What Does Deuteronomy 10:19 Mean?
So love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.THE KEY
The stranger before you carries the same name as the stranger you once were.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as someone who knows what it is to live as a stranger. That remembered narrowness makes the outsider before you part of your own story: love reaches them from the place where you know what it is to need room.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that an outsider’s welcome is someone else’s responsibility dissolves: the verse roots it in the vulnerability you already know.
THE ROOT
הַגֵּר
ha-ger
GROWS FROM
גור
To sojourn or dwell among a people as an outsider.
“sojourner” in this verse is ha-ger. The verse repeats ger in gerim: the person before you and the people remembering their own outsiderhood carry the same name. The reason clause traces this recognition through Mitzrayim, the constricted place, making remembered narrowness the ground of welcome.
ALSO GROWS
ger: A resident outsider, one living among a people without native standing.
גֵּר
This is the person the verse asks you to love.
gerim: Sojourners or resident outsiders (plural).
גֵּרִים
The verse uses the same word for the stranger before you and the condition you remember.
וַאֲהַבְתֶּם
va’ahavtem
GROWS FROM
אהב
To love or hold dear.
The verb belongs to the same root as ahavah (“love”) and ohev (“one who loves”); here love is directed toward a particular person, the ger. The “because” clause ties that love to remembered outsiderhood.
ALSO GROWS
ahavah: Love or affection.
אַהֲבָה
It names the same relation as a noun, while the verse makes that relation active toward the stranger.
ohev: One who loves.
אֹהֵב
It names the person in the relationship, linking love to how the stranger is received.
THE PATTERN
The outsider’s place among you is shaped by whether their need is recognized as part of your own life.
Do not press a sojourner, for you know his living soul, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.For I hungered, and you gave me food; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in.THE THREAD
Do not press a sojourner, for you know his living soul, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Deuteronomy repeats ger in the singular and plural; Exodus says you know the heart of a ger because you were gerim. The shared word reveals that the stranger’s vulnerability is legible through a condition you already carry.
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