Exodus 22:21

Summary

The verse issues two parallel prohibitions against mistreating the ger ("sojourner", H1616), followed by a motive clause grounding the command in Israel's own experience as sojourners in Egypt. The structure moves from prohibition to rationale, appealing to shared historical memory rather than abstract principle.

Key words

• Ger ("a sojourner", H1616) — masculine singular noun, appearing first as singular object of the first verb, then in plural (gerim, H1616) later in the motive clause, linking the individual case to the collective Israelite experience.
• toNeh ("you must maltreat", H3238) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine singular; the causative stem implies actively causing harm or wrong, not merely allowing it.
• tilchaTzennu ("you must oppress him", H3905) — qal imperfect with third-person pronominal suffix -nu ("him", H9033) attached directly to the verb, making the object explicit within a single word.
• ki ("for", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that justifies the prohibition by appeal to past status.
• heyiTem ("you were", H1961) — qal perfect, second person masculine plural, marking completed past action; grammatically distinguishes the addressees' former state from their present imperative duty.

What the text says

The verse opens with the object ve-ger ("and a sojourner") placed before its verb toNeh, a construction that foregrounds the sojourner as the topic before stating what must not be done to him. Both prohibitions use imperfect verb forms (toNeh, H3238; tilchaTzennu, H3905) negated by lo' (H3808), a common pattern in Biblical Hebrew for durative or general prohibitions rather than one-time commands — the negation applies to an ongoing or repeated action, not a single instance. The first verb is hiphil, a causative stem, suggesting the wrong involves actively inducing harm (deception, exploitation), while the second verb is qal, a simple stem, suggesting direct pressure or oppression; the two together may cover related but distinct forms of mistreatment rather than being pure synonyms.

The causal clause beginning with ki (H3588A) shifts to the perfect verb heyiTem (H1961), marking Israel's sojourner status in Egypt as a completed historical fact used as grounds for the prohibition. The plural gerim (H1616) in this clause matches the collective addressee ("you all", implied by the verb's plural form), contrasting with the singular ger who is the object of the initial commands.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb with κακώσετε ("you will harm/mistreat") and the second with θλίψητε ("you might oppress"), both general terms that do not preserve the Hebrew's stem contrast between causative (toNeh) and simple (tilchaTzennu) action. The Vulgate uses contristabis ("you will sadden/afflict") for the first verb, a more emotion-oriented term than the Hebrew's causative sense of wronging or deceiving, while affliges ("you will afflict") corresponds more closely to the second Hebrew verb's sense of pressure.