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Japanese The law of Moses tells God’s people to protect and love the foreigners living among them, usually with the same reason: they had been foreigners too.
“You were foreigners in Egypt” is attached to the command in Exodus 22:21, Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:34 and Deuteronomy 10:19. Hebrew distinguishes the ger, a foreigner residing among the Israelites and protected by their law, from the nokri, a foreigner passing through, for whom some rules differed (Deuteronomy 15:3). The eighteen verses below cover the command, the laws, the prophets, the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, and the picture of every nation together at the end; the last section says what these texts do not settle.
The command, and the reason attached
Exodus 22:21
“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Reflection: The reason comes attached to the first statement of the command. Israel is told to legislate from its own experience.
Exodus 23:9
“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Reflection: The second statement adds “you yourselves know how it feels.” The appeal is to memory.
Leviticus 19:34
“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Reflection: “Love them as yourself” repeats the command given about a neighbor in 19:18, sixteen verses earlier. In one chapter the command is applied first to a fellow Israelite and then to a foreigner.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19
“He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners.”
Reflection: God’s own conduct is the pattern, and it is specific: food and clothing. The command to Israel follows at once.
The law, and who it covered
Leviticus 24:22
“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.”
Reflection: The verse comes in a passage about penalties for blasphemy and injury (24:10-21). The same law was to apply to foreigner and native-born alike.
Deuteronomy 24:19-21
“When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.”
Reflection: The leftovers of the harvest stayed in the field for the poor to gather. Ruth, a Moabite widow, gathered in Boaz’s field under this provision (Ruth 2:2-3). Verse 22 gives the reason again: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 27:19
“Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”
Reflection: The Levites spoke these curses aloud and the people answered “Amen!” (27:14-15). Beside this one are curses on moving a neighbor’s boundary stone and leading the blind astray (27:17-18).
Psalm 146:9
“The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”
Reflection: Foreigner, fatherless and widow appear together throughout the law and the prophets. All three lacked the family and land that normally gave a person standing and protection.
What the prophets did with it
Jeremiah 22:3
“Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”
Reflection: Jeremiah was sent to the king’s palace with this message (22:1-2). It is a charge to a government.
Malachi 3:5
“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice.”
Reflection: Malachi lists wage fraud and denying justice to foreigners alongside sorcery, adultery and perjury, and says God himself will testify.
Proverbs 31:8-9
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
Reflection: These are the words King Lemuel’s mother taught him (31:1). The instruction is about using a position of authority for those without one.
What Jesus and the apostles did with it
Matthew 25:35
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”
Reflection: “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” In the scene, neither group recognized him at the time (25:37-39, 44).
Luke 10:36-37
“‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’”
Reflection: The expert had asked, “who is my neighbor?” (10:29); Jesus asks instead who acted as one. The one who did was a Samaritan, and the expert answers without naming him.
Hebrews 13:2
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
Reflection: The Greek word for hospitality, philoxenia, means love of strangers. The reference to angels recalls Abraham at Mamre, who fed three visitors (Genesis 18:1-8).
Romans 12:13
“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
Reflection: The Greek verb behind “practice” means to pursue. Paul asks believers to seek out chances to be hospitable.
Where it ends up
Colossians 3:11
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Reflection: The Scythians were known in the Greek world as the most remote and uncivilized of peoples. Paul names them in a list of divisions that lose their force in Christ.
Ephesians 2:19
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.”
Reflection: Paul’s Gentile readers had been the foreigners (2:12). He tells them they are now fellow citizens and members of God’s household.
Revelation 7:9
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language.”
Reflection: Nation, tribe, people and language are all still named in the vision. The multitude stands together without losing them.
What this page does not settle
Scripture does not address visas, quotas or the borders of a modern state. Ancient Israel was a covenant nation with its own land and courts, and these laws were written for it. Quoting them to settle a current policy debate asks them to do something they were not written to do, on either side.
What the texts do establish is narrower. There was to be one law for the foreigner and the native-born. God’s own care for foreigners, food and clothing, was given to Israel as a pattern. A public curse fell on anyone who denied a foreigner justice. And the reason given most often is a memory: you know how it feels, because you were foreigners in Egypt. The same reasoning lies behind the Bible’s teaching on welcoming visitors.
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