Numbers 20:14-21 as a Reply to Deuteronomy 23:4-9

Abstract

AbstractThe law of Deuteronomy 23:2-9 (MT), stipulating who is to be excluded from the Assembly of God, envisaged a need to explain its absolute exclusion of two foreign nations (the Ammonites and the Moabites), alongside its more lenient approach towards members of two other foreign nations (the Edomites and the Egyptians), as expressed in their temporal exclusion from the Assembly. The eternal exclusion of the Ammonites and the Moabites is justified by their historical, unfriendly treatment of Israel on its march from Egypt to the Promised Land. The immediate question, however, is whether the other two nations mentioned in this law treated Israel any better, prior to that march and during its course. Indeed, answering this question in the negative appears to be the goal of another Pentateuchal text, Numbers 20:14-21. Underlying the criticism of Deuteronomy 23:4-9 in Numbers 20:14-21 is the Priestly-Deuteronomic fundamental controversy over the meaning of the covenant of circumcision.