Augustine of Hippo : The Ammonite and the Moabitess will not enter the assembly of the Lord; they will not enter the assembly of the Lord even to the tenth generation or ever. The problem lies in how Ruth entered, who was a Moabite (Cf Rt 1,22), from whom the Lord even proceeds by natural means (Cf Matthew 1,5). Perhaps it is necessary to understand that mystically prophesied that it would enter, in saying the text: until the tenth generation. Because the generations are counted from Abraham, when Lot also lived, who fathered the Moabites and the Ammonites of their own daughters (Cf Genesis 19,37.38), and it is discovered that, counting Abraham himself, there are ten generations until Solomon, who fathered Boaz, husband second of Ruth. The generations are these: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Phares, Esrom, Aram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon. Salmon fathered Boaz (Cf 1Cro 1.2), who married Ruth, who was a widow. That is why it is seen that after the tenth generation he left offspring in the Lord's assembly, giving Boaz children. But we can still ask with reason why it is added: never. Is it because after the prophecy was fulfilled with this tenth generation did not any other person of the Ammonites and Moabites enter the assembly of the Hebrew people? Or were these words rather said: not until the tenth generation, to mean, through a certain universality of the number ten, that they would never enter, in such a way that the author came to say this same, adding the following words: not ever? And if this is true, then it seems that Ruth was admitted against this prohibition. Or was it forbidden to admit the Ammonites and not the Ammonites, that is, men and not women? This solution would be understood above all because, when the Israelites defeated those people, they were ordered to kill all the males and not the women, except those who had had sexual relations with the men, (Cf Numbers 31,17.18) since these women had dragged the people to fornication. But they wanted to spare the lives of the virgins, not imputing to them the guilt for which those people deserved defeat. And these people are also remembered here, as if they were wondering why the Lord would not have wanted to admit the Moabites and the Ammonites into the assembly of the Lord. To explain it, it is added: Because they did not come to meet you with bread and water when you were on the way out of Egypt, and because they brought Balaam, the son of Beor, of Mesopotamia, to curse you (Deuteronomy 23,4). These guilt, even then, when that town was defeated, they were imputed to the women, whom they preferred to keep alive. — QUESTIONS ON DEUTERONOMY, Q. 35 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)