Context No. 2890 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 23:1-8: in context

1He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly. 2A person born of a forbidden union shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one of his enter into the LORD’s assembly. 3An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever, 4because they didn’t 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. 5Nevertheless the LORD your God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because the LORD your God loved you. 6You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. 7You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land. 8The children of the third generation who are born to them may enter into the LORD’s assembly.

This is a hard passage about who may enter the assembly of the LORD. Several groups are excluded, and the Ammonites and Moabites are barred to the tenth generation, because they refused Israel bread and water and hired Balaam to curse them. These boundary laws are difficult, and the New Testament will open the assembly far wider, God gathering in the eunuch, the foreigner, and every nation.

But even here, notice two things that cut against pure exclusion. You shall not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother, and you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were once a foreigner in his land. Israel is told to remember its own history as a stranger, and to let that memory soften how it treats outsiders. The very law that draws lines also plants a seed of mercy: you were sojourners too, so do not despise the sojourner. Isaiah will later promise the excluded eunuch a name in God's house better than sons and daughters.

Do I let the memory that I too was once an outsider, welcomed only by grace, shape how I treat those on the outside now?

Sources

Deuteronomy 23:7: "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land."
Isaiah 56:5: "To them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters."
Acts 8:38: "They both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him."