What Does the Bible Actually Say About Immigrants and Foreigners?

What does the Bible say about immigrants? What does it mean to be a “sojourner”? What are the most important verses on this topic?

Immigrants who love the immigrants
The foreigner (נָכְרִי and נֵכָר)
Immigrant (גֵּר and גור)
Foreign-worker (תּוֹשָׁב)
Greek Translations in the Old & New Testament
Summary & conclusion

Immigrants who love the immigrants

Before diving into the details, we can begin by identifying two broad and important themes from Scripture.

1. God’s people are immigrants

We begin by noting that all followers of God share the immigrant experience. For example,

With the Jubilee laws, YHWH¹ designates Israel itself as an immigrant on the land that he had given to them (Lev 25:23).
David describes himself as an immigrant before YHWH since God is the creator and humans’ days are extremely limited: “our days on earth are like a shadow” (1 Chr 29:15).
Likewise, the New Testament emphasizes how Christians are immigrants and minorities in this sinful world (Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11).

Regardless of our ethnic and national background, as followers of YHWH Christians share the immigrant experience both before God as our host and the sinful world as our majority culture. Our core identity is not as the host culture. We are all immigrants!

2. God’s people love God by loving the immigrant

The other important theological theme related to immigrants, especially in the Old Testament, is that we love God by loving the immigrant. YHWH loved the immigrant, so Israel should as well, especially since they were immigrants in Egypt and knew what it felt like to be an immigrant (Exod 23:9; Deut 10:18–19).

The New Testament continues this theme. Not only must overseers love the foreigner (“hospitable,” 1 Tim 3:2), but so too must all Christians (Rom 12:13; Heb 13:2).² How can one show their love of YHWH? Love the immigrant!

These Bible passages regarding the immigrant apply most directly to the people of God today, the church. As we’ll see, the church should receive the Old Testament immigration texts today as a challenge to love people who need help, especially those who are physically close to us and are from different backgrounds.

The foreigner (נָכְרִי and נֵכָר)

We will begin by looking at the most common word for foreigner in the Old Testament: the adjective נָכְרִי and the noun נֵכָר.³

Unincorporated & unassimilated foreigner

Foreigner (נָכְרִי) usually refers to a foreign person who does not connect at any deep level with the host people (Deut 29:22; Judg 19:12; 1 Kgs 8:41).⁴ For example, the law of the king defines a foreigner as someone who is “not your brother” (Deut 17:15).⁵

God prohibited the Israelites from offering bread in a ritual context that they had acquired from a son of a foreigner (Lev 22:25).
The Torah disallowed the Israelites from charging a brother interest, but they could charge a foreigner interest (Deut 23:20).
The sabbatical year cancelled the debts of Israelites, but not of the foreigner (Deut 15:3).

In some cases, the foreigners were traveling merchants from foreign countries. Deuteronomy prohibited Israel from eating unclean food, but they could give it to an immigrant or sell it to a foreigner (Deut 14:21). The change in verb from “giving” to the immigrant or “selling” it to the foreigner portrays the latter as a merchant. These foreigners could also be mercenaries, since David told the נָכְרִי soldier Ittai, “your arrival was yesterday” (2 Sam 15:20).

In other cases, the foreigner lives permanently in Israel but retains significant cultural customs of their place of origin.

Solomon’s wives, who are from other countries and worship the gods of those countries, are called foreigners (1 Kgs 11:1, 8).
More directly, foreign gods are “gods of foreigners” (Gen 35:2, 4; Deut 31:16; 32:12; Josh 24:20; 1 Sam 7:3; Jer 5:19; Mal 2:11).
Exodus’s prohibition against a “son of a foreigner” eating Passover addresses this scenario (Exod 12:43).
Likewise, Ezekiel condemns Israel for allowing “sons of a foreigner”—defined as those who are “uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh”—to enter YHWH’s sanctuary (Ezek 44:7, 9).

One of the more controversial texts about foreigners is Ezra 10, where the Israelites have married foreign women. A similar story occurs in Nehemiah 13:23–31, where Jews have married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab and their children speak foreign languages. Neither text directly says that the women worshipped other gods. However, the usage of foreigner (נָכְרִי) strongly implies that idolatry is the problem with these wives, not that they were merely foreign or that their children spoke a different language. Nehemiah’s response supports this, as he recalls how Solomon’s foreign wives had made him sin (13:26). Further, the texts states that Nehemiah “cleansed them [Israel] from everything foreign (נֵכָר)” (Neh 13:30).

Favorable depictions

However, not everything about a foreigner is negative!

YHWH promised to hear the prayer of the foreigner (1 Kgs 8:43).
Already in Genesis, Abraham incorporated some sons of foreigners into his house and circumcised them (Gen 17:12, 27).
Ruth called herself a foreigner when she moved to Bethlehem even as she incorporated herself into Israel (Ruth 2:10).
One psalm refers to “sons of foreigners ” surrendering and coming to obey YHWH (2 Sam 22:45–46//Ps 18:45–46).

Most intriguingly, Isaiah says, “let not the son of the foreigner who has attached himself to YHWH say, ‘YHWH will separate me from my people’” (Isa 56:3). Later, Isaiah also says,

And the sons of foreigners who have attached themselves to YHWH to serve him and to love the name of YHWH to be his servants—everyone who keeps the Sabbath from profaning it and holds fast to my covenant—I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them happy in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar because my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples. (Isa 56:6–7)

Even the foreigner can join the people of Israel when they follow YHWH!

Summary

Overall, the foreigner in the Old Testament normally referred to those who fundamentally remained disconnected from Israel and were more stable economically. Some of them passed through Israel temporarily as merchants. For those who lived in Israel, they retained significant foreign identity markers that prevented their inclusion into Israel.

However, as we saw, this picture is not always consistent: Some “sons of a foreigner” were circumcised and joined Abraham’s house; Ruth called herself a foreigner even as she incorporated herself into Israel; and Isaiah referred to the foreigner in the future who will fully commit themselves to YHWH.

Immigrant (גֵּר and גור)

The other major category of non-Israelite in the Old Testament are those who incorporated themselves into Israel more fully. The word used to describe this person is an immigrant (גֵּר; with the verbal form גור), which has traditionally been translated as “sojourner.” Given the rarity of the use of the word “sojourner” in English today, I have chosen to translate גֵּר as “immigrant” to signify it normally represents a person who migrates from one people group to another. However, the noun גֵּר and the verb גור are used in somewhat different ways from each other.

The verbal form גור

We will begin with the verbal form גור, which more broadly refers to dwelling in a place. In some occurrences, it does not imply anything foreign. For instance,

Dan was said to dwell with the ships (Judg 5:17).
A Levite could be said to dwell in a town in Israel (Deut 18:6; Judg 17:7–9; 19:1, 16).

However, more commonly the word refers to people dwelling with another people group. For example,

Abraham sojourned among the Canaanites (Gen 20:1; 21:23, 34; 26:3; 35:27; Exod 6:4; 1 Chr 16:19).
Elimelech went with his family to dwell in Moab during a famine (Ruth 1:1).
Elisha told a woman to go somewhere else during a famine and dwell there, so she spent seven years with the Philistines (2 Kgs 8:1–2).
If the Israelites sought to flee Israel to dwell in Egypt when Babylon invaded, YHWH promised that they would face calamity (Jer 42:15–22).
However, the people do not listen and go to dwell in the land of Egypt (Jer 43:2, 5; 44:8, 12, 14, 28).

In general, the verbal form גור is used broadly to refer to people living among another people group (usually Israelites moving elsewhere) and does not entail much assimilation.⁶ Though it is not universal, Israelites tended to dwell somewhere else in response to a natural disaster—such as a famine—or a military conflict, creating a partial parallel with modern refugees fleeing from similar events.

The noun form גֵּר in narrative texts

Turning to the noun form גֵּר, it rarely appears in a narrative context. When it does so, it refers to a situation like those where the verbal form is used: The immigrant does not change very much to become like their hosts.

Abraham told the inhabitants of Hebron that he was an immigrant among them (Gen 23:4).
The Amalekite who told David about the death of Saul called himself an immigrant (2 Sam 1:13).
Unusually, Moses combines immigrant with foreigner when he said that he “was an immigrant in a foreign land” (Exod 2:22; 18:3). (It is unclear which experience he is referring to: Egypt or Midian?)⁷

The noun form גֵּר in legal texts

In the ancient Near East, law codes pay very little attention to immigrants.⁸ But the Torah takes a different approach! It reveals how strongly God values loving the immigrant.

In these legal texts, the immigrant sometimes depicts someone living among a people group but remaining separate from them. The clearest example of this comes from Israelites living as immigrants in Egypt. For example, Exodus 23:9 says, “you shall not oppress the immigrant since you yourself know the feelings of an immigrant because you were an immigrant in the land of Egypt.” In this case, the immigrants were not assimilating into Egyptian culture. Instead, the focus is on Israel knowing what it is like to be the minority in a foreign culture. Interestingly, while Joseph assimilated more into Egyptian culture, Genesis never uses the word immigrant to describe him.⁹

However, other texts portray significant incorporation of the immigrant into their host population. Indeed, it is even possible that in some texts the immigrant was an Israelite from a different part of the country, rather than someone from outside the people of Israel.¹⁰ Later in history, Josephus makes a distinction between those who live among the Jews and observe their laws compared to those who end up among the Jews by accident (Against Apion 2:210).

The strongest evidence for this incorporation of the immigrant, though, is the Passover laws. The prohibition of yeast in a house during Passover extends to both the native of the land and the immigrant (Exod 12:19). Most significantly, an immigrant could celebrate Passover with Israel if he circumcised his family and “becomes like a native” (Exod 12:48). The immigrants were among those who celebrated the Passover with Hezekiah (2 Chr 30:25).

It is in this Passover context that the text notes that “there will be one law for the native and the immigrant who lives among you” (Exod 12:49), a sentiment that is repeated specifically about the Passover in Numbers 9:14 and more generally in Leviticus 24:22 and Numbers 15:15–16, 29. The immigrants are even said to enter into covenant with YHWH (Deut 29:11; Josh 8:30-35). Many places in the Old Testament spell out how the immigrant follows the same laws as the Israelites:¹¹

The prohibition of work on the Sabbath (Exod 20:10; 23:12) and the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:29)
The prohibition of offering an animal sacrifice anywhere except the tent of meeting (Lev 17:8–9)
The prohibition of eating blood (Lev 17:10–15)
The prohibition of committing idolatry (Ezek 14:7)
The prohibition of sacrificing children to Molech (Lev 20:2)
The prohibition of cursing the name of YHWH (Lev 24:16; Num 15:30)
Regulations about how to offer a burnt offering (Lev 22:18–20)
Regulations about gathering the ashes of the red heifer (Num 19:10)
The opportunity to flee to a city of refuge (Num 35:10)
The regulations about sexual activity (Lev 18:26)
When a priest offered atonement for all Israel for a mistake, this would cover the immigrant as well (Num 15:26)
The immigrant could participate in the Feast of Weeks (Deut 16:11), Feast of Tabernacles (Deut 16:14), and the celebration of first fruits (Deut 26:10–11)
The immigrants gathered with all Israel to hear the law every seven years (Deut 31:10–12)

In summary then, the verb form גור refers most commonly to living among a different people group but not incorporating oneself into them very highly. One strand of the use of the noun form גֵּר follows this tendency, such as the very common theme of Israel as an immigrant in Egypt and the handful of narrative texts that use the word גֵּר. However, the dominant use of the noun immigrant (גֵּר) in the Old Testament depicts them as non-Israelites who have been incorporated into Israel in significant ways and effectively become a part of Israel.

Logos's Bible Sense Lexicon on Sojourner.

Use Logos’s Bible Sense Lexicon to explore the different words related to concepts like sojourner.

The identity & reason for these immigrants

Unfortunately, we do not have information about the identity of these immigrants and why they came to Israel. Given the way that the verbal form גור is often connected with people fleeing natural disasters or war, most likely this would have been the cause for someone to become an immigrant, but we cannot know for certain.¹²

Further complicating this issue is the presence of non-Israelites who were incorporated into Israel but are not called immigrants, such as the descendants of Jethro the Midianite (Judg 1:16), Caleb the Kenizzite (Num 32:12; Josh 14:6), and Rahab the Canaanite (Josh 6:25).¹³ It is possible that they went through an “immigrant stage” before being incorporated. However, I would guess that they were not called immigrant because they did not need to be financially supported: All three stories portray them as those who would most likely not need help.

Ruth is a more difficult situation, since she is not called an immigrant but clearly needs help. She refers to herself as a foreigner (נָכְרִי, Ruth 2:10), but that could be an early stage of her time in Israel or perhaps even a Moabite misunderstanding of the difference between the words “immigrant” and “foreigner.” Regardless of whether she is called an immigrant or not, Boaz follows the command to love the immigrant by caring for Ruth.

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The command to love the immigrant

The Old Testament law constantly commands the Israelites to love the immigrant. One common reason for this was that Israel should treat the immigrant kindly because they were immigrants in Egypt. As noted above, Exodus says, “you shall not oppress the immigrant since you yourself know the feelings of an immigrant because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt” (Exod 23:9). Israel knew what it was like to be an immigrant!¹⁴ Therefore, they should love the immigrant in their midst. This reminder about Israel’s history is frequently repeated in the Torah (Exod 22:21; Lev 19:34; Deut 24:17–18).

Another aspect of the call to love the immigrant relates to their economic needs. The constant connection of the immigrant with the widow and the orphan demonstrates this socioeconomic reality for the immigrant (Exod 22:21–22; Deut 10:18; 14:29; 27:19; Jer 7:6; Ezek 22:7; Zech 7:10).¹⁵ In the legal texts, taking care of the immigrant becomes one of the major symbols of following YHWH.

The reason for this is that YHWH loves the immigrant! YHWH’s love for the immigrant is a common theme throughout the Old Testament:

“YHWH loves the immigrant, giving him food and clothing” (Deut 10:18–19).
Likewise, YHWH is one who “guards the immigrant” (Ps 146:9).
The prophets repeat this call to bring justice to the immigrant as part of their call to follow YHWH (Jer 7:6; 22:3; Ezek 22:7, 29; Zech 7:10; Mal 3:5).

The Old Testament provides a variety of specific ways the Israelites were to care for the immigrant:

Not wronging or oppressing the immigrant (Exod 22:21)
Not corrupting justice on behalf of the immigrant (Deut 27:19)
Leaving the fallen grapes in a vineyard for them to pick up (Lev 19:10; Deut 24:21)
Leaving the edges of a field unharvested (Lev 23:22; Deut 24:19)
Not beating an olive tree twice to allow the immigrant to gather olives from it (Deut 24:20)
Sharing the three-year tithe not only with the Levite, but also the immigrant and other groups that tended to be poorer (Deut 14:28–29; 26:12–13)
Providing shelter for an immigrant: Job proclaims his virtue by saying that “the immigrant did not remain outside overnight” (Job 31:32)

The call to “love the foreigner” in the Old Testament always uses the word immigrant (גֵּר), highlighting the closer connection of Israel to the immigrant than foreigners (נָכְרִי and נֵכָר) in general.

It is possible that Israel was called to love the immigrant, not the foreigner (נָכְרִי), because the immigrant tended to be more highly committed to their host country, Israel, than the foreigner. If this was the key difference, then Israel was to show a special love towards those who had committed themselves to Israel and YHWH.

However, it is more likely that Israel is called to love the immigrant because the immigrant generally needed help more than the foreigner. The incessant inclusion of the immigrant along with the widow and the orphan in these calls to love the poor reflect the common poorer status of the immigrant in Israel. The call to love the immigrant says less about the exact identity of the immigrant and more about their status as someone close to the Israelites who needed help. In general, the immigrants were those who needed help, while the foreigners did not.

Since someone from a different country would not be able to own land in Israel, this would place them in a significantly dangerous place in an agrarian society.¹⁶ As noted above, some non-Israelites were able to gain land, such as Caleb. However, the frequent description of the immigrant as “within your gates” might imply that they live within towns, not on their own land. Deuteronomy commanded the Israelites to care for the Levite “within your gates because he has no property or inheritance with you” (Deut 12:12; 14:27). While this verse does not use the word immigrant, it might provide commentary on what it means to be “within the gates”: without property. Likewise, Deuteronomy 14:29 includes the immigrant with the Levites, said to be without property, along with the orphan and widow as those who should share in the blessings of the three-year tithe.

Leviticus strongly frames the command to love the immigrant by saying, “you shall love him as yourself” (Lev 19:34). Deuteronomy is even stronger when it says, “cursed is the one who corrupts justice in regard to an immigrant, orphan, or widow” (Deut 27:19). The practice of helping the poor immigrant even becomes a model for how to treat a poor Israelite: If a native Israelite became poor, then other Israelites were to treat him like an immigrant and care for him (Lev 25:35).

Foreign-worker (תּוֹשָׁב)

One word that appears less frequently than immigrant and foreigner and seems to occupy a middle ground between them is תּוֹשָׁב. Etymologically, it derives from the word for “dwell” (ישׁב) but refers to a foreign-worker since it often occurs in parallel with “hired laborer” (Exod 12:45; Lev 22:10; 25:6).

Because of this connection, the foreign-worker (תּוֹשָׁב) faced some restrictions: The Passover regulations prohibit a foreign worker (and a hired laborer) from joining the Passover celebrations (Exod 12:45), and the foreign-worker and the hired laborer of a Levite could not eat the holy food (Lev 22:10).

However, in other ways the foreign-worker is like the immigrant. תּוֹשָׁב sometimes occurs in parallel with an immigrant, such as when:

Abraham calls himself an immigrant and a foreign-worker (Gen 23:4).
YHWH would care for all those in Israel during the sabbatical year, including the foreign-worker and the hired worker and the ones who dwell in Israel (Lev 25:6).
The cities of refuge were for both the immigrant and the foreign-worker (Num 35:15).
Israel was to care for a poor Israelite like he was a foreign-worker or an immigrant (Lev 25:35).
Finally, Israel is called both an immigrant and a foreign-worker before YHWH (Lev 25:23).

While the foreign-worker in some ways is like a foreigner (though it is never used in parallel with foreigner) and kept separate from Israel, in other ways the foreign-worker is more like an immigrant and able to enjoy some of the privileges of the native Israelites. A translation like “foreign-worker” helps to show both the normally lower-class status of these individuals and their relative position between an immigrant and a foreigner.

Greek Translations in the Old & New Testament

Turning to the New Testament, we have far less data to work with when it comes to immigration because it does not talk about the topic very much.

Proselyte or convert (προσήλυτος)

The most common translation of immigrant in the Greek Old Testament is the word “proselyte” (προσήλυτος ), especially in the texts that emphasize the immigrant identifying with Israel in strong ways (Exod 12:48-49; 20:10; Lev 16:29).¹⁷ By the time of the New Testament, the word “proselyte” had taken on a technical meaning of an official convert to Judaism, which is the only way that the New Testament uses it (Matt 23:15; Acts 2:11; 6:5; 13:43).¹⁸ This new technical meaning for the word prevented New Testament authors from using the word as broadly as immigrant was used in the Old Testament.

Resident-foreigner (παροικέω)

The Greek Old Testament also translates immigrant (both גֵּר/גור) and foreign-worker (תושב) by the Greek verb παροικέω or the noun πάροικος (“resident-foreigner”).¹⁹ However, these words appear rarely in the New Testament.

Not surprisingly, they are used to describe some Old Testament stories describing Abraham and Moses as immigrants (Acts 7:6, 29; Heb 11:9). The only use of the word to describe someone living in contemporary times refers to someone temporarily visiting Jerusalem for Passover (Luke 24:18).

New Testament authors use the word resident-foreigner (πάροικος) theologically a few times:

When speaking to Gentiles, Paul tells them they are no longer foreigners (ξένος) or resident-foreigners (πάροικος), but “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).
More broadly, Peter addresses his readers as resident-foreigners (πάροικος) and exiles in this world (1 Pet 2:11).

Foreigner (ξένος, ἀλλότριος, ἀλλογενής, and ἀλλόφυλος)

The foreigner word group is likewise sparsely represented in the New Testament.

Foreigner (נָכְרִי and נֵכָר) is generally translated in the Greek Old Testament by ἀλλότριος (“belonging to another”). However, in a few places it is translated with the word “stranger” (ξένος), “different people group” (ἀλλογενής), or “foreign” (ἀλλόφυλος). Most of these Greek words appear rarely in the New Testament.²⁰

The only word connected with the “foreigner” category of the Old Testament that the New Testament uses with any regularity is “foreigner” (ξένος). Even though it appears only nine times in the Greek Old Testament,²¹ it becomes a more common word for outsiders in the Second Temple period and is the main word for them in the New Testament (though it is still used only fourteen times).²²

Loving-foreigner (hospitality) in the New Testament

In a similar way to “resident-foreigner” (πάροικος), the word foreigner (ξένος) is put to theological use in the New Testament:

When speaking to Gentiles, Paul says that they were “foreigners to the covenants of promise” (Eph 2:12).
Later, he says that they are no longer foreigners or resident-foreigners, but “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).
Elsewhere, followers of YHWH are called foreigners and exiles on earth (Heb 11:13).

While it is a minor theme, the New Testament chooses the word foreigner (ξένος) to recall the Old Testament’s command to love the immigrant (even though the Greek Old Testament only used the word ξένος to translate גֵּר one time).

John praised his readers for caring for his friends, who were foreigners to his readers (3 John 5).
The word foreigner was combined with the word for love (φίλος) to create the word “loving-foreigners” (φιλόξενος), commonly translated “hospitality.”
In its adjectival form φιλόξενος , an overseer is to be one who loved the foreigner (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:8).
Likewise, Peter commanded all Christians to practice loving-foreigners (φιλόξενος, 1 Pet 4:9).
Paul also uses the noun form “loving-foreigners” (φιλοξενία ) to call all Christians to love the foreigner (Rom 12:13).
Finally, it appears in Hebrews as a general call for all Christians, but there it is supported by the statement that “by doing this some have loved foreigners who were angels without knowing it” (Heb 13:2).

The most direct reference to loving the immigrant (גֵּר) in the New Testament is when Jesus, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, designates the person helped as a “foreigner” (ξένος, Matt 25:35, 38, 43, 44). Since the foreigners are also described as “brothers” (Matt 25:40), most likely they are fellow Christians.²³

Summary & conclusion

The Old Testament talks about non-Israelites with two different word groups: foreigners who remain different (the Hebrew words נָכְרִי and נֵכָר) and immigrants who assimilate into Israelite culture and are generally poorer (גֵּר).

However, the line between the two words is often fuzzy. Such peoples appear on a spectrum in terms of their relation to Israel. On one side of the spectrum are the foreigners who remain opposed to YHWH and worship other gods, tempting Israel to the do same. However, other non-Israelites are in Israel mainly for business purposes. In general, foreigners as a group are more economically stable. On the other side of the spectrum, many immigrants assimilate into Israel. Some texts even portray them as following YHWH! They take on Israelite identity markers but are also less economically stable. Complicating things further, the category of “foreign-worker” (תושב) does not exactly overlap with either category, landing somewhere between the two.

Significantly, the call to “love the non-Israelite” always appears with the word “immigrant” (גֵּר), not with “foreigner” (נָכְרִי). However, given that this command was frequently connected with the widow and the orphan, it is based primarily on the relatively poorer status of the immigrant compared to the foreigner.

The New Testament continues the Old Testament theme of loving the immigrant, but due to linguistic changes speaks of the command using the broader word foreigner (ξένος). However, the word foreigner (ξένος) in the New Testament takes on some of the meaning of immigrant (גֵּר) in the Old Testament, as it often refers to loving those who are committed to God.

Despite any differences, the fundamental theological themes about immigrants remain the same across the testaments:

God’s people all experience their life primarily as immigrants, not as the host culture (Lev 25:23; 1 Chr 29:15; Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11).
One important way to love God is to love the immigrant, whatever that looks like in each historical context (Deut 10:18–19; 27:19; Zech 7:9–10; Rom 12:13; 1 Pet 4:9).

Both truths, along with their respective passages, should be emphasized today in church contexts.

This word study has shown that the distinction between an immigrant and foreigner was frequently unclear in the Old Testament and became even more muddied in the New Testament world of the early church. Thus, we should not be surprised if providing exact definitions today is likewise elusive.²⁴

However, providing exact definitions is not our primary goal as followers of YHWH. Instead, it is to love those outsiders who need help “within our gates,” whoever that might be. Although the story of the Good Samaritan does not use any of the words for foreigner or immigrant since it instead revolves around the question of “neighbor,” Jesus’s expansion of the “neighbor” category to include even a Samaritan follows the similar expansion in Leviticus 19 from “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18) to “love the immigrant as yourself” (Lev 19:34). So we ask, who is the immigrant (גֵּר)/foreigner (ξένος) in your life that you can love?

Charlie Trimm recommended resources for further study

Ramírez Kidd, José E. Alterity and Identity in Israel: The גר in the Old Testament. BZAW 283. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999.
Roth, Federico Alfredo. Hyphenating Moses: A Postcolonial Exegesis of Identity in Exodus 1:1-3:15. Biblical Interpretation 154. Leiden: Brill, 2017.

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What Does the Bible Actually Say About Immigrants and Foreigners?

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