A Divine Case for Open Borders

 

Notice the title of this article. I did not say a biblical case for open borders, and for an important reason. The Bible must be interpreted. How many times have you heard someone from some Christian group claim that something is unbiblical? The claim is often made against theological variations different than the claimant's. For example, one group may claim that infant baptism is unbiblical toward a group that affirms it. The problem is that there are biblical arguments paedobaptists have in support of infant baptism, just as the credobaptists have verses in their repertoire. Who is correct? Sometimes it's both/and.

The same rings true for borders in the Bible. Yes, borders and nations were mentioned in Scripture, but we must interpret what that means. Weight is given to the best contextual case for borders and nations. I have gotten into plenty of discussions with friends and family about how God wants closed borders because he set up nations and their territories in the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:8) and nations can prohibit entry into lands, such as is seen in Numbers 20:17-21. Let's look at why this is not a great argument.

Numbers 20:17-21: ¹⁷ Please let us pass through your country. We will not go through any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway and not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory.” ¹⁸ But Edom answered: “You may not pass through here; if you try, we will march out and attack you with the sword.” ¹⁹ The Israelites replied: “We will go along the main road, and if we or our livestock drink any of your water, we will pay for it. We only want to pass through on foot—nothing else.” ²⁰ Again they answered: “You may not pass through.”Then Edom came out against them with a large and powerful army. ²¹ Since Edom refused to let them go through their territory, Israel turned away from them.

First, the Edomites were descendants of Esau and were not necessarily privy to God's commandments, including the many admonitions for Israel to care for the resident aliens. God elevates the place of the foreigner and sojourner for Israel precisely because they were once aliens too (Exodus 23:9). The right of Edom to control their lands is descriptive here and not necessarily prescriptive. In other words, the Bible is not making a claim on national rights to land. It may very well just be the failure of a tribe to recognize true ownership and propriety.

Let's look at a passage from Leviticus.

Leviticus 25:29-31: ²⁹Anyone who sells a house in a walled city retains the right of redemption a full year after its sale. During that time the seller may redeem it. ³⁰ If it is not redeemed before a full year has passed, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer and the buyer’s descendants. It is not to be returned in the Jubilee. ³¹ But houses in villages without walls around them are to be considered as belonging to the open country. They can be redeemed, and they are to be returned in the Jubilee.

We can see here that walled cities were under the direct control of people settling an area, but outside the cities, the land was open and not held to permanent ownership or claims. It draws back on Leviticus 25:23-24 just before, which says, "The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine [God's] and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land." Dwelling in the land is provisional and not entirely the right of the settlers, who in Israel's case, are to be a perpetual immigrant class in God's land. 

What we see here is the divine paradigm. The passage through Edom in Numbers 20 was through the open country, where the Edomites had only general control, but it was not a walled city, where they'd have direct control. Edom was not playing how God expected Israel to act. Plus, the nature of nations and lands was still different than today.

A nation or ethnos in the ancient world was a familial tribal group and not a theorized amalgam of people of a geographic area. We think of nations as permanently assigned to specific lands today, but the lands were provisional and malleable in the ancient world. More important than the land in the ancient world was the people, who were often migratory, especially in times of trouble. And God owns the land -- all of it --so settling in an area was provisional. As for the verse in Deuteronomy 32 that refers to God's assignment of lands to nations, it was more predicated on the numbers of the "Sons of God" in verse 8 than the land itself. This is reference to the Divine Council or angels who divide the world and the people living in it as areas of God's earth to be managed. 

In this regard, the nations did have territorial deities (idolized), or what Judeo-Christianity might term angels or members of the Divine Council, who oversaw the tribes/families in specific areas of God's earth, as his co-regents. This does not make the land permanent to a specific tribe. But we tend to retroject or anachronize nationhood into the text when we see the word nations in the Bible. We interpret the Bible from our modern understanding.

We live in the age of nation-states, which are political units that emerged out of the Renaissance period. These are modern constructs of a centralized government that replaced feudal and city-state dynamics within the last 500 years. So we think of a highly defined state with borders as a nation, whereas a biblical nation was an ethnic group or clan, based on shared heritage and/or allegiance, rather than the land primarily. The land was incidental to the people. And the land's borders for any tribe were often generalized. Most political control was within walled cities, not the outskirts. Our problem is that today we assume that the broader place of land has the same controls as a city-state, but this ends up laying claim on what is divinely God's property; the same God who said multiply and fill the earth as his co-regents over creation. In God's economy, migration was normative and divinely prescribed. 

The bottom line for me is that we can make the Bible conform to our biases, but that's not historical or contextual in any interpretation. We need to look at the broader picture, rather than lay claim to one or two verses as proof-texts, like Numbers 20. It misses the bigger picture. 

It should also be remembered that in Genesis 4:16, Cain, who was banished to roam the earth (a perpetual sojourner) for un-aliving his bro, stopped in disobedience and built a city instead. This led to the development of earthly governments that usurped divine authority. City's were not necessarily God's intention for humans. Cities create barriers and alienation, and they dichotomize people from creation and those outside. This has led to territorial disputes and wars of prestige. God has used the city to his favor, surely, but this was not necessarily his design. City's are perhaps best seen as a result of sin. In today's dynamic, a nation-state that treats a whole land as its property is attempting to make a city out of a country, which is the ultimate form of hubris and disregard for God's property. Open land ought to be open to all humans sharing in the divine mission to fill the earth. 

It is because of this understanding that I cannot hold to closed borders or nationalism as God's will. Border and nations were different in the ancient world, and where we find overlap, we don't necessarily see God's prescription, but only a description of fallen humanity. We need to be more compassionate with the lands we dwell, because they are provisional. We do not own the land and so we ought not have the final say over who wants to live in it, save some extremes. We can omit those who violate the our laws and we ought to vet those who wish to join us, but we should be making many more pathways of ease in joining us. I believe that the freedom of movement is not only historical, but godly, and it is an unalienable right and an expression of true liberty.