According to the Sefer HaChinuch, an important 13^th century work which discusses the Mitzvot (commandments), the prohibitions of oppressing a stranger are two separate prohibitions, making up two of the 613 Mitzvot in the Torah.

Rashi, the premier Torah commentator, explains that the definition of a ‘stranger’ is somebody who was not born in the country in which they are living. The word used for a stranger is ‘ger’ which also means a convert.

The Talmud (Bava Metzia 58b) seems to understand the prohibition of verbal oppression to apply more specifically to a convert than to a stranger, so that nobody should tell a convert to remember what bad deeds the convert’s ancestors may have committed.

Ramban in his commentary on the Torah, presents a contrasting view. He suggests that this particular pasuk focuses us to remember that we were oppressed as strangers in Egypt. This lesson was very clear to the Jewish people, especially so soon after they had left Egypt, which might explain the specific placement of this lesson in the Torah. It is also something which we remind ourselves of by remembering the Yetziat Mitzrayim/Exodus from Egypt twice daily when we say the Shema.

By drawing on our own experience, we should be able to avoid oppressing others and remember the fate of the Egyptians who oppressed us. Ramban draws this lesson from the pesukim (verses) which follow our pasuk Another pasuk, close by in Shemot/Exodus 23:9 amplifies this verse by telling us a general prohibition of oppressing strangers, as opposed to the specific prohibitions here, a point picked up there by Rashi.

Why are these specific prohibitions mentioned here? Both financial and verbal discrimination can hit a stranger hard. Imagine you were a tourist in London who did not know about Oyster cards or consider a foreign worker with poor English and no support who suffers from verbal abuse at work.

These particular prohibitions singled out in the pasuk hit us hard when we were slaves in Egypt. This perhaps explains why they are singled out at this point in the Torah.