The Two-Hundred-Sixtieth (Sojourners)

We’ve got quite an interesting topic this week.  It stems from what we studied the past couple weeks and has to do with some misconceptions about the people of what we call the Old Testament.  The majority of the time, I believe these misconceptions originate from a combination of poor scriptural translations and a false message that has been used in Christianity to support a false doctrine.

I told you last week that no matter which way I slice and dice scripture I find that YHWH has always expected us to follow His Law, and this week’s topic is just another example of that.  When you talk to the majority of Christians, one of the reasons they believe otherwise is because they’ve been told that YHWH’s Law was only given to Israel.  They believe that because ethnic Israel, as in, the people from the lineage of Jacob who was renamed Israel by YHWH, was the only people that were given the Law, anyone not a descendant of Israel is not expected or required to follow the Law.  Therefore, they say, Gentiles that join the body of Yeshua are not required to follow YHWH’s Law.

We’re going to get into why this is a false doctrine in a moment, but first, let’s briefly touch on something we alluded to last week.  One way to root out, or identify, a false doctrine, is to determine whether or not it contradicts other beliefs we know to be true or it contradicts itself, depending on the situation.  We know that those in the body of Yeshua, those that are believers in Him, are one (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).  Expounding on this idea of His body being one, Paul explains that each person, each part, of the body has a different purpose according to Yeshua’s design (1 Corinthians 12:14-24).  

Paul goes on to say that there should be no division in the body.  In this case, he’s specifically referring to sharing the good and the bad that happens amongst the people of the body, but the greater point stands that no matter what, there should be no division (1 Corinthians 12:25-26).  Unfortunately, that’s not the case today as we see hundreds of different denominations of Christianity, but regarding the topic of this week we cannot reconcile the truth that Yeshua’s body should have no division with a belief that Jewish believers in Yeshua have to follow the Law while Gentile believers don’t.  If we were to think about a body for a moment, we’ve got physical appendages that do physical things in the physical world.  In Paul’s explanation, as this relates to the body of Yeshua we each have a different purpose to fulfill in the physical world, like being an apostle, prophet, teacher, etc.

Our body also has a spiritual, or non-physical, aspect, and part of this aspect is that we have certain beliefs that we live our lives according to.  Those beliefs influence how we accomplish things physically.  For instance, if we believe that it is wrong to steal but we want some cool new car that just came out, we’ll save up or work harder to buy it rather than go find one and steal it.  

The same is true for the body of Yeshua.  It has a set of beliefs, founded in truth, that determine how its appendages (believers) are to fulfill their purpose.  Does it make sense, then, that a Jewish person whose purpose is to teach is teaching that believers need to follow the Law while a Gentile person whose purpose is to teach is teaching that believers don’t need to follow the Law?  To put it another way, let’s say a person’s right hand is a Law follower but their left hand is not.  If the left hand touches something unclean, it doesn’t matter if the right hand is a Law follower because at that point the whole body is unclean.  Yeshua even taught that if one of your body parts causes you to sin, you get rid of it! (Matthew 18:8-9, Mark 9:43-48)  

So, just based on these facts alone, we cannot reconcile a belief that there are some in the body of Yeshua that would have to follow the Law and there are some that would not have to follow the Law with the fact that the body of Yeshua is one.  To take it further, if we as believers are in the body of Yeshua, and Yeshua and the Father YHWH are One (John 10:30), then we are also one with YHWH.  If we are one with YHWH, and YHWH set the standard of His Law, how can we be aligned with Him if we don’t follow it?  How can we be one with Him?

Bringing it back to our topic of sojourners this week, I want to first reiterate that you should never take my word or any other person’s word on face value.  Please, study the scriptures for yourself and let the Holy Spirit guide you.  He will always lead you to the truth, and the challenge comes in putting the truth to practice in our lives.  No one, not the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, ever promised that believing and following Them would be easy, despite what some Christian leaders might tell you.  And, mind you, some of those leaders even do lip service to this fact, but the doctrines and beliefs they preach are the opposite to it.

The reason this week is titled Sojourners is because we’re going to establish this as our translation of a certain Hebrew word, as well as establishing some translations of other Hebrew words, and then determine what scripture says about the sojourner.  As stated earlier, a common belief is that only ethnic Israelites were required to follow YHWH’s Law, but, spoiler alert, that belief is not actually true.  What we find in scripture is quite the opposite.  In fact, even the term Israel, or Israelite, since the time of Moses always referred to a group of people that included ethnic Israel and Gentiles.  If you recall from a few weeks ago, this aligns with Paul’s reference to “all Israel” in Romans 11.

The Hebrew words we’re going to look at are ger (H1616), toshab (H8453), nokri (H5237), and nekar (H5236).  The reason we have to establish our own, definitive translations of these words is because they each have their own unique connotation in scripture yet they are translated interchangeably into English.  For example, ger, nokri, and nekar are all translated to alien or foreigner in various verses, however when you look at the context of how these words are used they are starkly different.  

For now, to make it easier to complete this study, we’re going to establish our translations of these words, and when we get to the end you’ll find that not only should each of these have its own specific English words in order to prevent confusion, the English words we give them align most closely with how they are used throughout scripture.  For ger, we will use the word sojourner.  For toshab, we will use the word visitor.  For nokri and nekar, they are the adjective and noun versions, respectively, of the same word, and we will use the word foreigner for both of these.  

First, we need to establish the understanding that ethnic descendants of Israel were not the only people to leave Egypt in the exodus.  The reason we need to establish this is because YHWH’s Law was given to the people that were in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, and if that people only included ethnic descendants of Israel then the argument could be made that the Law was only given to ethnic Israel and therefore only ethnic Israel is required to follow it.  To establish this, we need to look at the account of the exodus and see who is referenced there.  

We can recall that the event that resulted in pharaoh allowing the Israelites being to leave Egypt was the plague of the death of the firstborn son.  During that plague, direction was given by YHWH for the people to apply the blood of a lamb on the doorframes of their houses so their firstborn son would not be killed by the heavenly messenger known as the Destroyer (Exodus 12:23).  This direction was given to the “assembly of Israel,” and we do not know at this point if that included any Gentiles (Exodus 12:3).  We do know however, that whether Gentiles believed and applied the blood or they simply saw the plague and then believed, a group of them joined ethnic Israel and were called the “mixed multitude” (Exodus 12:38).

We see this phrase, mixed multitude, later on in scripture, and it confirms that this group consisted of Gentiles that were with ethnic Israel.  After the first fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the first temple, when the people returned to rebuild, they set everything up to recommence temple worship (Nehemiah 12:44-47).  In the process of the people returning to YHWH, after being removed from the land and spread out to different places, the Law was read aloud to everyone.  As tends to happen, the people heard a commandment for Ammonites and Moabites to be excluded from the assembly and they immediately excluded all people of “foreign descent” instead of just the people the commandment required (Nehemiah 13:1-3).  The Hebrew words translated to “foreign descent” are the same words used in Exodus and translated to “mixed multitude.”

As we read further in that same chapter, we come to the use of both the Hebrew words we translate to foreign (Nehemiah 13:26-27, 30).  In these instances, as well as all the other instances throughout scripture, the words are used in the context of, to put it plainly, evil.  They are always used to refer to people not of YHWH.  

When you look at all uses of nokri in Proverbs, for example, all but one is associated either with seductive/evil women or “strangeness.”  The word is even translated to adulteress in some of these verses (Proverbs 2:16, 5:20, 7:5), which is the translator imposing their interpretation rather than simply translating.  For instance, in the first verse, the chapter is talking about wisdom and the verse is typically translated to something to the effect of, “it will deliver you from the immoral woman, from the adulteress/wayward woman who flatters with her words.”  The literal translation of the Hebrew, however, is “to deliver you from the strange woman, from the foreign woman with her flattering words.”

Now, we’re not here to re-translate all of scripture, but if the intention was for this verse to refer to an adulteress there’s actually a Hebrew word for adulteress and it isn’t used.  So, how did the translator get there?  The next verse talks about abandoning her partner and forgetting the covenant of her God, so that’s a possibility, but more likely is the connection to the word “strange” and how it’s used in scripture.

When we look at where the Hebrew word is used, we see it in a particularly harrowing scene where the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, are struck dead for offering “strange” fire before YHWH (Leviticus 10:1).  Some translations will call it unauthorized, others call it profane, but across scripture this word is used to refer to people or things that are actively in opposition to YHWH.  More specifically, they have their origins or purpose in things having to do with worship or offering to false gods.    

In fact, nokri is connected multiple times in scripture with that same Hebrew word for strange, and even is directly associated with harlotry or whoring (Proverbs 23:27).  And yes, that particular verse actually does use a Hebrew word for committing adultery!  Are you starting to get the picture of what nokri and nekar mean scripturally?  They refer to someone or something that is either completely not associated with YHWH or is actively against YHWH.  And thus, we should translate all of the occurrences of these words in scripture to foreign.  They are something that does not belong to YHWH, just like a foreign object in someone’s body does not belong there.

In contrast, we have the words ger and toshab.  While they are used in quite a number of verses together, they do have a distinction.  The latter, toshab, occurs fourteen times, and in some cases it refers to someone almost fully integrated into a particular people group or society.  Other times, there is a distinction created between interacting with a toshab versus interacting with a ger.

As an example of the former case, when Abraham was looking for a place to bury his wife, Sarah, he called himself both a ger and a toshab among the Hittites (Genesis 23:4).  Also, the people of Israel, and David, were both called a ger and a toshab with YHWH (1 Chronicles 29:15, Psalm 39:12).  There were even some benefits given to a toshab among the Israelites like being able to be protected in one of the cities of refuge (Numbers 35:15).  So, we know at a minimum that a toshab is definitely not the same as nokri or a nekar.

As far as the latter case, we find that a toshab is not the same as a ger in that they are not allowed to partake in Passover (Exodus 12:45), but a ger is (Exodus 12:48).  They’re also not allowed to eat the sacred offering with a priest’s family (Leviticus 22:10), which means they were even fully integrated into Israelite families in terms of residing with them or being hired by them, but were not allowed to partake in certain aspects of YHWH’s commandments.  So, since there are distinctions between a toshab, a ger, and a nokri/nekar, they each need a different English word, and we’ve chosen visitor for toshab.  Like you see today, a visitor may stay awhile with you or with a group of people, but they are not necessarily going to fully integrate and do everything you or the group does.  They won’t necessarily have the same beliefs, or even be allowed to do certain things associated with your beliefs.  

The interesting part, and the main point of this week’s study, is when we get to the usage of the word ger.  This word occurs ninety-six times, and in every case, the context is not being a native of the land or ethnically related to a given people in the land, but being fully integrated into those people nonetheless.  As a ger among ethnic Israel, it was commanded and expected by YHWH that you would be given the same justice as an ethnic Israelite (Malachi 3:5).  Among the Israelites, a nokri could be charged interest but not his brother (Deuteronomy 23:20) (we’ll get into who a brother is in a moment).

What really shows how a ger was required to be treated amongst ethnic Israel though, is how they were referred to and what their interaction was to YHWH’s Law.  We already saw they could participate in the Passover, which links them to the “mixed multitude” that were part of the exodus, by the way, but it was significantly more than that.  Moses commanded that the ger were to hear the Law read and to carefully follow it (Deuteronomy 31:12).  Not only that, they were entered into the covenant of the Law the exact same way as ethnic Israel (Deuteronomy 29:10-13).        

If that’s not convincing enough that the Law was given to Gentiles and ethnic Israelites alike, let’s look at the heart behind these things.  Here’s where the idea of brother comes in.  Ethnic Israel was to love the ger as he loved himself (Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Leviticus 19:34).  Sound familiar?  The thing that seals the deal, so to speak, though, is the fact that the ger was called a part of the assembly of Israel, along with the “native-born,” (Exodus 12:19), and was called a part of “all Israel” (Joshua 8:33).  Sounds a little like what Paul said, doesn’t it?  This is why we need to translate ger to a third word, sojourner, .

The bottom line is that there were Gentiles amongst ethnic Israel since before YHWH’s Law was given in the wilderness.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  Not only that, the whole of Israel, ger included, were commanded to have one manner of Law between them: YHWH’s Law (Exodus 12:49, Leviticus 18:26, 24:22, Numbers 15:29-30).  They were even a part of the blessings and cursings on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (Joshua 8:33)!  These are just facts, according to scripture, so we have to ask ourselves if that was the standard then, why would it be different today?  YHWH doesn’t change, and if YHWH and Yeshua are One then they are the same and Yeshua doesn’t change, either.

Seek out the truth for yourself.  We were grafted into something, according to Paul, and according to him, all Israel will be saved.  Gentiles were a part of all Israel from the beginning, according to their true faith and obedience to YHWH.  Find out what that truth means for a believer, according to scripture.

Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!

-Rob and Sara Gene