Q: In Matthew 25:35, Jesus commends the sheep for feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, showing hospitality to strangers, and so forth. Thats all fine and dandy, but those instructions about how to treat strangers -- and the instructions in other passages that prohibit the oppression of strangers and which encourage hospitality -- collide with Numbers 1:51, 3:10, 3:38, and 18:7. Each of those passages says The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
A: Although the term used for stranger in those passages in Numbers is the same term that is used elsewhere for foreigners, the context describes a setting, and implies an application, within the community of Israel. Quite a few scholars hold the view which underlies the NIVs rendering of these passages: in this context, the stranger is anyone -- non-Israelite or Israelite -- who is not a Levite. The Tabernacle was to be considered sacred space, absolutely off-limits to anyone else. In that case, the stranger who deliberately ventured into the off-limits area was to be put to death not because he was a foreigner (the instructions pertained to the Israelites; they are considered strangers compared to the priests and Levites) but because he was invading someone elses house (namely, the house of God) and would be assumed to be a robber.
And, if one understands the term literally to refer to a foreigner visiting the Hebrews wilderness-encampments, the texts in Numbers still dont lend themselves to the idea of a contradiction with the command to be kind to strangers, because they do not simply say Non-Israelites ought to be killed as one might think based on the SAB-objections presentation; they are about people who trespassing in the Tabernacle -- i.e., trespassers in the Tabernacle will be assumed to be hostile and will be met with lethal force (a standard which seems to me to be not unlike warnings against uninvited trespassers entering into the houses of kings).
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: Although the term used for stranger in those passages in Numbers is the same term that is used elsewhere for foreigners, the context describes a setting, and implies an application, within the community of Israel. Quite a few scholars hold the view which underlies the NIVs rendering of these passages: in this context, the stranger is anyone -- non-Israelite or Israelite -- who is not a Levite. The Tabernacle was to be considered sacred space, absolutely off-limits to anyone else. In that case, the stranger who deliberately ventured into the off-limits area was to be put to death not because he was a foreigner (the instructions pertained to the Israelites; they are considered strangers compared to the priests and Levites) but because he was invading someone elses house (namely, the house of God) and would be assumed to be a robber.
And, if one understands the term literally to refer to a foreigner visiting the Hebrews wilderness-encampments, the texts in Numbers still dont lend themselves to the idea of a contradiction with the command to be kind to strangers, because they do not simply say Non-Israelites ought to be killed as one might think based on the SAB-objections presentation; they are about people who trespassing in the Tabernacle -- i.e., trespassers in the Tabernacle will be assumed to be hostile and will be met with lethal force (a standard which seems to me to be not unlike warnings against uninvited trespassers entering into the houses of kings).
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
