sojourn

Everyday

1. A sojourn is a short stay in a place that is not your home (formal). tree →
2. To sojourn is to stay somewhere for a while as a visitor (formal, old-fashioned). tree →
3. (Bible) In the Bible, to sojourn is to live in a land as a stranger or traveller, as Abraham did. tree →

In the lessons

You meet «sojourn» in travel writing, older books, Bible readings and exam texts; in everyday talk people say «stay» or «visit». It tells the reader that the stay was temporary. Phrases: a brief sojourn, a sojourn in the country.

Examples

• After a short sojourn in Scotland, they came home. tree →
• The writer spent a sojourn by the sea. tree →
• Our sojourn at Gran's farm lasted a week. tree →
• The explorers sojourned in the desert for several days. tree →
• Christians read that Abraham sojourned in a strange land. tree →
• During his sojourn abroad he learned French. tree →
• They told that they, in crossing Hungary, had sojourned in a mountainous country called Transylvania, where the inhabitants only spoke German, while all around them nothing was spoken but Hungarian. tree →

Note

It is a formal word; in normal speech say «stay». Pronounced SOJ-urn (or SO-jurn). Countable noun: a sojourn, sojourns. A sojourn is always temporary, not a move for ever.

In Jewish tradition

Israel's ancestors were sojourners, and the Torah repeatedly commands kindness to the sojourner "for you were strangers in Egypt". In the Psalms Jacob sojourned in Egypt, and the psalmist calls himself a sojourner on earth and asks who may sojourn in God's tabernacle, meaning who may be close to God.

Interpretation. Tradition teaches that remembering your own time as strangers is the root of caring for newcomers and the poor, and that sojourners who join Israel keep many of its laws. The Psalms are read as saying that all people are only visitors in this world and need God's teaching to guide them.

Examples

• A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof. (Torah EXO.12.45, JPS 1917) tree →
• And Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days. (Torah GEN.21.34, JPS 1917) tree →
• And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. (Torah LEV.19.33, JPS 1917) tree →
• LORD, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? (Writings PSA.15.1, JPS 1917) tree →
• Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. (Writings PSA.105.23, JPS 1917) tree →
• I am a sojourner in the earth; hide not Thy commandments from me. (Writings PSA.119.19, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

It is a formal word; in normal speech say «stay». Pronounced SOJ-urn (or SO-jurn). Countable noun: a sojourn, sojourns. A sojourn is always temporary, not a move for ever.

Early Modern English

Meaning

To live for a time in a land that is not your own, as a stranger or visitor. tree →

Then and now

Today a sojourn is a short, formal stay. In the Torah it can mean living for a long time as a stranger in another land.

Examples

• And Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days. (Torah GEN.21.34, JPS 1917) tree →
• They told that they, in crossing Hungary, had sojourned in a mountainous country called Transylvania, where the inhabitants only spoke German, while all around them nothing was spoken but Hungarian. (The Red Fairy Book) tree →
• And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. (Torah LEV.19.33, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

Today: live as a foreigner.