Friend of StrangersMfano

After Jacob and his entire family settled in Egypt, the Israelites multiplied and became numerous. But when a new king appears in Egypt, he turns the Israelites from welcomed guests into strangers and slaves.

The Israelites living in Egypt are called “Hebrews” by the Egyptians. The term is believed to originate from Eber, a descendant of Abraham, the progenitor of the Israelites. The name Eber roughly means “on the other side” and comes from the Hebrew word abar, which means to pass or to cross (i.e. to go from one place to another). Given that Abraham left his homeland, crossed the Euphrates River, and came to the land of Canaan, he and his descendants were Hebrews in the sense that they came “from across the river." The fact that Moses led the Israelites to cross the Red Sea when they fled from the Egyptians and that Joshua led Israel across the Jordan River does not make this connection to the word Hebrew any less appropriate.

In the Bible, Hebrew is used mainly to distinguish between natives and foreigners. For example, when the Egyptians describe the Israelites or when the Israelites describe themselves as foreigners in contrast to the Egyptians. The Old Testament stops using Hebrew (apart from calling the language of Israel Hebrew) after the Israelites have settled in their new land and David has become king. In the New Testament, the term is used primarily to distinguish between native Hebrew-speaking Jews and foreign-born Greek-speaking Jews.

The more God blessed the Israelites, the more jealous and suspicious the Egyptians became. They began to see the Israelites as a threat and called them Hebrews in the sense of strangers from across the river. The Egyptians avoided mixing with Israelites and considered it an abomination to even eat with them.

Therefore, it is perhaps no coincidence that one of the most beautiful Biblical words for showing love to strangers is found in the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament.