Christian Living

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‘Also, you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land
of Egypt’
- Exodus 23:9


As Israel begins their journey to the promised land after an extra-ordinary visitation of God led to their deliverance in Egypt, God sets out to His people instructions and guidelines on how they are to conduct themselves.

One of these is found in Exodus 23:9. He commands them not to oppress the stranger. He helps them to understand why – they were once strangers in Egypt and knew by experience the pain and agony that accompanies oppression.
Israel had gone to Egypt at the invitation of the Pharaoh at the time of Joseph. But in the passage of time, the cloud of favour under which they came to Egypt evaporates and they were made slaves in Egypt.

Narrowly applied, I believe that what God sought to imbibe into their character was sensitivity in handling those who are in a position similar to the one they once found themselves in at Egypt. A wider application would imply that they were to be careful not to hurt or maltreat those who, by their circumstance, are in a place or situation ‘strange’ to the promises of God for the believer.

In Exodus 23:9, God tells Israel that they would find it easier to resist any temptation to oppress a stranger if they would recall the pain and agony they once suffered in Egypt.

To the Israelites, ‘Egypt’ had come to represent a place of bondage and enslavement, of fears and inward distress, of grief, sorrow and dejection of spirit. Figuratively, is for each and every one of us that place where we feel enslaved or oppressed by our circumstance.

Our ‘Egypt’ is often not the same. For some, it is in their marriages. For others it might be in their health, career, finances, academics, relationships or spiritual life. But whatever our ‘Egypt’ might be, it is a place of pain, humiliation, oppression and discomfort.

But God who turns the things that the enemy meant for evil to good, commands us to allow the memory of the pain, agony and humiliation that we experienced in our ‘Egypt’ to become the basis to give succour and comfort to those who are in the ‘Egypt’ we had once been.

Thus if we have suffered rejection, we, knowing the pain of rejection ought not to let another suffer rejection at our hands; if we have ever been betrayed, we ought to refrain from betraying those who trust us; if we have been despised in our seasons of lack, we ought to resist the temptation to despise those who are poor or in lack; if we have suffered abandonment, we ought to learn to stay with those who need (not want) us; if we have suffered the pain of been gossiped about and maligned, we ought to refrain from initiating or participating in gossiping or maligning another. The analogy is endless. But the principle is the same – be mindful in handling those who find themselves in that unpleasant place you have once been yourself.

Jesus taught the same principle in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant told in Matthew 18:21-35. A servant highly indebted to his master and under threat of bankruptcy, sought extra time to pay off his debt. But his master, ‘moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt’ – verse 27 .

But this same servant found another in the same position as he had been with his creditor. But rather than remember how it was in his ‘Egypt’, he threw his debtor in jail, refusing any plea for extended time to pay.

When his master heard of the way the servant had treated his debtor, he said to him:

‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.

Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’
Verses 32-33

In other words, knowing the pain and distress you felt as a debtor, under threat of bankruptcy, you ought to have been mindful to treat your debtor as I treated you.

I guess the crux of Exodus 23:9 is this: as long as we have been in that ‘Egypt’ before, we ought to know better than to treat those who are there now in the same manner we were treated that brought us pain and agony.

I pray that the next time we come across those who are in our past ‘Egypt’, we, recalling the pain we felt while there, will chose to treat them the same way we had prayed and hoped to have been treated while we were there. We must allow our memories of ‘Egypt’ to drive us to make that commitment to shield another from the pain and agony we once knew.


Shalom

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