://12tribehistory.com/was-ruth-a-moabite/
Someone else has asked the same question:
Was Ruth a Moabite?
Ruth could not be a Moabite because she was the great grandmother of King David. King David was the third generation from Ruth and Boaz.
Moabites were not allowed in the temple. If you married a Moab, your descendants would not be allowed in the Temple for ten generations! Read below:
Deu 23:3
An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD;
even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:
King David was the 3rd Generation from Ruth and Boaz. If Ruth had been a Moabite, she would not have BEEN allowed in the temple and her descendants could not go in the temple until the tenth Generation. David was the third generation from Ruth and Boaz. His father was Jesse, his grandfather was Obed and his great grandfather was Boaz. If Ruth was a Moabite, KING DAVID WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE TEMPLE.
1Ch_2:11 And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz,
1Ch_2:12 And Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse,
David went into the temple. We see him in I Sam 21 going to get the temple Shewbread. Also his descendants until the ten generation would not be allowd in the temple also. We know that Solomon was in the temple. HE DEDICATED THE TEMPLE!
The Bible records historical proof that the Amorites and Moabites were pushed out of the land of Moab. So the people who lived in Moab were THE ISRAELITES. This means Ruth was from an Israelite tribe. Below is the proof:
Ruth 1:2 reads,
“In the days when the Judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him.
God promised Judah
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes…” (Genesis 49:10).
God instructed the Israelites that they could not set a foreigner (non Israelite) King to rule over them. All Kings had to be Israelites from the line of Judah.
Deu 17:15 Thou shalt in any wise set
himking over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose:
one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which
is not thy brother.
The Messiah was born as King of the Jews and King of Kings. He could NOT be a foreigner.
Ruth was an Israelite living in the land of Moab. She was not of the Moabite lineage. We know that Joshua took control of the plains of Moab and the local residents were removed. This territory north of the Arnon River, and east of the Jordan River, was occupied by the tribes of Israel known as Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. The three tribes to the east were said to live in the “land of Moab”.
“So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he has no survivors remaining.”
“And at that time we took the land from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were on this side of the Jordan, from the River Arnon to Mount Hermon…” (Deuteronomy 3:3,8).
In another place the Bible records that no racial Moabites were left alive in the land (Deuteronomy 2:34). However, the race of the Moabites were not wiped out they were located in other lands. They would continue to pop up in history.
Deu 2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
The land was now inhabited by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh (Deuteronomy 29:8).
NO MOABITES REMAINED IN THE LAND OF MOAB.
Deu 29:1 These
are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded
Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
Deu 29:8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
Joshua 13:32 :
“These are the areas which Moses had distributed as an inheritance in the PLAINS OF MOAB on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward.”
Numbers 21:26-31, we read:
‘For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, King of the Amorites, who had fought against the former King of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon … Woe unto thee, Moab! Thou art undone, 0 people of Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon, King of the Amorites … Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites’
Deuteronomy 2:32-34:
‘Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. And the Lord our God delivered him before us; we smote him and his sons and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones of every city, we left NONE to remain’.
Apparently there were still Moabites in other regions because they continue to pop up in the Old Testament history.
Deuteronomy 3:12-16, Moses tells us:
‘And this land which we possessed at that time, from Aroer which is by the River Arnon, and half Mount Gilead, and the cities thereof, gave I unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites. And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half Tribe of Manasseh …. And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the River Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto the River Jabbok, which is the border of the Children of Ammon’.
Ruth 1:2 reads,
In the days
when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him.
Here is the explanation:
Ruth never had a son from her husband Naomi’s son. There were no other sons left alive for Ruth to marry and carry on the family line of Naomi.
Deuteronomy 25:5,6:
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husbands brother to her, and it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”
Ruth 4:13-17: “So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.”
“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a
NEAR KINSMAN ; and may his name be famous in Israel! And may he be to you a RESTORER OF LIFE…’. “Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying,
‘There is a son BORN TO Naomi.’“
Ruth 4:11,12:
“And all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, ‘We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah, the two WHO BUILT the house of Israel; and may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
May your house be like the house of Perez, whom TAMAR bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the Lord will give to you from this young woman.’”
The people understood that Ruth’s blood line came from Tamar is the mother of both Zarah and Pharez – the royal blood line of Judah. They understood that it was this bloodline that was father the Kings of Israel. They also understood that the Messiah would come through that lineage. Notice the reference to Bethelem.
The Messiah was a descendant of Pharez from the line of Judah. He was not a Moabite.