Pensamiento judío sobre Deuteronómio 2:8

(6) When the Torah refers to the Moabites not having offered water and bread to Israel when the latter came out of Egypt, this refers to the early days of the Israelites' sojourn in the desert. It does not refer to the fact that they had refused to let Israel traverse their land. A nation whose entire existence is due only to the generous heart of our forefather Abraham, and whose ancestor Lot had escaped the destruction of Sodom only due to Abraham's merit, could have been expected to have absorbed sufficient basic human characteristics through their past association (Lot's) with such an illustrious person. (Abraham) The Torah refers to the period that preceded the falling of the manna. Not only did the Moabites not come forward to offer to ease Israel's discomforts in the desert, -seeing that nation had just escaped over two centuries of enslavement,- but since waiting for Israel to perish from natural causes had proved futile, they even hired Bileam to make sure this people would not survive. Descendants of such a nation are unlikely to make good converts. This is why the Torah bans accepting them as converts. The fact that G'd turned the intended curses by Bileam into blessings is mentioned here, so that we can reflect that the curses Bileam had had in mind for us were very vile indeed. All we have to do is to imagine the opposite of the blessings which Bileam actually pronounced. The Moabites' sin does not rank as much smaller than that of the Amalekites, since denial of food and drink borders on killing with one's own hands. In contrast, we are urged to remember that we had once been offered refuge in Egypt, and that as a result we must never oppress the latter. Maintenance of peaceful relations with Edom however, is based on the family bond that still linked Israel and Edom.