Covenant Identity and the Sojourner Text: Leviticus 19:33-34
Introduction: A Nation of Laws and Love
We are living in a time of profound confusion about what it means to be a people, what it means to be a nation. The West is in the grip of a suicidal sentimentality, a kind of autoimmune disorder of the soul, where it attacks its own identity, its own borders, and its own laws in the name of a vague and undefined compassion. On the one hand, you have those who want to build a wall around everything, driven by fear. On the other, you have those who want to tear down every wall, driven by a misguided and untethered form of guilt.
Both impulses are profoundly unbiblical. Both fail to grasp the careful, nuanced, and robust framework that God Himself lays down for His people in the law. Our text today from Leviticus is not some dusty, irrelevant regulation for a bygone era. It is a foundational statement on covenant, identity, law, and love. It speaks with piercing clarity into our modern chaos about immigration, assimilation, and national identity. It shows us that God is neither a globalist nor a xenophobe. He is the one who establishes nations, and He is the one who commands love for the individual foreigner who comes to dwell among His people.
The modern progressive reads this text and wants to use it as a battering ram against all borders and all immigration laws, turning it into a mandate for open chaos. The modern nationalist might be tempted to ignore it, or explain it away as something that only applied to ancient Israel. Both are wrong. We are commanded to think God's thoughts after Him, and that requires us to understand the careful distinctions He makes. This passage teaches us that a righteous nation is one that knows who it is, what it believes, and is therefore secure enough to be genuinely hospitable. It is a nation that has one law for all who are within its gates, and it is a nation that remembers its own story of redemption.
So let us come to the text, not to proof-text our talking points, but to have our minds reshaped by the wisdom of God. For in this law, we find the perfect balance of justice and mercy, of national integrity and personal compassion, that our world so desperately needs and cannot find apart from the Word of God.
The Text
‘And when a sojourner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.’
(Leviticus 19:33-34 LSB)
The Prohibition of Oppression (v. 33)
We begin with the clear command in verse 33:
"‘And when a sojourner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.’" (Leviticus 19:33)
The first thing to notice is the specific term used here: "sojourner." In Hebrew, this is the word ger. This is not a tourist passing through, nor is it an invading enemy. A ger was a resident alien, someone from another nation who had come to live for an extended period among the Israelites. He was a legal immigrant. He had come, in other words, through the gate, not over the wall. The law of God presupposes a distinction between the inside and the outside of the covenant community. It presupposes borders.
The command is straightforward: "you shall not mistreat him." The word for mistreat here carries the sense of oppressing, vexing, or dealing harshly with someone. This is a command against exploitation. The sojourner was in a vulnerable position. He had no ancestral land to fall back on, no tribe to defend him, no seat on the city council. He was dependent on the goodwill and the justice of the host nation. And God, who is the defender of the weak, the fatherless, and the widow, explicitly extends His legal protection to the sojourner.
This is a direct assault on ethnic pride and arrogance. It was a constant temptation for Israel to look down on the surrounding Gentile nations. But God commands them not to allow national identity to curdle into personal cruelty. There is no place in the kingdom of God for racial animosity or bullying. When a man from another people group places himself under the laws and customs of your nation, you are not to take advantage of his vulnerability. You are to deal with him justly. This is basic covenantal decency.
The Mandate for Assimilation (v. 34a)
Verse 34 then moves from the negative prohibition to the positive command, and it is a radical one.
"The sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you..." (Leviticus 19:34a)
This is a command for full inclusion under the law. The sojourner was not to be part of a permanent, legally distinct underclass. He was to be treated "as the native." This means he had the same legal rights and the same legal responsibilities. We see this principle stated elsewhere with crystal clarity: "There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you" (Exodus 12:49). One law. This is the bedrock of justice.
This demolishes the modern, multicultural project which seeks to create a society of separate, competing legal and cultural tribes living under one flag. The biblical model is not multiculturalism; it is assimilation to a central, covenantal standard. The sojourner was welcomed, but he was welcomed into Israel. He was expected to live by Israel's laws. He was to observe the Sabbath (Ex. 20:10). He was subject to the same penalties for blasphemy or idolatry (Lev. 24:16). If he wanted to fully participate in the covenant life of the nation by celebrating Passover, he had to be circumcised, fully identifying with the people of God (Ex. 12:48).
So, the welcome is conditional. The condition is a willingness to live under the same law as the native-born. This provides both protection for the sojourner and integrity for the nation. The nation is not required to dissolve its own identity to be hospitable. Rather, it is to be so confident in its covenantal identity that it can absorb and include outsiders, making them part of the whole. This is a picture of a healthy, vibrant, and expansive culture.
The Heart of the Matter: Love (v. 34b)
The command then reaches its pinnacle, moving from legal status to the disposition of the heart.
"...and you shall love him as yourself..." (Genesis 19:34b)
This is, of course, the second great commandment, which Jesus identified as the summary of the entire second table of the law. And here it is, applied directly to the immigrant. This is not a squishy, sentimental feeling. Biblical love is a covenantal commitment to seek the good of the other. It means you actively desire for the sojourner to prosper under God's law alongside you. You want his business to succeed. You want his family to be healthy. You want him to learn the ways of the Lord.
This command makes it impossible to hold onto a sullen, resentful attitude toward the foreigner in your midst. You cannot obey this command while muttering under your breath about "them" taking "our" jobs. You are to see this individual, this ger, not as a threat, but as a neighbor whom you are commanded to love. This is a high and holy calling. It requires a supernatural work of God in our hearts to overcome our natural tribal suspicions.
The Foundation of the Command (v. 34c)
Finally, God grounds this entire ethical framework in Israel's own redemptive history.
"...for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God." (Genesis 19:34c)
This is the ultimate appeal to empathy, grounded in theology. "Remember who you are. Remember where you came from. You were aliens. You were vulnerable. You were mistreated and oppressed. I, Yahweh, heard your cry and rescued you, not because you were better than the Egyptians, but out of my sheer grace." This memory was to be the engine of their compassion. Their experience of unjust suffering was meant to make them zealous for justice. Their experience of unmerited grace was meant to make them gracious.
This is a powerful principle. A people that forgets its own story of redemption will inevitably become arrogant and oppressive. A church that forgets it is made up entirely of forgiven sinners will become a gathering of Pharisees. We love the sojourner because we were all sojourners, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). But God, in His mercy, made us fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
And He concludes with the ultimate foundation: "I am Yahweh your God." This is not a suggestion. This is not a policy proposal from a think tank. This is a command from the sovereign Creator of the universe, the covenant Lord who redeemed them. He is the one who defines justice. He is the one who defines love. And He is the one who will judge His people for how they treat the vulnerable in their midst. His character is the final ground for this ethic.
Conclusion: A Christian Nationalism
So what does this mean for us? It means that a truly Christian approach to the question of immigration must be shaped by all of these principles, held in careful biblical tension.
First, it means that nations have a right and a duty to have borders and to enforce immigration laws. The very concept of a "sojourner" assumes a host nation with a distinct identity and legal framework. A nation that cannot control who comes and goes is not a nation at all.
Second, it means that our laws should be designed to encourage assimilation to a shared civic and moral standard, rooted in our Christian heritage. We should welcome those who want to come and become Americans, to learn our language, adopt our customs, and live under our laws. The goal is E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. This is the opposite of the multicultural ghettoization that is tearing the West apart.
Third, on a personal level, it means we are commanded to treat the legal immigrants in our communities with justice, dignity, and love. We must reject all forms of racism and ethnic animosity. We are to see the immigrant not as a problem, but as a person, an image-bearer of God, and a potential brother or sister in Christ. We are to be the most welcoming people on earth, because we know what it is to be welcomed by God when we were outsiders.
This is not complicated, but it is difficult. It requires us to be more thoughtful than the world, which oscillates between the false compassion of open borders and the fearful reaction of closed hearts. We are to have secure borders and open arms. We are to have a strong national identity and a deep personal love for the neighbor, regardless of where he was born. We do this because we remember our slavery in Egypt, and we remember the grace of the one who redeemed us and said, "I am Yahweh your God."