The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 2 — Section 187

confiding. Dut aro God's people amenable to charges of this kind? lt is evi<lent thnt tho lsrnelites were, from this warning to them. It was so easy to turn Jehovah's denun- cintions of the idolater into excuses for ml\ltreating the stranger because he hnd the )f)()k of an idolat\)r, .Nay more, how easy it was both to yield to the idolatry and maltreat the stranger I Ill. 'l'HE GREAT CONSIDERATION WHIOFI 113 TO LEAD TO PROPER TREATMENT OP' THE STRANGER, "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Great as the temptation was to treat strangers bndly, such treatment if only looked at in acert&in light would be scarcely excusable at nil. This possible treatment of the stranger is to be looked at in the clear light of our Lord's parable concerning the forgiven yet unforgiving debtor. Israel had been strangers in Egypt, not only foreigners among the Egyptians, but to some extent exiles from God, who bnd put on the appearance of having forgotten them. But now he hnd brought them to himself, they were to be his people, a holy nation; and it was want of loyalty to God, it was behaviour unworthy of a holy nation tor them to treat strangers as the Egyptians bad treated Israel. God bates the oppressor everywhere and pities the oppressed. The people of God never dishonour their name more than when they trample on the alien from the commonwealth of Israel and the stranger from the covenant of promise. The alien may become as the home-born. The stranger may become familiar with Divine covenants and promises as if he were an Israelite from the womb. Even already the Israelites were being warned against counting too much on out- ward signs and natural descent. '.Ve should ever be looking for the minimum of living faith rather than the maximum of formal orthodoxy. A tiny seed is more to be cherished than a huge log of timber; for the one has whole living forests in it, and the other is dead and dead it must remain. We must labour to get the insight whereby we may penetrate through strange outward aspects and discern the spiritual life and sym- pathies underneath. God will give us the eye to discover, the honest and good eye, whether the stranger who comes is a wandering sheep seeking the true flock or a wolf in sheep's clothing. To mistake the sheep for the wolf is equally lamentable with mis- taking the wolf for the sheep. The Pharisaic spirit so easily finds entrance, welcome and dominion ill our breasts. It is so natural to play the censor towards those who sill the sins which we have no temptation to fall into. He without mercy for him that seems a i.tra.nger to God, may suspect that he is still a stranger himself. Many even of the Israelites at Mount Sinai had not been brought to God ill the full sense of the term. Theirs was but a local contiguity to the awful demonstrations, not an attachment of the whole heart to the pure and glorious God who was behind the demonstrations.-Y. Vers. 22-24.-Tlie treatment of the widow and the fathe:rless. This injunction is even more humiliating to receive than the preceding one. It was bad enough to find those who had been foreigners in Egypt oppressing foreigners among them- selves, and forgetting their own sufferings and deliverances. Still the slight excuse was available that as God's mercy to Israel receded into the past, and became a. mercy to a former generation rather than a present one (at least, so it might be plausibly put), it was only too likely to be forgotten. Men a.re unable to make the past stand with any power a.,crainst the influences of the present. But here are those, the widow and the fatherless, whom Nature in her ever fresh and living power, marks out herself as irresistible objects for pity and succour. What a disgrace to human nature that an injunction not to afflict the widow and fatherless should be necessary! And yet common observation only too often and sadly tells us that the widow and fatherless children may e~ily become the victims of an inconsiderate and unscrupulous self-seeking, which in its practical results is as afflicting as the most deliberate cruelty. It is a very beautiful element of God's rfWelution ,if hims~lf i1~ the Scriptures, that he is so often set before us as caring/or _thefa_therless and the widow, and denouncing thuse who do not care/or them. "Widows Ill their needs, and his supply for their needs, appear in some of the most prominent scenes of _the sacred page. Observe the provision that was made for the fatherless and the widow, alon_g wnh the Levite and the stranger, to eat of the tithe of the yearly produce (Deut. xiv. ~~l), and also to get their share in the rejoicings at the feast of weeks and the feast of tabernacles (Deut. xvi. 11-14). The neig~bour's raiment might be tak~n to pled~e under certain conditions, but a widow's raunent was not to be taken m pledge a: 1!18 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. LOIi. XXll. 26-27,