Term Proselyte employed generally, though not exclusively, in the Septuagint as a rendering for the Hebrew word "ger," designating a convert from one religion to another. The original meaning of the Hebrew is involved in some doubt. Modern interpreters hold it to have connoted, at first, a stranger (or a "client," in the technical sense of the word) residing in Palestine, who had put himself under the protection of the people (or of one of them) among whom he had taken up his abode. In later, post-exilic usage it denotes a convert to the Jewish religion. In the Septuagint and the New Testament the Greek equivalent has almost invariably the latter signification (but see Geiger, "Urschrift," pp. 353 et seq.), though in the Septuagint the word implies also residence in Palestine on the part of one who had previously resided elsewhere, an implication entirely lost both in the Talmudical "ger" and in the New Testament προσέλύτος. Philo applies the latter term in the wider sense of "one having come to a new and G-d-pleasing life" ("Duo de Monarchia," i. 7), but uses another word to express the idea of "convert"—ήπηλυτος. Josephus, though referring to converts to Judaism, does not use the term, interpreting the Biblical passages in which "ger" occurs as applying to the poor or the foreigner.
Whatever may have been the original implication of the Hebrew word, it is certain that Biblical authors refer to proselytes, though describing them in paraphrases. Ex. xii. 48 provides for the proselyte's partaking of the paschal lamb, referring to him as a "ger" that is "circumcised." Isa. xiv. 1 mentions converts as "strangers" who shall "cleave to the house of Jacob" (but comp. next verse). Deut. xxiii. 8 (Hebr.) speaks of "one who enters into the assembly of Jacob," and (Deutero-) Isa. lvi. 3-6 enlarges on the attitude of those that joined themselves to Yhwh, "to minister to Him and love His name, to be His servant, keeping the Sabbath from profaning it, and laying hold on His covenant." "Nokri" (ξένος ="stranger") is another equivalent for "proselyte," meaning one who, like Ruth, seeks refuge under the wings of Yhwh (Ruth ii. 11-12; comp. Isa. ii. 2-4, xliv. 5; Jer. iii. 17, iv. 2, xii. 16; Zeph. iii. 9; I Kings viii. 41-43; Ruth i. 16). Probably in almost all these passages "converts" are assumed to be residents of Palestine. They are thus "gerim," but circumcised. In the Priestly Code "ger" would seem to have this meaning throughout. In Esther viii. 17 alone the expression "mityahadim" (= "became Jews") occurs.