Yup....it was fluid...that's for sure. It was the River Arnon: [Numbers 21:13][Numbers 21:26][Deuteronomy 2:24][Deuteronomy 2:36][Deuteronomy 3:8][Deuteronomy 3:12][Deuteronomy 3:16][Joshua 12:1][Joshua 12:2][Judges 11:13][Judges 11:18][Judges 11:22][Judges 11:26][II Kings 10:33].
There were Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, etc all living and migrating from one area to another all the time. Did that change them from one nationality to another as they migrated???
They did not migrate into Israelite held Moab for at least three hundred years: [Judges 11:26] While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time? This takes place in the early 1100 B.C. time frame and Israel is still in control of these lands. There is no mention of anyone floating back and forth over a fluid border. This is longer than the United States has been a country and Israel continues to control this land until the Assyrian exile (721 B.C.)....400 years later.
The reason I believe Ruth was not a Moabite woman of the Kingdom of Moab is really because of this scripture. [Deuteronomy 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 only three generations down from Ruth and could not have possibly ascended the throne of Israel without making a mockery of God's words. To further teach that Our Lord would have descended from a marriage which was condemned by God's word would be further mockery.
[Ezra 9:1-4] Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice.
Why do you think it would be O.K. for a Moabite to Marry Boaz.... but yet have Ezra speak against it in scripture 800 years later?
Check your map for the land under the United Monarchy --- Moab is well north of the Arnon River by then.
The reason I believe Ruth was not a Moabite woman of the Kingdom of Moab is really because of this scripture. [Deuteronomy 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.
To be accurate, Ruth was a Moabitess, female not a Moabite, male. That may seem like hair-splitting, but that is exactly the detail that the Rabbinical lawyers would look at. And while they were told in the Law of Moses not to give their sons and daughters to those within the land of Canaan, Ruth as a Moabitess was from outside of the land of Canaan.
Why do you think it would be O.K. for a Moabite to Marry Boaz.... but yet have Ezra speak against it in scripture 800 years later?
It is possible that she was no longer a Moabite in her heart, just as Rachab was no longer a Canaanite in her heart. After all that is what we learn from Paul in Romans --- a Jew is a Jew from the inside out not the outside in.
And they are types of the Gentile Church --- two women who wanted to be part of the Congregation of Israel so intently that they would leave their own people to do it. The God of Israel had to set the Law of Moses aside in order to accomplish it.