For You Were Strangers
If you have ever tried to read straight through Leviticus, the second half of chapter 19 is probably where you started skimming. The first half has the verse everyone knows (even if you thought it came from the New Testament), "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (19:18). The second half reads like a list of do's and do not's. Don't let your cattle breed with a different kind. Don't sow two kinds of seed in one field. Don't wear a garment made of two kinds of material. Don't eat the fruit of a new tree for three years. Don't tattoo yourselves. Stand up when an old man walks in. Keep honest weights.
When I read this section, I come away seeing God as very particular about how we follow His statutes. I don't want to preach that away on Sunday, because He is particular. What I want to see is the moral code He is giving His people underneath every one of these laws, the odd ones included.
The passage gives us its own frame. It opens with "You shall keep my statutes" (19:19) and closes with "you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them" (19:37). In between, seven times, God says "I am the LORD" or "I am the LORD your God." A King who owns everything has something to say about everything, and in these nineteen verses He speaks to the farm, the orchard, the body, the family, the place of worship, and the market.
The chapter before this one shows what is at stake. "You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them" (18:3-4). Every people lives inside somebody's statutes. There is God's truth, which lies in the scaffolding of His statutes, and there is the truth of humanity, which lies in the scaffolding of our desires.
You can see the other scaffolding in the middle of this passage. Israel was not to "interpret omens or tell fortunes" (19:26), not to "make any cuts on your body for the dead" (19:28), and not to "turn to mediums or necromancers" (19:31). The nations around them did all of these things. People wanted to know the future, and they wanted to reach the people they had lost, so they looked for answers wherever they could find them. Isaiah answered it with a question of his own: "should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" (Isaiah 8:19). Moses had already given Israel the alternative. The nations "listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners," but God would raise up a prophet from among their own people, and "it is to him you shall listen" (Deuteronomy 18:14-15).
If you have a tattoo and verse 28 stung a little, read it again. These verses were about cutting and marking the body for the dead and for other gods, which is what Israel's neighbors did when they mourned. We'll talk more about that on Sunday. Six verses earlier, in the same list, a man has wronged a woman who was a slave, and the law sends him to the altar with a guilt offering, and it ends with "he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed" (19:22). Mercy is written into the middle of the rules.
The last verses of the chapter turn from what Israel must not do to what they must do. "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD" (19:32). The verse ties honoring them to fearing God, not to anything they could still produce.
Then the stranger. "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God" (19:33-34).
Last week we read "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (19:18). Sixteen verses later God uses the same words for the foreigner living among them. Those are the only two times the word "love" appears in Leviticus, and the second one reaches past Israel's own people to the outsider who doesn't belong. People in Jesus' day argued about who counted as a neighbor. Leviticus had already answered part of that question in this verse.
God gives the reason in the same breath: "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Israel knew what it was to live in a land that was not theirs. God had told them once before, "You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). They were to remember that feeling every time they met someone who didn't fit.
Then the scales. "You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (19:35-36). In an ancient market a scale was a beam with a pan hanging from each end. The goods went in one pan and the seller's stone weights in the other, and the buyer had no way to check the stones. Deuteronomy describes the cheat: "You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small" (Deuteronomy 25:13). One set was for buying and one for selling, so the scale always tipped toward the merchant.
Correct scales matter in every part of life. A scale is a way of measuring, and measurement determines judgment, so incorrect measurement leads to incorrect judgment. The chapter itself makes that connection. "You shall do no wrong in judgment" in verse 35 repeats the words God used about the courtroom in verse 15, "You shall do no injustice in court." And the word translated "just" for the weights is the same word translated "righteousness" in that verse about the court. In Leviticus, righteousness is always using an honest weight.
We do our best to live with integrity because it helps us connect with the Lord. The more we use dishonest scales, the less we can hear the Lord in our lives. Scripture warns about being "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). A dishonest scale rarely feels like a crisis. It is a small adjustment, made over and over, until we can no longer tell what something actually weighs.
Most of us don't sell grain, but we all carry weights. We have one measure for our own mistakes and another for everyone else's. We weigh our own motives generously and other people's harshly. Some of you grew up in church and have started to question how you were raised. That questioning is healthy, and I'm glad for it. Just weigh with one scale. If we weigh the church on God's scale and weigh the culture on the culture's own, we are carrying two kinds of weights.
Jesus did not soften any of this. "With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (Matthew 7:2). God has never needed a dishonest scale to find us wanting. Yet the reason He gives for these laws is that He had already rescued His people: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (19:36). Every law in this passage comes from a God who showed them what He was like before He asked anything of them.
As followers of Christ, we must be sure to follow Christ. It's not our rule set that we follow. It's not our logic that we follow. We follow Him and Him alone. Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32).
Read Leviticus 19:19-37 this week, and read Deuteronomy 18:9-15 beside verses 26 and 31. Then read Ephesians 2:11-22 and notice who the strangers are. Come Sunday ready to hear about the scales you carry, the strangers you know, and why a God this particular is very good news.
When I read this section, I come away seeing God as very particular about how we follow His statutes. I don't want to preach that away on Sunday, because He is particular. What I want to see is the moral code He is giving His people underneath every one of these laws, the odd ones included.
The passage gives us its own frame. It opens with "You shall keep my statutes" (19:19) and closes with "you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them" (19:37). In between, seven times, God says "I am the LORD" or "I am the LORD your God." A King who owns everything has something to say about everything, and in these nineteen verses He speaks to the farm, the orchard, the body, the family, the place of worship, and the market.
The chapter before this one shows what is at stake. "You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them" (18:3-4). Every people lives inside somebody's statutes. There is God's truth, which lies in the scaffolding of His statutes, and there is the truth of humanity, which lies in the scaffolding of our desires.
You can see the other scaffolding in the middle of this passage. Israel was not to "interpret omens or tell fortunes" (19:26), not to "make any cuts on your body for the dead" (19:28), and not to "turn to mediums or necromancers" (19:31). The nations around them did all of these things. People wanted to know the future, and they wanted to reach the people they had lost, so they looked for answers wherever they could find them. Isaiah answered it with a question of his own: "should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" (Isaiah 8:19). Moses had already given Israel the alternative. The nations "listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners," but God would raise up a prophet from among their own people, and "it is to him you shall listen" (Deuteronomy 18:14-15).
If you have a tattoo and verse 28 stung a little, read it again. These verses were about cutting and marking the body for the dead and for other gods, which is what Israel's neighbors did when they mourned. We'll talk more about that on Sunday. Six verses earlier, in the same list, a man has wronged a woman who was a slave, and the law sends him to the altar with a guilt offering, and it ends with "he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed" (19:22). Mercy is written into the middle of the rules.
The last verses of the chapter turn from what Israel must not do to what they must do. "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD" (19:32). The verse ties honoring them to fearing God, not to anything they could still produce.
Then the stranger. "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God" (19:33-34).
Last week we read "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (19:18). Sixteen verses later God uses the same words for the foreigner living among them. Those are the only two times the word "love" appears in Leviticus, and the second one reaches past Israel's own people to the outsider who doesn't belong. People in Jesus' day argued about who counted as a neighbor. Leviticus had already answered part of that question in this verse.
God gives the reason in the same breath: "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Israel knew what it was to live in a land that was not theirs. God had told them once before, "You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). They were to remember that feeling every time they met someone who didn't fit.
Then the scales. "You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (19:35-36). In an ancient market a scale was a beam with a pan hanging from each end. The goods went in one pan and the seller's stone weights in the other, and the buyer had no way to check the stones. Deuteronomy describes the cheat: "You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small" (Deuteronomy 25:13). One set was for buying and one for selling, so the scale always tipped toward the merchant.
Correct scales matter in every part of life. A scale is a way of measuring, and measurement determines judgment, so incorrect measurement leads to incorrect judgment. The chapter itself makes that connection. "You shall do no wrong in judgment" in verse 35 repeats the words God used about the courtroom in verse 15, "You shall do no injustice in court." And the word translated "just" for the weights is the same word translated "righteousness" in that verse about the court. In Leviticus, righteousness is always using an honest weight.
We do our best to live with integrity because it helps us connect with the Lord. The more we use dishonest scales, the less we can hear the Lord in our lives. Scripture warns about being "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). A dishonest scale rarely feels like a crisis. It is a small adjustment, made over and over, until we can no longer tell what something actually weighs.
Most of us don't sell grain, but we all carry weights. We have one measure for our own mistakes and another for everyone else's. We weigh our own motives generously and other people's harshly. Some of you grew up in church and have started to question how you were raised. That questioning is healthy, and I'm glad for it. Just weigh with one scale. If we weigh the church on God's scale and weigh the culture on the culture's own, we are carrying two kinds of weights.
Jesus did not soften any of this. "With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (Matthew 7:2). God has never needed a dishonest scale to find us wanting. Yet the reason He gives for these laws is that He had already rescued His people: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (19:36). Every law in this passage comes from a God who showed them what He was like before He asked anything of them.
As followers of Christ, we must be sure to follow Christ. It's not our rule set that we follow. It's not our logic that we follow. We follow Him and Him alone. Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32).
Read Leviticus 19:19-37 this week, and read Deuteronomy 18:9-15 beside verses 26 and 31. Then read Ephesians 2:11-22 and notice who the strangers are. Come Sunday ready to hear about the scales you carry, the strangers you know, and why a God this particular is very good news.
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