The Exodus Story is a Story About Migrants and Native Backlash

 I want to add to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s extraordinary appeal for mercy to President Trump by reminding Christians about the book of Exodus.  You see, the Exodus story is a story of immigrants.  At the end of Genesis, we learn why Israel migrated.  It was because of climate change.  OK, I’m being a little cheeky as famines were fairly common in Canaan.  But Israel was faced with a choice:  migrate or die.  Ironically, many migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle migrate for exactly the same reason.  According to Genesis, one foreigner (Joseph) gained considerable power and influence in Egypt and introduced taxation.  While Joseph’s taxation might have been popular during the time of the famine, it no doubt declined in popularity if Egyptians hate taxes like everyone else does. :-)  We also learn from Genesis that the Israelites did work the Egyptians considered abhorrent.  In Genesis 46:34, Joseph advises his brothers to be honest with Pharaoh and tell him all they know is the life of livestock nomads.  Genesis tells us this was an abomination to the Egyptians.  I believe this is because the Egyptians were agriculturalists and may have viewed nomadic pastoralists as beneath them.

 

This resulted in the Israelites being given the land of Goshen which was suitable for grazing.  Archaeology tells us clearly that the Hebrews were not the sole migrants.  There were many others, and the migrants began to integrate into Egyptian society and prosper.  Ezekiel 20 tells us that Israelites forgot many of their ancestral traditions and customs but did retain some cultural identity.

 

The book of Exodus opens with a nativist Egyptian backlash against the migrants that archaeologists tell us poured over Egypt’s northern border.  The Egyptian Pharaoh of Exodus decided he needed to secure his northern border and deployed the military to do just that.  He also enslaved the Israelites.  The Israelites still owned cattle and sheep, however, and the Egyptians permitted this presumably because they liked pastoral products.  The Egyptians used an argument I have often heard by white people that goes something like this.  “These <insert migrants’ or ‘Muslims’> breed like rabbits.  If we’re not careful, they will outnumber us and displace us.”  If you think I’m kidding, read Exodus 1 for yourselves.  The Egyptian nativists became more and more oppressive, and their propaganda said that the Israelites were now so numerous, they represented a threat to national security.  They declared a national emergency and even went so far as to order all male Israelite babies be killed by the midwives.

 

It should be noted that when the midwives refused and were confronted by Pharaoh, they lied to his face and were commended by God for doing so.  We then have the dramatic birth of Moses, followed by the rest of the Exodus story which tells of the migrants returning to their homeland which is no longer their homeland and which they have to fight to possess.  This is why the Law of Moses contains many passages like Exodus 22:21

 

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (New Revised Standard Version).

 

Like the extraordinary Bishop Budde, I too understand America needs an immigration policy that works.  But I am frankly appalled and ashamed that so many of my fellow Christian brothers and sisters have so much hatred and vitriol toward not only resident aliens but undocumented aliens as well.  If people understand that one of the greatest stories in the Bible is one about migrants and native backlash against migrants, perhaps it will be easier for them to find the mercy Bishop Budde so respectfully asked for and remember that most of our ancestors were also migrants.