What Is A Stranger?

Resident aliens and foreigners

What is a stranger in the Bible? What is a foreigner? James Hoffmeier (Immigration Crisis) complains that translators mush together different words, sometimes translating nekhar/zar and ger as “foreigner.” Not good: “The words ger and nekhar refer to two different categories of people.”

Aliens “were able to enter and stay in a foreign land because they were offered hospitality by a host.” Thus the outsider attained the status of a ger. Sometimes ger was coupled with toshev, from yashav, “to dwell,” forming the concept of a “resident alien.” That’s what Abraham was in the land (Gen 23:4).