Exodus 22

March 15, Year 1

[21] “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

• The sojourner or “stranger” is a person away from their own land, property, people, history, heritage.

• They are subject to “time”—in sleep/death, exile, wandering, futility, instability—circling.

• They are not stable in “space” to build—in the square, the level, the plumb/upright, home, the land, fruitfulness, hierarchy, stability, heritage, tradition, history.

• Along with the widow and the orphan, the sojourner has special divine protection: The punishment for wronging the sojourner has no civil penalty, but comes from God directly:

  • “I will kill you with the sword.” [24]

  • Even when driven to sojourn by the (divine) sword, the sojourner is also protected by the sword.

• Like all symbols, the sojourner is a fractal: representing a reality at multiple levels—cosmic, international, inter-social, interpersonal:

  • Adam and Eve

  • Cain

  • Abraham in Canaan

  • Abraham in Egypt

  • Isaac in Gerar

  • Jacob in Egypt

  • Israel in Egypt

  • Israel in the wilderness

  • Ruth in Israel

  • David fleeing Saul

  • David fleeing Absolom

  • Israel in Babylon…

• So that David later says:

  “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 Chronicles 29:15]

fractal