Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
7. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite. In order that the punishment denounced against the Moabites and Ammonites should be more strongly marked, he commands the Edomites and Egyptians to be admitted in the third generation; the former, because they derived their origin from the same ancestor, Isaac, since they were the descendants of Esau; the latter, because they had been their hosts.
Interpreters are not agreed what is here meant by entering into the congregation of the Lord, which is here forbidden to eunuchs and to bastards, Ammonites and Moabites, for ever, but to Edomites and Egyptians only till the third generation. 1. Some think they are hereby excluded from communicating with the people of God in their religious services.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 23:1-8
Thou shall not abhor an Edomite,.... Or an Idumean, the descendants of Esau, whose name was Edom, Gen 25:30 the Targum of Jonathan adds, "that comes to be made a proselyte"; he was not to be rejected with abhorrence, because of the old grudge between Jacob and Esau, and which was become national in their posterity: for he is thy brother; the Israelites and the...