The Bible And Slavery — Andrew Forrest

Exodus 21:1-36

21 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
12 “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. 13 But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. 14 But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
15 “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.
16 “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
17 “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.
18 “When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and the man does not die but takes to his bed, 19 then if the man rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, he who struck him shall be clear; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall have him thoroughly healed.
20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.
22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
26 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.
28 “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 But if the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. 30 If a ransom is imposed on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him. 31 If it gores a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this same rule. 32 If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.
33 “When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make restoration. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead beast shall be his.
35 “When one man's ox butts another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also they shall share. 36 Or if it is known that the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall repay ox for ox, and the dead beast shall be his.

To orient ourselves: the Lord has made a covenant with Israel, and they have agreed to its terms. The first set of terms are the Ten Commandments. As we have seen, the Ten (given in chapter 20) are general principles that offer guidance on how to live well. Then, chapters 21-23 will provide more detailed instructions, based on the Ten.

Modern readers are often troubled by the fact that there was slavery in Ancient Israel. Shouldn’t the people who themselves had been slaves in Egypt have refused the practice?

The overall direction of the Bible is anti-slavery, but in the ancient world slavery was like how electricity is today—utterly part of life, and unthinkable to be without. So, what we have here is the Lord beginning to tighten the screws and make slavery less and less of an option for Israel.

Many of these laws in chapters 21-23 are “casuistic laws,” that is laws that are “if…then” laws. In other words, they are not speaking to the ideal but to the actual—they are for the people how and where they actually are, not how they should be. What we will see is that these laws are meant to protect the vulnerable from the powerful. Strange as they seem on first reading, when we dig deeper we see that they are a way of restricting oppression, not amplifying it.

Slavery in Israel was NOT the same thing as the institution of American slavery. For one thing, it wasn’t what we could call “race-based.” (In fact, the concept of race as being related to skin pigmentation is a modern concept from the past several hundred years; this concept did not exist in the ancient world.) In the ancient world, people groups—what we might call tribes or nations—were the primary divisions between peoples. So, for example, we read in the Bible of the Israelites and the Egyptians and the Midianites and the Philistines, etc. These groups are defined by their common ancestry and by the land they inhabited.

One of the ways that people became enslaved was through war—slaves were enemy captives. When Julius Caesar made war in Gaul, he enslaved the Gauls in the hundreds of thousands. Note that the Romans (from modern day Italy) enslaved people—the Gauls (from modern day France)—who had similar skin tones.

Also, American slavery had its roots in kidnapping—Africans were kidnapped in Africa and brought against their will across the terrible Middle Passage to be sold in the Americas. But, in Exodus, kidnapping is a capital crime, punished by the death penalty:

Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death. [Exodus 21:16]

Note that both the slave seller and the slave buyer are put to death!

The word translated “slave” here in the English Standard Version actually has a range of meanings. The Hebrew word (spelled with English letters) is ebed, and it can mean:
· Servant;
· Slave;
· Indentured servant.

In fact, it is that last category that makes the most sense in our context, because the reason someone would be enslaved in Ancient Israel was as a way to pay off debts. Selling yourself into domestic servitude in order to pay off debts is, as strange and off-putting as it is to us, a social safety net.

So, with that in mind, look at 21:1-4:

1 “Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2 When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. [Exodus 21:1-4]

When you become an indentured servant, you automatically are released from your debts every seven years. If a husband and wife come into service together, then they go out together. But, if an indentured servant ends up getting married while in servitude, then his wife will not automatically go out with him, because she will still need to work off her own debts.

We still might have problems with the entire system of indentured servitude, but nevertheless looking at those initial verses above in this way helps understand a bit more the heart behind the laws.

Now, let’s look at 21:7-11, which initially seem really troubling:

7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money. [Exodus 21:7-11]

Remember that in the ancient world, women found security and provision by being tied to a man, either as a daughter or as a wife or as a mother. Verses 7-11 therefore are about protecting women by making it impossible for female indentured servants to be traded around between men as sexual objects. If a female indentured servant becomes a sexual partner to a man in her household, she cannot then be cast aside.

If a man decides that he cannot survive on his own and prefers to stay with another household, then he has that choice:

5 But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. [Exodus 21:5-6]

But it must be clear to everyone that this is his choice, hence the pierced ear. Otherwise, he would go free after seven years and have to make his own way in the world.

What’s interesting to me is that the very first laws after the Ten Commandment are focused on household service. The Lord is here restricting how vulnerable people might be oppressed. Servitude is not permanent but must be lifted every seven years. If you physically abuse your indentured servants, then they go free even if their debts are not yet paid:

26 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27 If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth. [Exodus 21:26-27]

What does this first section of laws tell us about the heart of God and the temptations of humanity?