Sojourner

A sojourner is a foreigner who lives among another people without owning land. The New Korean Revised Version renders the same Hebrew word, depending on context, with several Korean terms corresponding to "sojourner," "stranger," "guest," and "foreigner."

Biblical Occurrences

• Patriarchal narratives: When buying land in which to bury Sarah, Abraham introduces himself to the Hittites as "a stranger and a sojourner with you" (Genesis 23:4).
• Protective provisions of the law: The law repeatedly commands that sojourners not be mistreated (Exodus 22:21). Leviticus 19:33-34 commands that the sojourner be treated as one born in the land and loved as oneself, grounding this command in the fact that Israel too had been sojourners in Egypt. At harvest, gleanings were to be left for the sojourner (Leviticus 19:9-10), and the stranger within the gates was included in the Sabbath rest (Deuteronomy 5:14). Penal laws applied equally to sojourner and native-born (Leviticus 24:22), and the cities of refuge were open to sojourners as well (Numbers 35:15).
• Distinguishing provisions: Only circumcised sojourners could eat the Passover meal (Exodus 12:48).
• New Testament: 1 Peter addresses its recipients "as strangers and pilgrims" (1 Peter 2:11). Ephesians 2:19 declares that Gentile believers are "no more strangers and foreigners" but are now "of the household of God."

Background and Terminology

The Hebrew word gēr derives from a verb meaning "to dwell" or "to sojourn." Unlike a foreigner merely passing through, it denotes a person who has settled in the land of Israel but has no right to inherit land. Because land was allotted to tribes and families, the sojourner is frequently mentioned alongside the orphan and the widow as a vulnerable person in need of protection. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, often rendered gēr as prosēlytos, a word that later came to mean a Gentile convert to Judaism.

Significance Across Scripture

The Old Testament gives two grounds for protecting the sojourner. The first is that God loves the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:18-19); the second is Israel's memory of having itself been strangers before the Exodus. Leviticus 25:23 states that because the land belongs to God, Israel too is like sojourners before Him: "for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."

The New Testament applies this identity to the life of the believer. Hebrews 11:13-16 says that the ancestors in the faith confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth and sought a better country. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, welcoming the stranger is equated with welcoming Jesus: "I was a stranger, and ye took me in" (Matthew 25:35).

Interpretation and Issues

• Spiritual and social meaning: Many sermons read the sojourner as the believer's spiritual identity, that of a pilgrim journeying toward the heavenly homeland. Other interpretations connect the law's provisions concerning sojourners with the church's responsibility toward present-day immigrants and refugees. Opinions differ within the church, however, on whether these texts can be applied directly to specific national policies.
• The sojourners of 1 Peter: The expression is generally read as figurative. Some scholars, however, hold that the recipients were in fact resident aliens on the margins of society.
• The meaning of gēr: Scholars debate whether the term within the Old Testament simply denotes a foreign resident or whether, in later texts, its meaning shifted toward something closer to "convert."

In the Korean Church

The expression "living as a sojourner in this world" is frequently used in sermons and funeral services to speak of the transience of life and the hope of heaven. As the number of immigrants and multicultural families has grown, some churches cite the sojourner texts as the biblical basis for worship services for foreign workers and for immigrant ministry.