It may be inferred from the following passage that if a stranger resided in Israel, and his family continued to do so for nine generations, the tenth generation would in any ordinary case be admitted to the Congregation of the Lord as full Israelites.
Deut. xxiii. 2 and 3. "A bastard, or an Ammonite, or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord _even to their tenth generation_, for ever."
(M83) In special cases (exactly as was the rule in Wales)--such as the Edomite who was partly akin already, and the Egyptian who was united to the Israelites by the mysterious bonds of hospitality--a shorter sojourn in the land was held to qualify for full tribal privilege.
Deut. xxiii. 7 and 8. "Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. The _children_ that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the Lord _in their third generation_."
The third generation of _children_ would be the _greatgrandchildren_ of the original settler, and this is just one third of the length of time implied as required from the ordinary stranger, who only attained the tribal privilege in the third succession of greatgrandchildren.
It is worth notice in this connection that the land of Canaan was divided up in the names of the _greatgrandchildren_ of Abraham, to whom the promise was made; Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, taking their place amongst the others by adoption as sons by their grandfather Jacob, on an equality with his other sons.(163)
(M84) These rules are not to be found with the same distinctness surviving at Athens, but there is a good deal of evidence showing how jealously the introduction of strangers to citizenship--which retained much that made it the later equivalent of the tribal bond--was regarded.
Strangers made citizens (formally, ceremoniously, and by public vote) by the Athenian people cannot hold office as archon or partake of a holy office ({ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}); but their _children can_, if they are born from a citizen wife duly and lawfully betrothed.(164) That is to say, that the Athenians considered it necessary that there should be actually citizen blood in the veins of all who held office amongst them.(165)