The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the forsaken woman, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. (Deut. 10:17-18)
And thus, the Lord identifies himself as Defender of the forsaken. And he names three particular groups:
- Women forsaken in any number of ways by their husbands. (The Hebrew word is typically translated “widow,” but it means “forsaken.”)1
- Children forsaken in any number of ways by their parents. (The Hebrew word is typically translated “fatherless” or “orphan.”)
- People, and especially non-citizens, forsaken in any number of ways by the citizens of a land. (The Hebrew word is often translated “foreigner,” “alien,” “immigrant” or “stranger.”)
The post, Defender of the Forsaken, explores God’s commitment to act in our behalf when we find ourselves forsaken. Here, we explore God’s call for us to be “God with skin on” to others, for:
The God who defends the forsaken commands his people to do the same.
What does God say?
Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the forsaken woman as a pledge. (Deut. 24:17)
Do not oppress the forsaken woman or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. (Zech. 7:10)
Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the forsaken woman. (Jer. 22:3)
Scripture further shows us: Defending vulnerable people requires more than not wronging them. It includes acting in their behalf.
In Jeremiah 22:3, in the same breath that God warns, “Do no wrong or violence” to them, he says:
Do what is just and right. Rescue [the wronged] from the hand of the oppressor.
In Deuteronomy 24, God uses repetition to drive home a similar point:
When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the forsaken woman, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the forsaken woman. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the forsaken woman. (vv. 19-21)
How much does it matter?
God counts it crucial that his people defend the cause of those who are easiest to abuse. He says that doing so blesses the helpers, as well as the helped. He warns that the opposite is true too. In Deuteronomy 27, he required his people to affirm aloud:
Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the forsaken woman. (v. 19)
“Anyone who withholds justice” includes people from within these vulnerable groups. In fact, one thing the vulnerable can do to forfeit God’s protection is to use what power they have to condone, cover up or participate in abuse of someone else. The prophet Isaiah said:
This people’s leaders were misleading, and those being led were confused. So the Lord … showed their orphans and widows no mercy; for everyone was godless and evil; every mouth spoke nonsense. (Isa. 9:16-17 CEB)
For generations, the people in covenant with God did exactly what their Lord had warned them not to do. Repeatedly, the prophets called them on it. When the people still refused to pursue justice for all, God declared their injustices a key reason for the nation’s defeat and exile.
God said through Jeremiah: “If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the forsaken woman and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place.” (7:5-7)
God said to Ezekiel: “Son of man, will you judge her? Will you judge this city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her detestable practices … In you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the forsaken woman.” (22:2, 7)
After unrepentance produced decades in exile, Zechariah reminded the people what had happened:
This is what the Lord Almighty said: “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the forsaken woman or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.”
But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.
“When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,” says the Lord Almighty. “I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were the foreigners.” (7:8-14)
But wasn’t that just for ancient Israel?
God’s cry to his people in ancient times is still his cry today. In the New Testament, James wrote:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the fatherless and forsaken women in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (1:17)
Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (5:4-6)
And in Malachi, the Lord tells his people of the day still to come when he will return to judge:
So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the forsaken women and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, and do not fear me. (Mal. 3:5)
What will we choose?
Why did God’s people in Old Testament times insist on doing what abused others and brought curses on themselves? Why would any of us do the same?
Why would we not, instead, make the opposite choice?
Millennia ago, Job was a defender of the forsaken. He testified:
I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them. I took up the case of the stranger. I made the widow’s heart sing.
God described Job as “my servant,” “blameless and upright,” stamping his testimony true.
Then Job found himself among the forsaken. He wasn’t an immigrant, widow or orphan, but he was bereaved, abandoned and betrayed. Angry and aching, he accused God of wronging him. And yet, Job also testified, “I know that my redeemer lives.”2
Struggling through vulnerability and loss, honesty and pain, Job came to know God as Defender of the forsaken. Acting in behalf of the vulnerable, Job came to look like the Redeemer he served.
When we defend the cause of the forsaken, we look like our Redeemer too.
