Tag: hear their cry

43.p. “Wilderness” – 7.w. Sojourner, widow, and Orphan

 

Exodus 22:21  “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.  If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry,  and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

 Leviticus 19:33    “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

 Deuteronomy 10:19   Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

 Jeremiah 22:3   Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

 Malachi 3:5   “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

 Deuteronomy 10:18     He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

 Isaiah 1:17   learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

 Zechariah 7:10   do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

 James 1:27     Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Governments have the right and responsibility to control borders and immigration; yet there is no doubt of the individual’s responsibility to neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him.  It is fair to examine how accommodating we are to the strangers among us. The widow and fatherless child were the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. In an unrestrained, survival-of-the-fittest society, they would be the first to suffer abuse and destruction. (Guzik)

The laws against oppression with three crimes of the deepest dye seems intended to indicate that oppression is among the sins which are most hateful in God’s sight. The lawgiver, however, does not say that it is to be punished capitally, nor, indeed, does he affix to it any legal penalty. Instead of so doing, he declares that God Himself will punish it “with the sword”. (Ellicott)

Ye shall not afflict the widow, or fatherless child — That is, ye shall comfort and assist them, and be ready upon all occasions to show them kindness. In making just demands from them, their condition must be considered who have lost those that should protect them; and no advantage must be taken against them, nor any hardship put upon them, which a husband or a father would have sheltered them from. (Benson)

It is good for us to take heed of these words from God. All we have has been given to us by God. Oh, that our hearts and minds would be sensitive to the quiet whispers of the Holy Spirit leading us to show God’s grace, mercy, and love.

4.f. “They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed”

Nehemiah 9:6   “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

“And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. By a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

“But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

Nehemiah gives an account of Creation and the hand of God choosing Abraham because of his faith and making a covenant with him and his descendants to give them the possession of land from people who were evil and vile.  He speaks of their rescue from Egypt and the wondrous works God performed then and in the wilderness.  In all of this, Nehemiah recounts their father’s sin in refusing to be mindful of God’s wonders and obey.  He also called out the fact that they themselves were no different and had stiffened their neck – they proudly denied serving God and did what was right in their own eyes.

We too must be mindful of our heart and know what is residing in it through the light of God’s word.  When our necks stiffen it is not as though we have taken a firm, knowing stand against God, but rather we have chosen to neglect His word, what He has done, what He has promised, and what He will do.  In this neglect, our eyes to our heart come to the point of being blind and our ears to our soul become deaf to His leading.  We are left with a stiff neck toward the things of God and since He is not the light and the bread of life to our soul we end up doing what is right in our own eyes for the door to our heart, mind, and soul is closed tight through this neglect.

Read God’s word with the intent of gaining godly wisdom and understanding.  Read it with eyes expecting to see something new revealed to your heart.  Read it with ears desiring to hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit’s leading.  Read it with the door to your heart, mind, and soul wide open.  When we start to read it with this commitment we will start to understand what it means to humbly serve, honor, glorify, worship, praise, follow, trust, and obey Jesus Christ.