Loving the Poor, the Widow, and the Fatherless

Vulnerable people in Israelite society are the focus of the next set of laws in the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 22:21–27). Sojourners or noncitizen residents lacked the full complement of rights granted to those who were full citizens of Israel. Widows and the fatherless had no male head of household, and this was a problem because male heads of household were the main providers for their families and represented the legal interests of their wives and children. The poor lacked material resources to meet their basic needs.

The general theme of the laws given in today’s passage is that we should not mistreat the vulnerable or take advantage of those who are in need. First, Israelites were not to wrong or oppress sojourners but were to remember that they themselves had been sojourners in Egypt and how wrong it had been for the Egyptians to mistreat them (Ex. 22:21). The sojourners’ lack of full citizenship did not give the Israelites permission to sin against them. By way of modern application, this means that we may not sin against members of our churches or other people who are not citizens of our nations, though this rule does not mean that secular governments cannot regulate immigration.

Exodus 22:22 stresses that the Israelites must not mistreat widows or fatherless children. Widows and orphans cannot be denied their legal rights even though they do not have husbands or fathers to advocate for them. They cannot be defrauded. Importantly, if Israelites mistreat widows and orphans, they will experience some of the worst of the covenant curses. The image of punishment by putting the male Israelites to death and making their wives widows and their children fatherless evokes the specter of foreign invasion and the decimation of Israel’s army, staffed entirely by male soldiers (see Lev. 26:23–26; Deut. 28:25–26). It is no accident that the prophets would later call Israel to treat widows and orphans rightly to avoid exile (see Isa. 1).

Finally, in Exodus 22:25–27 we read that the Israelites were not to charge interest on loans made to the poor or take items necessary for the poor to live (e.g., clothing) as collateral. The Israelites could charge interest on loans made to non-Israelites, but exacting interest within the covenant community was forbidden (Deut. 23:19–20). The poor are singled out here because charging interest to poor Israelites was an especially egregious way to break this law. When poor Israelites needed help, those of means were to provide assistance freely and not enrich themselves in doing so.