24:17,18
Once again we have laws concerning protection of the vulnerable, here including the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. The foreigner and the fatherless are mentioned in the context of not depriving them of justice. With both groups there could be a temptation to not treat them properly. For the foreigner because they are different and not part of your community. For the fatherless because they are weak. Likewise, a widow’s cloak was not to be taken as a pledge for a load. Yet again the motivation for this is that the Israelites had once been slaves. Sometimes God allows us to go through difficult circumstances so that we will have a more compassionate attitude towards others.
24:19-22
Their time as slaves in Egypt is the motivation for another batch of commands. These were all concerned with not being 100% efficient in harvesting various crops. They were to be happy to leave some so that the foreigner, fatherless or widow could take the leftovers. Note that hardly any of the people, except the elderly, would have actually been in Egypt, that being some forty years ago now, but the nation had been enslaved.
No comments:
Post a Comment