Exodus 12:48-49

12:48 “When a foreigner lives with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it. 12:49 The same law will apply to the person who is native-born and to the foreigner who lives among you.”

Leviticus 19:10

19:10 You must not pick your vineyard bare, and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 22:25

22:25 Even from a foreigner you must not present the food of your God from such animals as these, for they are ruined and flawed; they will not be acceptable for your benefit.’”

Leviticus 24:22

24:22 There will be one regulation for you, whether a foreigner or a native citizen, for I am the Lord your God.’”

Leviticus 25:15

25:15 You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left. 10 

Deuteronomy 29:11

29:11 your infants, your wives, and the 11  foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water –

Deuteronomy 31:12

31:12 Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law.

Isaiah 56:3-7

56:3 No foreigner who becomes a follower of 12  the Lord should say,

‘The Lord will certainly 13  exclude me from his people.’

The eunuch should not say,

‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

56:4 For this is what the Lord says:

“For the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths

and choose what pleases me

and are faithful to 14  my covenant,

56:5 I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument 15 

that will be better than sons and daughters.

I will set up a permanent monument 16  for them that will remain.

56:6 As for foreigners who become followers of 17  the Lord and serve him,

who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants –

all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

and who are faithful to 18  my covenant –

56:7 I will bring them to my holy mountain;

I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. 19 

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar,

for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.” 20 

Ephesians 2:19-22

2:19 So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, 2:20 because you have been built 21  on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 22  with Christ Jesus himself as 23  the cornerstone. 24  2:21 In him 25  the whole building, 26  being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 2:22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.


tn Both the participle “foreigner” and the verb “lives” are from the verb גּוּר (gur), which means “to sojourn, to dwell as an alien.” This reference is to a foreigner who settles in the land. He is the protected foreigner; when he comes to another area where he does not have his clan to protect him, he must come under the protection of the Law, or the people. If the “resident alien” is circumcised, he may participate in the Passover (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104).

tn The infinitive absolute functions as the finite verb here, and “every male” could be either the object or the subject (see GKC 347 §113.gg and 387 §121.a).

tn אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh) refers to the native-born individual, the native Israelite as opposed to the “stranger, alien” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104); see also W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 127, 210.

tn Heb “one law will be to.”

tn Heb “And you shall not deal severely with your vineyard.”

tn Heb “And from the hand of a son of a foreigner.”

tn Heb “for their being ruined [is] in them, flaw is in them”; NRSV “are mutilated, with a blemish in them”; NIV “are deformed and have defects.” The MT term מָשְׁחָתָם (moshkhatam, “their being ruined”) is a Muqtal form (= Hophal participle) from שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to ruin”). Smr has plural בהם משׁחתים (“deformities in them”; cf. the LXX translation). The Qumran Leviticus scroll (11QpaleoLev) has תימ הם[…], in which case the restored participle would appear to be the same as Smr, but there is no בְּ (bet) preposition before the pronoun, yielding “they are deformed” (see D. N. Freedman and K. A. Mathews, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, 41 and the remarks in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 358).

tn Heb “a regulation of one”; KJV, ASV “one manner of law”; NASB “one standard.”

tn Heb “in the number of years after.”

10 tn The words “that are left” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

11 tn Heb “your.”

12 tn Heb “who attaches himself to.”

13 tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

14 tn Heb “and take hold of” (so KJV); NASB “hold fast.”

15 tn Heb “a hand and a name.” For other examples where יָד (yad) refers to a monument, see HALOT 388 s.v.

16 tn Heb “name” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).

17 tn Heb “who attach themselves to.”

18 tn Heb “and take hold of”; NAB “hold to”; NIV, NRSV “hold fast.”

19 tn Heb “in the house of my prayer.”

20 tn Heb “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

21 tn Grk “having been built.”

22 sn Apostles and prophets. Because the prophets appear after the mention of the apostles and because they are linked together in 3:5 as recipients of revelation about the church, they are to be regarded not as Old Testament prophets, but as New Testament prophets.

23 tn Grk “while Christ Jesus himself is” or “Christ Jesus himself being.”

24 tn Or perhaps “capstone” (NAB). The meaning of ἀκρογωνιαῖος (akrogwniaio") is greatly debated. The meaning “capstone” is proposed by J. Jeremias (TDNT 1:792), but the most important text for this meaning (T. Sol. 22:7-23:4) is late and possibly not even an appropriate parallel. The only place ἀκρογωνιαῖος is used in the LXX is Isa 28:16, and there it clearly refers to a cornerstone that is part of a foundation. Furthermore, the imagery in this context has the building growing off the cornerstone upward, whereas if Christ were the capstone, he would not assume his position until the building was finished, which vv. 21-22 argue against.

25 tn Grk “in whom” (v. 21 is a relative clause, subordinate to v. 20).

26 tc Although several important witnesses (א1 A C P 6 81 326 1739c 1881) have πᾶσα ἡ οἰκοδομή (pasa Jh oikodomh), instead of πᾶσα οἰκοδομή (the reading of א* B D F G Ψ 33 1739* Ï), the article is almost surely a scribal addition intended to clarify the meaning of the text, for with the article the meaning is unambiguously “the whole building.”