2009-05-04

Joseph, the Enslaver

God tells Abraham that his descendants will be “sojourners in a land thatis not theirs and will be servants there…for four hundred years.” (Gen. 15:13)

About a hundred years later, Joseph is sold into slavery and rises to power, resulting in saving his family from the famine. Joseph says twice that God was responsible for this and that his motives were good. (Gen. 45: 5, 45:7, 50:20)

However, other results of Joseph’s rise to power and advice to Pharoah include:

  • 20% emergency taxation of the Egyptian farmers for 7 years (Gen. 41:34-36)
  • exploitation of these same farmers for the next 7 years, resulting in Pharaoh owning all the money, livestock, and land (Gen. 47:13-23)
  • the 20% emergency taxation becoming a standing tax (Gen. 47:24-26)

In other words, Joseph’s counsel (at God’s direction) turned a nation of peasant farmers into a nation of sharecroppers.

One of the puzzles for me in the Exodus story has been the question of why the Egyptian population would have tolerated the long-term massacre of Hebrew boys. Even given different morals and cultural biases, the killing of baby boys is a fairly universal negative.

Reading through Genesis this time, I began to consider the lifestyle of the Egyptian population goes a long way in explaining why they, as a society, would have tollerated the enslavement of the Israelites and eventual slaughtering of the babies.

Jared Diamond, in Collapse, describes the recent killings in Rwanda as having a similar basis. Basically, the impoverished population grew so large that “those whose children went to school in bare feet killed those whose children went to school in shoes.”

From a human perspective, it’s hard to justify those results compared to feeding seventy Hebrews (Gen. 46:27), yet the Bible is clear that Joseph acted at the Spirit’s guidance “for good”.

Do Famines Just Happen?

Famines are mentioned at least five times in Genesis. They play a major role in the setting for several events in what’s depicted as a span of about 200 years.

In all of those times, there is never an indication in the text that the famines were a result of sin.

God Speaks to (poor) Women

Between Genesis and Judges, the only women God speaks to positively are the husbandless or childless.

God talks to Eve in jugdment.

He talks to Sarah when catching her in a lie.

He talks to Hagar, a single mother alone in the desert, in mercy–twice!

Cursed into Poverty

People cursed into poverty in Genesis include…

Cain

Canaan

Esau

Reuben

Simon

Levi

…all of whom were cursed as a result of sins that destroyed their relationships. The curses all involve further loss of relationships.

Esau becomes rich anyway.

The (Biblical) Origins of Wealth

The first time wealth is mentioned in the Bible is when Abraham and Lot are so wealthy that they overuse their resources and their relationship is damaged. The desire for sustained wealth instead of sustained relationship leads Lot to Sodom. (Gen. 13)

The next time wealth is mentioned is when Abraham refuses booty from the Kings of the Plain. I used to think this was because he wanted to glorify God as the source of his wealth. After living in Central Asia, though, I think it was to avoid the entanglements that such a “gift” would bring. (Gen. 14)

The third time wealth is mentioned (Gen. 26), it leads to a break in the relationship between Isaac and Abimelech.

In Genesis 31, it’s wealth, not poverty, that damages Jacob and Laban’s relationship.

In Genesis 32, Jacob gives up his wealth to restore the relationship with Esau.

In general, the relationship problems associated with wealth in Genesis arise from people having too much, not too little.

I’m not sure what this means for our study, but it seems relevant to the immense wealth and resource consumption in the world today combined with such a high number of devastated relationships.

The (Biblical) Origins of Poverty

Although the word “poverty” isn’t used, I think it’s fair to say that it first appears when Cain kills Able. Cain’s punishment includes

  • insufficient results from his work
  • homelessness, refugee status
  • no helpful social relationships (one of Myer’s definitions of poverty in Walking with the Poor)

If this interpretation is accurate, then the first poor person brought poverty upon himself by refusing God’s grace.

What did the first poor person do to relieve his poverty? Built a city: a broken cistern since cities are communities based on need instead of love and require levels of social stratification that exaccerbate poverty.

Socialist, or Levitical?

What kind of government would…

  • mandate that all residents pay taxes for religious organizations regardless of their own religious beliefs,
  • allow an unchecked appointed body to set taxes without representation from the taxed,
  • prohibit the full utilization of resources by land and business owners
  • regulate agricultural and technological innovations, including out-0f-hand prohibitions of research projects
  • severely limit inheritances
  • radically redistribute land, property, and workforces every fifty years
  • completely regulate external trade
  • set centralized policies for all interest-bearing transactions
  • mandate nearly 30% national taxation for projects that directly benefit 8% of the population,
  • regulate the sale of land, prohibiting certain classes from buying or selling land,
  • mandate property maintenance programs,
  • mandate public health programs, including standards of personal hygiene,
  • allow only one state religion, practiced fully in only one location,
  • prohibit work nearly two months every year, and impose capital punishment for violating the prohibition.

I’ve been spending some time in the Pentateuch, and I’m now convinced that, while capitalism may not be evil, it certainly is not biblical.

Fighting (boxing) Poverty

Chris Jones’s Falling Hard and Thomas Hauser’s A Year at the Fights both take readers through a year in the life of boxing reporters. They both stand well on their own, but make a great set.

Hauser’s veteran take on the New York fight scene has a “been-there, been-fed-up-with-that” attitude that leaves him free to throw his credentials around in taking on boxing commissioners, refs who didn’t intervene when a fighter was killed, and even a boxer who called his opponent “gay”. The last of these is a pretty easy target, given the politically-correct walls professional boxing is constantly battering. (Really, is anyone in the world surprised that an openly-professing Muslim boxer is disinclined to honor homosexuality?) Still, A Year at the Fight brings the perspective of years of hope and disillusionment, and it’s a great introduction everything about professional boxing that doesn’t happen between the gloves and the faces.

Falling Hard is worth reading for exactly the opposite reasons. Jones identifies himself from the start as a rookie journalist assigned his paper’s least-attractive beat: boxing. It’s more a memoir of writing about boxing than about boxing, but I appreciated Jones’ use of language and humor, and his reluctance to indulge in the mockery some sports writers love to poor on people who would probably kill them were the pen not mightier.

I seriously hope that Jones’s editors encourage him to keep his wit and insight in boxing instead of a more literary reporting field.

Wilson J. Humber: basic micros

If you’re familiar with the basic principles of microeconomics and investment, Wilson J. Humber's, Dollars and Sense won’t help you. It’s a basic primer on financial management for people who don’t know anything about it, and who would rather give away money than become rich.

As a financial idiot, I appreciated it more than the Rich Dad/Poor Dad stuff that implies failure to become rich is the result of moral or intellectual deficiencies.

Willa Cather vs. Pearl S. Buck

My Antonia gets full credit for being a story about 19th-century Midwestern farmers that doesn’t remind me of the Little House on the Prairie books. Willa Cather’s prose didn’t dazzle me, but it fit the tone, and she has some quotable lines. So why didn’t the book move me?

I found myself going back over the characters—all realistic and likeable, or at least sympathetic in some way. I went over the landscape and weather descriptions—all worthy of being painted for the cover of a lesser book. She occasionally condescends to her characters by writing the immigrants’ speech in dialect, but that problem’s too common to destroy a book over.

And then, around page 130, I saw it. First, I was going over these things before I was half-way through the book, so the world she wanted to create wasn’t quite there. Second, that I kept having to remind myself that the first-person character was male.

Willa Cather is not a man. That is a trait shared by many other great writers. With few exceptions, though, the other great women writers remember that they aren’t men and don’t try to write as a male impersonator.

This presumptuous fault stood out especially because I read My Antonia just after finishing The Good Earth, which is also by a female author with a male protagonist. Pearl S. Buck demonstrates quite a bit more insight into the human condition, but I suspect her insights wouldn’t have rung as true if she had written in first person.

My Antonia is billed as a coming-of-age story of a boy in Nebraska. But it’s not. It’s a story of how women wish men would come of age: friendly-like, and respectable, and honorable (with minor, attractive flaws), and no more sexual than a single overly-intense kiss, and no more violent than an occasional bluster and hair rumple. When male authors try to write a female character first-person, you can almost always be assured a sexual fantasyland. The opposite happens in My Antonia. It’s a portrait of a gelding as a young man. She just doesn’t get it.

“It” means the concern for appearance and honor and significance and legacy and power and sex that is part of being male. (Maybe it’s part of being female, too, but I don’t think it’s the same.)

Pearl S. Buck gets it. The Good Earth is a masterpiece, on part with The Grapes of Wrath or Nectar in a Sieve for showing the point of view of the rural poor. Buck treats her characters with compassion and respect, refusing to escape from their problems through irony or other forms of authorial condescension.

It’s tragic how little has changed in Asia since she wrote it. Sure, revolutions have come over and over, along with cars and the Internet, but you could still meet most of the people today. I can’t recommend The Good Earth highly enough.

The Sorrow of War

“Sir, sir, you want postcards? Souvenirs? Look, here, The Sorrow of War, a very good book. It is illegal here, sir. But I have it. Very good book.”

Every sidewalk salesman in Hanoi had a copy. The cheap paper and poor gluing verified that the copies weren’t being distributed by a major publisher, but most were poorly translated versions of the edited edition.

Hanoi had a problem with the book. The Sorrow of War is fairly typical as war literature goes: stock characters, moral quandaries, lack of clarity regarding right and wrong, etc. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it had merely presented Americans as bad guys. The radical thing was that it portrayed Vietnamese soldiers as fallible, brutal, and cowardly as well. There are no wonderfully honorable characters in the book.

The book lives up to its title. Whether examined for its depiction of soldiers, politics, coming of age, or romance, it’s a sad book.

I’d recommend it for those interested in southeast Asian authors, but it probably won’t change your life otherwise.

Dostoevsky: Where Authors Fear to Tread

What can I say about Dostoevsky that hasn’t been said better, in dissertations and studies and monuments? Only this: he lives up to the hype; he changed my life.

I started with The Brothers Karamazov, went on to The House of the Dead, and then Crime and Punishment, and Notes from the Underground.

The Brothers was recommended by an older cousin. He was in college, and I was 13, but he was my hero, so… I finished it 5 years later. The second reading, a few years after that, only took a month. It’s one of those great novels designed to last through nine months of television-less winter, so it has it all: philosophy, religion, sex, murder, poverty, mental disorders, and courtroom drama. If big Russian novels scare you, you’d be better off starting with Anna Karenina.

I haven’t re-read The House of the Dead. It’s not bad-in fact, it’s probably as good as it gets in the genre of prison memoirs, topped only by Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Illych. But how many times do you want to read a prison memoir?

If all of the monuments and dissertations were to somehow disappear, I can imagine scholars thousands of years from now arguing convincingly that Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground were written in the late 1900s instead of the mid-1800s. The word angst comes to mind, but it’s insufficient. We’re talking antiheroes with attitudes so bad they’d see the Fight Club guys as optimists.

Dostoevsky isn’t an author who will make you happy. His comedy scenes can bring a smile, but the smiles are tinged with tragedy. No, happiness isn’t his thing. Joy, on the other hand… maybe. As the ranting drunkard who pimps his daughter asks in Crime and Punishment, what if grace can reach even me?

Larry Brown: about as bleak as it gets

Larry Brown’s South is the type of place country singers don’t mention because it’s too depressing. The setting: grime. The tone: grim. Saying a Larry Brown character has a drinking problem is redundant (beer is almost a character in itself), as is saying that his characters are poverty-stricken or unexpressive.

This probably doesn’t sound like a positive review, but it is. You just need to know what you’re getting into.

I didn’t know it when I picked up Father and Son, a gothic story of generational sins, justice, and redemption. It left me wiped out for several days.

And any author who affects me that strongly is worth another try.

Dirty Work, an anti-war tale based mostly on the conversation between two dying vets, didn’t affect me as strongly as Father and Son, but his masterful collection of short stories, Facing the Music hit me again and again.

“Hitting” is a decent metaphor for how it feels to read him. I don’t always agree with his theology, and I wouldn’t care to meet many of his characters, and I absolutely think there are better ways to live—but you don’t read Larry Brown to find someone who can wrap you in cozy phrases you think are true. You read him because he can beat you to the verge of despair.

I think it makes you stronger.

Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby is the best collection of short stories on boxing that I’ve found, and one of the best short-story collections period. F.X. Toole takes boxing, a theme that thrives of clichés, and reworks it to create original characters and explorations of race, poverty, and violence. Even more impressive, he does so without resorting to cynicism or condescension.

The movie is a compilation of episodes and characters from several of the stories. The stories are all strong on their own, but the title story is actually one of the weakest. My favorite is the original title story, “Rope Burns”.

Cold Mountain

If you would like to travel through a country of perverts and maniacs and body parts with a man on the verge of suicide heading toward poverty-stricken loneliness, then this is a great way to do it. It’s like The Odyssey, if you took away the hope and humor and put in descriptions of each body’s state of decomposition. There is romance, but it is so overwhelmed by the loss of war that it seems nearly parenthetical, like Odysseus’ love of Penelope.

Charles Frasier’s wonderful writing style is perfectly suited to his theme—despair oozes from each beautifully-crafted phrase.

beauty in destitution

Nectar in a Sieve, by Kamada Markandaya

It’s about a nearly destitute woman, poor by Indian standards, whose children die or leave home, and whose husband cheats on her, and who eventually has to leave her home of rural poverty to enter the world of urban poverty.

So it’s not a beach book.

But it’s hauntingly beautiful, which is a strange description for the most authentic book I've ever read from the point of view of a woman in poverty.

Don’t read Nectar in a Seive while listening to The Cowboy Junkies, or you may cry yourself to sleep.

The End of Poverty... with a Lexus

Wow! Can people this happy really be economists?

I read Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree just before moving permanently from the U.S., and I have to say, it was encouraging. Sure, places have problems now, but everything’s getting bigger and better. Sure, people are poor now, and sure the poor are further than ever from the rich, but even the poor are better off than ever before, so what are they complaining about?

The same argument appeared in Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty: Forget equality and justice, and focus on things that technology can cure, like malaria rates and infant mortality, and you’ll see that it’s all just getting better and better.

The poor we may have with us always, but at least they won’t be so poor we have to feel guilty about it.

It’s hard to argue with them because I want so much for them to be right.

Really. I’d love to be wrong on this one.

But here’s where I live: I gave up 80% of my U.S. income to come work in the desert. If I gave up another 80%, I’d still be among the better-off of my developing-nation colleagues. If I gave up another 80%, I’d only be approaching the level of the average millions who work around me.

It’s getting better? Globalization will solve this? Please, please be right. Please be right. Then teach me how to live in a world where my monthly diaper bill is more than my neighbors’ income.

But don’t expect me to rush to buy your books (well, I might try another of Friedman’s. He writes better than Sachs.)

They’re too optimistic to really be trusted.

Verses on Aliens and Strangers

Exodus 23:12 (Show me Exodus 23)
“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

Deuteronomy 1:16 (Show me Deuteronomy 1)
And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him.

1 Chronicles 22:2 (Show me 1 Chronicles 22)

David Prepares for Temple Building
David commanded to gather together the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel, and he set stonecutters to prepare dressed stones for building the house of God.

2 Chronicles 2:17 (Show me 2 Chronicles 2)
Then Solomon counted all the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census of them that David his father had taken, and there were found 153,600.

Psalm 69:8 (Show me Psalm 69)
I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.

Isaiah 28:21 (Show me Isaiah 28)
For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the Valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed—strange is his deed! and to work his work—alien is his work!

Jeremiah 22:3 (Show me Jeremiah 22)
Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Ezekiel 48:14 (Show me Ezekiel 48)
They shall not sell or exchange any of it. They shall not alienate this choice portion of the land, for it is holy to the Lord.

Hosea 5:7 (Show me Hosea 5)
They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord; for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

Ephesians 2:12 (Show me Ephesians 2)
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Ephesians 2:19 (Show me Ephesians 2)
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,[1] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
[1]Or sojourners

Ephesians 4:18 (Show me Ephesians 4)
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

Colossians 1:21 (Show me Colossians 1)
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

Genesis 17:12 (Show me Genesis 17)
He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring,

Genesis 17:27 (Show me Genesis 17)
And all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Genesis 23:4 (Show me Genesis 23)
“I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

Genesis 31:15 (Show me Genesis 31)
Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money.

Exodus 12:43 (Show me Exodus 12)

Institution of the Passover
And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner shall eat of it,

Exodus 12:45 (Show me Exodus 12)
No foreigner or hired servant may eat of it.

Leviticus 22:25 (Show me Leviticus 22)
neither shall you offer as the bread of your God any such animals gotten from a foreigner. Since there is a blemish in them, because of their mutilation, they will not be accepted for you.”

Deuteronomy 14:21 (Show me Deuteronomy 14)
“You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Deuteronomy 15:3 (Show me Deuteronomy 15)
Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release.

Deuteronomy 17:15 (Show me Deuteronomy 17)
you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

Deuteronomy 23:20 (Show me Deuteronomy 23)
You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

Deuteronomy 29:22 (Show me Deuteronomy 29)
And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick—

Judges 19:12 (Show me Judges 19)
And his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners, who do not belong to the people of Israel, but we will pass on to Gibeah.”

Ruth 2:10 (Show me Ruth 2)
Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”

2 Samuel 15:19 (Show me 2 Samuel 15)
Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why do you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner and also an exile from your home.

2 Samuel 22:45 (Show me 2 Samuel 22)
Foreigners came cringing to me; as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me.

2 Samuel 22:46 (Show me 2 Samuel 22)
Foreigners lost heart and came trembling[1] out of their fortresses.
[1]Compare Psalm 18:45; Hebrew equipped themselves

1 Kings 8:41 (Show me 1 Kings 8)
“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake

1 Kings 8:43 (Show me 1 Kings 8)
hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.

2 Chronicles 6:32 (Show me 2 Chronicles 6)
“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for the sake of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays toward this house,

2 Chronicles 6:33 (Show me 2 Chronicles 6)
hear from heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.

Nehemiah 9:2 (Show me Nehemiah 9)
And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

Job 19:15 (Show me Job 19)
The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

Psalm 18:44 (Show me Psalm 18)
As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me; foreigners came cringing to me.

Psalm 18:45 (Show me Psalm 18)
Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses.

Psalm 144:7 (Show me Psalm 144)
Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners,

Psalm 144:11 (Show me Psalm 144)
Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

Proverbs 5:10 (Show me Proverbs 5)
lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

Proverbs 20:16 (Show me Proverbs 20)
Take a man’s garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.[1]
[1]Or for an adulteress (compare 27:13)

Proverbs 27:13 (Show me Proverbs 27)
Take a man’s garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for an adulteress.[1]
[1]Hebrew a foreign woman; a slight emendation yields (compare Vulgate; see also 20:16) foreigners

Isaiah 1:7 (Show me Isaiah 1)
Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.

Isaiah 2:6 (Show me Isaiah 2)

The Day of the Lord
For you have rejected your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of things from the east and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

Isaiah 25:2 (Show me Isaiah 25)
For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners’ palace is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

Isaiah 25:5 (Show me Isaiah 25)
like heat in a dry place. You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.

Isaiah 56:1 (Show me Isaiah 56)

Salvation for Foreigners
Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.

Isaiah 56:3 (Show me Isaiah 56)
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

Isaiah 56:6 (Show me Isaiah 56)
“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant—

Isaiah 60:10 (Show me Isaiah 60)
Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.

Isaiah 61:5 (Show me Isaiah 61)
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;

Isaiah 62:8 (Show me Isaiah 62)
The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored;

Jeremiah 2:25 (Show me Jeremiah 2)
Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved foreigners, and after them I will go.’

Jeremiah 3:13 (Show me Jeremiah 3)
Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 5:19 (Show me Jeremiah 5)
And when your people say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.’”

Jeremiah 30:8 (Show me Jeremiah 30)
“And it shall come to pass in that day, declares the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and I will burst your bonds, and foreigners shall no more make a servant of him.[1]
[1]Or serve him

Jeremiah 51:51 (Show me Jeremiah 51)
‘We are put to shame, for we have heard reproach; dishonor has covered our face, for foreigners have come into the holy places of the Lord’s house.’

Lamentations 5:2 (Show me Lamentations 5)
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.

Ezekiel 7:21 (Show me Ezekiel 7)
And I will give it into the hands of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall profane it.

Ezekiel 11:9 (Show me Ezekiel 11)
And I will bring you out of the midst of it, and give you into the hands of foreigners, and execute judgments upon you.

Ezekiel 28:7 (Show me Ezekiel 28)
therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon you, the most ruthless of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor.

Ezekiel 28:10 (Show me Ezekiel 28)
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners; for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.”

Ezekiel 30:12 (Show me Ezekiel 30)
And I will dry up the Nile and will sell the land into the hand of evildoers; I will bring desolation upon the land and everything in it, by the hand of foreigners; I am the Lord; I have spoken.

Ezekiel 31:12 (Show me Ezekiel 31)
Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it.

Ezekiel 44:7 (Show me Ezekiel 44)
in admitting foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, to be in my sanctuary, profaning my temple, when you offer to me my food, the fat and the blood. You[1] have broken my covenant, in addition to all your abominations.
[1]Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate; Hebrew They

Ezekiel 44:9 (Show me Ezekiel 44)
“Thus says the Lord God: No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary.

Obadiah 1:11 (Show me Obadiah 1)
On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.

Luke 17:18 (Show me Luke 17)
Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Acts 17:21 (Show me Acts 17)
Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

1 Corinthians 14:11 (Show me 1 Corinthians 14)
but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.

1 Corinthians 14:21 (Show me 1 Corinthians 14)
In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

Genesis 42:7 (Show me Genesis 42)
Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”

Exodus 12:48 (Show me Exodus 12)
If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.

Exodus 12:49 (Show me Exodus 12)
There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

Leviticus 16:29 (Show me Leviticus 16)
“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves[1] and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.
[1]Or shall fast; also verse 31

Leviticus 17:8 (Show me Leviticus 17)
“And you shall say to them, Any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice

Leviticus 17:10 (Show me Leviticus 17)

Laws Against Eating Blood
“If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.

Leviticus 17:12 (Show me Leviticus 17)
Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.

Leviticus 17:13 (Show me Leviticus 17)
“Any one also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.

Leviticus 18:26 (Show me Leviticus 18)
But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you

Leviticus 19:33 (Show me Leviticus 19)
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

Leviticus 19:34 (Show me Leviticus 19)
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 20:2 (Show me Leviticus 20)
“Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Leviticus 25:23 (Show me Leviticus 25)

Redemption of Property
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.

Leviticus 25:35 (Show me Leviticus 25)

Kindness for Poor Brothers
“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Leviticus 25:45 (Show me Leviticus 25)
You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property.

Leviticus 25:47 (Show me Leviticus 25)

Redeeming a Poor Man
“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan,

Numbers 9:14 (Show me Numbers 9)
And if a stranger sojourns among you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its rule, so shall he do. You shall have one statute, both for the sojourner and for the native.”

Numbers 15:14 (Show me Numbers 15)
And if a stranger is sojourning with you, or anyone is living permanently among you, and he wishes to offer a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord, he shall do as you do.

Numbers 15:15 (Show me Numbers 15)
For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord.

Numbers 15:16 (Show me Numbers 15)
One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.”

Numbers 15:26 (Show me Numbers 15)
And all the congregation of the people of Israel shall be forgiven, and the stranger who sojourns among them, because the whole population was involved in the mistake.

Numbers 15:29 (Show me Numbers 15)
You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

Numbers 19:10 (Show me Numbers 19)
And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

Numbers 35:15 (Show me Numbers 35)
These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there.

Deuteronomy 25:5 (Show me Deuteronomy 25)

Laws Concerning Levirate Marriage
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

Joshua 20:9 (Show me Joshua 20)
These were the cities designated for all the people of Israel and for the stranger sojourning among them, that anyone who killed a person without intent could flee there, so that he might not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, till he stood before the congregation.

1 Chronicles 29:15 (Show me 1 Chronicles 29)
For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.[1]
[1]Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew hope, or prospect

Job 15:19 (Show me Job 15)
to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them).

Job 19:15 (Show me Job 19)
The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

Psalm 54:3 (Show me Psalm 54)
For strangers[1] have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves. Selah
[1]Some Hebrew manuscripts and Targum insolent men (compare Psalm 86:14)

Psalm 69:8 (Show me Psalm 69)
I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.

Psalm 109:11 (Show me Psalm 109)
May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!

Proverbs 5:10 (Show me Proverbs 5)
lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

Proverbs 5:17 (Show me Proverbs 5)
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

Proverbs 6:1 (Show me Proverbs 6)

Practical Warnings
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,

Proverbs 11:15 (Show me Proverbs 11)
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.

Proverbs 14:10 (Show me Proverbs 14)
The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.

Proverbs 20:16 (Show me Proverbs 20)
Take a man’s garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.[1]
[1]Or for an adulteress (compare 27:13)

Proverbs 27:2 (Show me Proverbs 27)
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.

Proverbs 27:13 (Show me Proverbs 27)
Take a man’s garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for an adulteress.[1]
[1]Hebrew a foreign woman; a slight emendation yields (compare Vulgate; see also 20:16) foreigners

Ecclesiastes 6:2 (Show me Ecclesiastes 6)
a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.

Isaiah 17:10 (Show me Isaiah 17)
For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,

Isaiah 61:5 (Show me Isaiah 61)
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;

Jeremiah 14:8 (Show me Jeremiah 14)
O you hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night?

Lamentations 5:2 (Show me Lamentations 5)
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.

Ezekiel 14:7 (Show me Ezekiel 14)
For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself.

Ezekiel 16:32 (Show me Ezekiel 16)
Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!

Hosea 7:9 (Show me Hosea 7)
Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.

Hosea 8:7 (Show me Hosea 8)
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it.

Joel 3:17 (Show me Joel 3)

The Glorious Future of Judah
“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.

Obadiah 1:11 (Show me Obadiah 1)
On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.

Matthew 25:35 (Show me Matthew 25)
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

Matthew 25:38 (Show me Matthew 25)
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

Matthew 25:43 (Show me Matthew 25)
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Matthew 25:44 (Show me Matthew 25)
Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’

Matthew 27:7 (Show me Matthew 27)
So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers.

John 10:5 (Show me John 10)
A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Ephesians 2:12 (Show me Ephesians 2)
remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Ephesians 2:19 (Show me Ephesians 2)
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,[1] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
[1]Or sojourners

Hebrews 11:13 (Show me Hebrews 11)
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Hebrews 13:2 (Show me Hebrews 13)
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

3 John 1:5 (Show me 3 John 1)

Support and Opposition
Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are,