Properly, a guest ; by implication, a foreigner
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גֵּר (ger) is the Hebrew word for the sojourner or resident alien — the person who lives among YHWH's covenant people but is not ethnically Israelite. The local Hebrew artifact indexes this word at about 92 OT occurrences.
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Full entry for גֵּר (H1616) · Open the biblical lexicon
גֵּר (ger) is the Hebrew word for the sojourner or resident alien — the person who lives among YHWH's covenant people but is not ethnically Israelite. The local Hebrew artifact indexes this word at about 92 OT occurrences.
The BSB source-word alignment has 92 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a foreigner (9), the foreigner (9), foreigners (6), and the foreigners (4), to the foreigner (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 15:13. Its strongest book concentrations include Deuteronomy (22), Leviticus (21), Exodus (12), Numbers (11).
גֵּר (ger) is the Hebrew word for the sojourner or resident alien — the person who lives among YHWH's covenant people but is not ethnically Israelite. The local Hebrew artifact indexes this word at about 92 OT occurrences. The ger is the subject of more Torah legislation than any other vulnerable category, and one recurring motivating reason for that legislation is the same: 'you were gerim in Egypt.' Israel's social ethics toward the sojourner is grounded in covenant memory — the experience of vulnerability as aliens is to be transformed into solidarity with the vulnerable alien.
Leviticus 19:34 gives ger its most comprehensive command: 'The ger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were gerim in the land of Egypt: I am YHWH your God.' The two-clause structure is definitive: the command to love the ger as yourself (the neighbor-love of Lev 19:18 extended beyond ethnic Israel to the resident alien) is grounded in the Exodus-memory and sealed with the divine identity statement ('I am YHWH'). The ger-love is not optional; it is covenant obligation grounded in Exodus theology.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 gives ger its YHWH-advocacy use: 'He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the ger, giving him food and clothing. Love the ger, therefore, for you were gerim in Egypt.' YHWH himself is described as one who loves the ger — the covenant people's treatment of the sojourner is a participation in or a contradiction of YHWH's own character. The ger who is loved by YHWH and neglected by Israel exposes the covenant community's failure to imitate the God they worship.
Genesis 15:13 gives ger its covenantal-identity use: YHWH tells Abram that his offspring will be gerim in a land not theirs for four hundred years, oppressed and enslaved. The entire nation of Israel is born as a gerim-community — sojourners first in Canaan (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), then enslaved aliens in Egypt. This identity-as-ger is the theological foundation for every Torah command about the sojourner: 'you know the soul of the ger, for you were gerim in Egypt' (Exod 23:9). Israel's ger-empathy is experiential, not merely commanded.
Psalm 146:9 gives ger its doxological use: 'YHWH watches over the sojourners (gerim); he upholds the fatherless and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.' YHWH's care for the ger is part of his praiseworthy character — the God who made heaven and earth (v. 6) is the God who watches over the ger (v. 9). The praise of YHWH is inseparable from the acknowledgment of his care for the vulnerable alien.
For the preacher, גֵּר (ger) gives the theological grounding for the church's care of the migrant, the refugee, and the socially marginalized: the covenant people who were once gerim are to love the ger with the same love YHWH showed them in Egypt and beyond. The NT church as 'strangers and exiles' (1 Pet 1:1, 2:11) inherits the ger-identity: the covenant community is itself a community of sojourners before the living God.
גֵּר (ger) is indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 92 OT occurrences, with the densest concentration in the Torah (especially Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). The Torah legislates for the ger in virtually every major area of social life: gleaning rights (Lev 19:9-10, Deut 24:19-21), Sabbath rest (Exod 23:12), legal equality before the courts (Deut 1:16, 27:19), participation in festivals (Deut 16:11, 14), and access to tithes and food provisions (Deut 14:29, 26:12).
The prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah) indict Israel for violating the ger's rights as evidence of covenant unfaithfulness. Psalm 146:9 holds YHWH's care for the ger as a doxological attribute.
You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
The comprehensive ger-command: 'love the ger as yourself, for you were gerim in Egypt: I am YHWH.' The command structure is: equality-command (the ger as the native-born), love-command (love the ger as yourself), Exodus-motivation (you were gerim in Egypt), covenant-seal (I am YHWH your God). All four elements are essential: the ger has equal standing, deserves love-as-yourself, and the reason is covenant memory, all grounded in YHWH's covenantal identity.
The neighbor-love of Lev 19:18 is here extended explicitly beyond ethnic Israel to the resident alien.
So you also must love the foreigner, since you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Love the ger because you were gerim: the Exodus-motivation for ger-love is its most compressed form here. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 grounds YHWH's own character (v. 18, 'he loves the ger, giving him food and clothing') as the model for Israel's practice (v. 19, 'love the ger therefore'). The therefore links YHWH's love-of-ger with Israel's commanded love-of-ger: to love the ger is to imitate YHWH. To neglect the ger is to contradict YHWH's own character.
You must not exploit or oppress a foreign resident, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
The anti-oppression ger-command: 'do not wrong or oppress the ger, for you were gerim in Egypt.' This is not merely a positive love-command but a negative protection: the ger's vulnerability recalls the oppression Israel experienced in Egypt, where they were oppressed (the same verb, lachats, H3905, for Pharaoh's oppression of Israel in Exod 3:9). To oppress the ger is to be Pharaoh — to repeat the oppression that YHWH rescued Israel from and that defines the worst of human cruelty.
The Lord protects foreigners; He sustains the fatherless and the widow, but the ways of the wicked He frustrates.
YHWH as guardian of the gerim: Psalm 146's praise of YHWH the Creator-King (v. 6) includes his specific care for the gerim, the fatherless, and the widow (the three classic vulnerable groups of OT social law). To praise YHWH is to acknowledge his care for the ger — and the community that neglects the ger neglects the concern of the God it claims to praise. The social-justice dimension of ger-care is embedded in the doxological vision of YHWH.
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
Israel's founding identity as gerim: YHWH's covenant with Abram (the Abrahamic covenant) includes the prediction that Abram's offspring will be gerim in a foreign land, enslaved and mistreated. The entire nation of Israel is born as a gerim-community — and their later covenant obligations toward the ger are grounded in this founding prediction and its fulfillment in Egypt. 'You know the soul of the ger, for you were gerim in Egypt' (Exod 23:9) — the experiential memory is the moral teacher.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Resident alien with limited rights; vulnerable person requiring legal protection and covenantal care
Resident alien with limited rights; vulnerable person requiring legal protection and covenantal care
properly, a guest; by implication, a foreigner BDB: sojourner Usage: alien, sojourner, stranger.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
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Showing 1 selected witness from 92 lexical occurrence verses.
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גֵּר (ger) gives the church its most important ethical memory: the covenant people who were once sojourners in Egypt are to love, not oppress, the sojourners among them. The logic is unbreakable — to oppress the ger is to become Pharaoh (Exod 22:21); to love the ger is to imitate YHWH (Deut 10:18-19). For the NT church, the ger-theology runs even deeper: 1 Peter 1:1 and 2:11 call the church itself 'elect exiles' and 'sojourners and exiles' — the covenant community is itself a ger-community before the living God, awaiting the inheritance that does not perish (1 Pet 1:4).
The church that forgets its own sojourner-identity loses the experiential ground for ger-love. The alien, the refugee, the immigrant who arrives without status is the ger of the ancient text — the person YHWH himself watches over (Ps 146:9) and whom the covenant community is commanded to love as themselves (Lev 19:34). There is no covenant faithfulness that ignores the ger; there is no praise of YHWH that is consistent with oppressing those he himself watches over.
Lev.19.34
גֵּר (ger) is distinct from two other Hebrew words for foreigner: נָכְרִי (nokri, H5237, a foreigner who is merely passing through or who has no covenant relation — 'stranger/alien' in a stronger sense) and תּוֹשָׁב (toshav, H8453, a settler, sojourner, often appearing with ger as a hendiadys: ger ve-toshav, a resident sojourner). The ger is not simply 'foreign' — the ger is a resident, long-term, non-Israelite member of the community.
The ger in Israel had both legal protections (Lev 19:34, Deut 24:17) and obligations (Exod 12:48-49, the ger must be circumcised to eat the Passover; Num 15:15-16, one law for both ger and native). The LXX translates ger with proselutos (G4339, proselyte) and paroikos (G3941, resident alien, sojourner) — both terms are used in the NT for the status of the church before God and in the world.
The NT inherits the ger-theology in two directions. First, the church is itself a ger-community: 1 Peter 1:1 addresses the church as 'elect exiles of the dispersion' (parepidemos, G3927, sojourner); 1 Peter 2:11 — 'I urge you as sojourners (paroikous, G3941) and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh.' The church is the NT ger-community, resident in the world but citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Phil 3:20, Heb 12:22).
Second, Jesus applies the ger-principle in Matthew 25:35-40: 'I was a stranger (xenos, G3581) and you welcomed me... as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' The ger of the OT becomes the face of Christ in the vulnerable stranger of Matthew 25. Hebrews 11:13-16 honors the patriarchs as gerim who confessed themselves 'strangers and exiles on the earth' — their ger-status on earth pointed to the heavenly country they were seeking.