Read the Bible as a list of addresses and it is a book of people on the move. Families leave in famines, young men run for their lives, whole nations are marched into exile, and the church begins as a scattering of travellers along the Roman roads. Very few of the people God uses stay where they were born.
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.”
The Old Testament
Adam and Eve
Expelled
Driven out of the garden of Eden.
Genesis 3:23–24
Cain
Exile
Sentenced to be “a restless wanderer”, he settles in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Genesis 4:12–16
Noah
Resettled
The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat, in what is now eastern Turkey.
Genesis 8:4
Abraham and Sarah
Emigrants
From Ur, in today’s Iraq, to Harran in Turkey, on to Canaan, down to Egypt in a famine and back. “I am a foreigner and stranger among you.”
Genesis 11:31–12:10; 23:4
Lot
Emigrant
Follows Abraham from Harran to Canaan, settles in Sodom, and flees to the caves when it falls.
Genesis 12:4; 19:30
Hagar
Enslaved, then cast out
An Egyptian servant in Canaan, sent away into the desert of Beersheba with her son.
Genesis 16:1; 21:14–21
Rebekah
Emigrant
Leaves her family near Harran to marry Isaac in Canaan.
Genesis 24
Jacob
Fled, twice
Runs from Esau to Harran and stays twenty years, returns to Canaan, and dies in Egypt.
Genesis 28:10; 31:38–41; 49:33
Joseph
Trafficked
Sold by his brothers to traders and taken to Egypt as a slave, where he rises to rule the country under Pharaoh.
Genesis 37:28; 41:41
Moses
Refugee, then wanderer
Grows up in Pharaoh’s palace, flees to Midian at forty, returns at eighty and leads Israel through the wilderness for forty more years.
Exodus 2–4; Acts 7:23–36
Naomi
Economic migrant
Leaves Bethlehem for Moab in a famine and comes home a widow.
Ruth 1
Ruth
Emigrant
A Moabite who follows Naomi to Bethlehem: “Your people will be my people.” She becomes David’s great-grandmother.
Ruth 1:16; 4:17
David
Fugitive
On the run from Saul for years, he lives among the Philistines at Gath and Ziklag.
1 Samuel 21–27
Elijah
Traveller
Hides by a brook east of the Jordan, lives with a widow in Phoenicia, and flees to Mount Horeb.
1 Kings 17–19
Jonah
Ran away
Boards a ship for Tarshish to avoid God and ends up preaching in Nineveh, in today’s Iraq.
Jonah 1–3
Daniel
Deported
Taken to Babylon as a young man and stays in exile for the rest of his life.
Daniel 1:1–6
Ezekiel
Deported
Prophesies among the exiles by the Kebar river in Babylonia.
Ezekiel 1:1–3
Jeremiah
Forced migrant
After Jerusalem falls he is taken to Egypt against his will.
Jeremiah 43:4–7
Esther
Grew up in exile
A Jewish orphan in Persia who becomes queen in Susa.
Esther 2:5–17
Ezra and Nehemiah
Returnees
Exiles in Babylon and Persia who go back to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls.
Ezra 7; Nehemiah 1–2
The New Testament
Mary and Joseph
Refugees
From Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, then to Egypt to escape Herod, then home to Nazareth.
Luke 2:4; Matthew 2:13–23
Jesus
Child refugee, then travelling preacher
Carried to Egypt as a baby; later walks Galilee, Judea, Samaria and the coast of Tyre. “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Matthew 2:14; Luke 9:58
Peter
Traveller
From the Sea of Galilee to Jerusalem, Joppa, Caesarea and Antioch. Tradition says he died in Rome.
Acts 9–12; Galatians 2:11
Paul
The most travelled
Born in Tarsus, in Turkey. Three missionary journeys and a shipwrecked voyage to Rome, roughly 15,000 kilometres by common estimates.
Acts 13–28
Barnabas
Emigrant
A Levite from Cyprus who moves to Jerusalem and Antioch, then travels with Paul.
Acts 4:36; 11:22–26
Priscilla and Aquila
Expelled
Thrown out of Rome when Claudius banished the Jews; they move to Corinth, then Ephesus, then back to Rome.
Acts 18:2, 18–19; Romans 16:3
John
Exile
Banished to the island of Patmos “because of the word of God”. Tradition places him in Ephesus.
Revelation 1:9
Thomas
Traveller (tradition)
Church tradition says he took the gospel as far as India.
Acts of Thomas
The few who stayed
A handful of figures barely moved. Isaac spent nearly his whole life in Canaan, going no further than Gerar in a famine. Samuel kept to a small circuit of towns around his home at Ramah. Solomon reigned from Jerusalem, and Isaiah prophesied there. They are the exception.
Israel was told never to forget it. The law Moses gave them, standing on the plains of Moab after forty years without a home, puts it in one line.
“And you are to love those who are foreigners,
for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”