Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

Comparing immigration in today’s world to the lived reality of Ancient Israel is a difficult exercise. There are so many aspects to the issues that make it almost impossible to equate the one to the other. First of all, there is no equivalency for legal and illegal immigration in Ancient Israel and surrounding lands. Abraham was semi-nomadic. Deuteronomy calls him “a wandering Aramean.” He leaves the land of his birth with his father, then travels on far beyond where his father stopped to take up more permanent residence. There is no legal process for being allowed entry or exit from one region to the next. The closest we might get to legal permissions is in terms of Abraham’s purchase of land from the established residents. Indeed, that cave and attached field he buys as a burial place is the only land over which he ever takes ownership. For the rest, it is simply a case of working out access to water and fields for pasturing his herds. Abraham is hardly the only migrant me...