Law-khats (Oppress)

 “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt. Exodus 23:9

H3905

לָחַץ

lâchats law-khats'

A primitive root; properly to press, that is, (figuratively) to distress: - afflict, crush, force, hold fast, oppress (-or), thrust self.

The English word oppress is used to translate ten different Hebrew words! Law-khats is only one of them. 

This word gives the sense of being pressed or squeezed into a space too small to fit. I picture my size 11 feet being squeezed into a size 7. Whether literally or metaphysically, law-khats' involves being forced into a small space. Ouch! That’s painful.

A great example of the literal meaning of law-khats involves the story of Balaam’s donkey who, when seeing the angel of the Lord blocking the path, it "pushed against the wall and pressed (law-khats) Balaam's foot against the wall" (Num. 22:25).

Law-khats is used to describe the oppression Israel suffered in Egypt. God tells Moses:

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression (law-khats) with which the Egyptians oppress (law-khats) them (Exod. 3:9).

The times in the Tanakh where law-khats is used, they speak of how God freed His people from oppression in answer to their outcry. God is telling us that even for people who are not like us (foreigners, strangers, people of a different religion); people who are “them” and not “us”, that we are not to restrict, press or squeeze them in any way. He comes to the aid of those who are oppressed.

Biblical scholar Skip Moen suggests we’re often our own worst enemy when it comes to law-khats' and asks: 

“Are you hemmed in? Are you squeezed? Are you being forced into a space too small for you? Do obligations and expectations impinge on your life in ways that make you feel like you are squeezed? Do you long for some kind of liberation? Are you wrestling with other’s requirements of you? And, perhaps worst of all, do you find that you demand of yourself things that make you actually feel squeezed into a box? Maybe the man who tramples you, who fights with you all day long, is you!”

The Holy One can free you from the oppression of your own making, too. If you ask Him to and allow Him to work in you to change you.  He is really good at that!

¹Otherwise known as the “Old testament.”