and Moabites from joining in worship.

2) The law in Deuteronomy 23:3 was to be taken in a spiritual sense and not literally, for "he is a Jew, which is one inwardly...in the spirit, and not in the letter" (Romans 2:29). In this light, despite her Moabitish origin, Ruth was in character a true Israelite, so that the prohibition no more applied to her, nor her children.

3) One's ancestry was to be reckoned through one's father, and not through one's mother. Although possible, the Bible does not state that this was the common practice.

4) Boaz was commanded by Mosaic Law to marry Ruth, a Moabitess, in order to continue the name of Ruth's deceased husband, an Israelite (Deuteronomy 25:6
). Since God instructed that such a marriage arrangement should occur in the first place, Ruth was brought into the assembly of Israel LEGALLY. Her offspring, therefore, would likewise be accounted as belonging to the nation of Israel, and hence have a right to participate in its religion.

Of these four choices, the latter appears to be the most likely solution to the problem.

The prohibition of Ammonites and Moabites from joining the house of Israel was still in effect in the days of Nehemiah, for Nehemiah grieved upon learning that the Jews had taken in marriage women from these nations (Nehemiah 13:23). In light of the fact that David and the kings of Israel/Judah were not chosen by the nation, but appointed by God Himself, we must conclude that God did not overturn His own law, but rather the descendants of Ruth the Moabitess were legally absorbed into the congregation of Israel through a levirate marriage.