Exodus 21:1-11--Laws About Slaves

Laws About Slaves​
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.

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First, I'd like to say that I find it interesting that on this day, Independence Day here in the United States of America, July 4, 2020, I am covering one of the premier passages about slavery in the Bible.  With that said, I don't find it coincidental that this passage is located where it is in the Bible.  We've just covered the Ten Commandments, which along with chapter 19 serve as a kind of "executive summary" (for those familiar with contracts and legal documents) of the entire Law.  It gives all the main idea and is sufficient to understand the nature of the document and who the parties are who are involved and the nature and purpose of the contract and the promises associated with keeping the covenant that each party has agreed to.

However, as with every contract or covenant, much more needs to be spelled out in great detail, especially when you're talking about building a people into a nation.  In some ways, it's wonderful that we're studying the Law today, because it represents the founding document of the nation of Israel, but unlike a Constitution that has the right to be amended, the Law of God has no amendment process--the only person who has the authority to change God's Law is God Himself.

We see from chapter 19 what could be called the Preamble to this covenant (really all of Exodus up this point could be considered part of the Preamble), as it describes the foundation for such a moral law and what God hopes to accomplish with it and why God's people were supposed to be different than all the other nations of the world.  It also established that the people were expected to obey all the Law because of who the LORD is and what He had done for His people.  We then saw n chapter 20 that the Ten Commandments were broken down into two main sections.  The first four commandments dealt with our relationship with God whereas the last six commandments dealt with our relationship with other human beings, and everything that is to follow will fall into one of these two big categories.

We then finished off chapter 20 talking about building altars, which clearly falls into the "relationship with God" part, and it seems defining how the people were supposed to approach God in worship and how that was to be different than how all the other nations did it was of utmost importance to the LORD and was the first thing He wanted to talk about.  In a similar vein of thinking, how God's people would treat those who most would think of as having no status, no rights, or at least some kind of second-class citizen definitely falls into the "relationships with other humans" category and seems to be the thing of utmost importance in that category that would separate God's people from the rest of the world.  The people of that area were steeped in the idea of conquering people and making them slaves for exploitation--sometimes killing all the men and taking the women and children for exploitation and/or sale.  People were just another resource to be used and consumed and traded and everything had a price in that pagan culture.  As mentioned before, we saw this in the story of Joseph and we saw how the slaves were treated by the Egyptians.  We've also seen good examples and bad examples in the Bible so far as we saw Hagar mistreated by Sarah and Abraham allowing it to happen because he would not interfere with her slave, though Abraham loved both Hagar and Ishmael and would plead for God to bless them, but God said it was His plan for them to go.  Also, we see how Abraham had Eliezer where he was treated like his own son, was thought of as an heir for Abraham and one point, and was entrusted with stewardship of what was most precious to Abraham--his son Isaac, and finding a wife for Isaac so that God's covenant could be fulfilled.  We never see anywhere where it appears Eliezer was mistreated in any way, and it appears he served his master willingly and although he understood their relationship was one of slave and master, he never feared that his master was good and would wanted the best for him and would take care of him.  This is a kind of slavery that is hard for us to imagine in our time because we usually associate words like "slaver" or "slavery" with some kind of abuse and exploitation and devaluing of human life, but that kind of treatment is specifically forbidden in the Bible as we'll see as we continue to study the Law.

That was a lot of introduction to this topic, but it's important that we define our terms and realize that God is drawing a contrast between the kind of slavery the the people experienced when they were slaves in Egypt and what "slaves" were to look like for God's people.  The first thing of note here is that this passage is talking about people that are in some sort of forced servitude relationship that are also Hebrews--this is not talking about conquering a people and taking those people as slaves.  Also, we see that the period of indentured servitude (yes, I'm changing the wording on purpose because I think it fits better what we're talking about here) is brief and should last no more than sever years.  Usually this kind of servitude was used for someone who was in a debt that they could not pay off, and their only option was to work off the debt.  I mentioned a parable with just such an occurrence in today's Daily Study video that you can find on my Discipleship Discord.  Imagine that debt incurred by the unmerciful servant in light of this law.  If the king and that servant were both Hebrews (as the people probably assumed hearing the parable), he was probably settling his accounts at the end of seven years time to comply with this law and to see who should be released from their debts.  That man had racked up 10,000 years' worth of debt in less than 7 years and was pleading not for forgiveness, but for more time.  Thankfully, from the very beginning, God put a safety valve in place to prevent people from serving as lifelong slaves, because that was never His intent.

We then see some strange (to us) rules about how the wife and children of these slaves should be treated.  The man who is a slave should leave with everything that he came in with including wife and children (meaning it was the responsibility of the master to provide and care for the slave's family and to not sell them off).  Assume for a moment though that like Abraham, the master had been unable to have his own children and the master wanted to use his servant as a surrogate so that he might have an heir born to him (this was exactly how Abraham imagined God's plan was going to work for a while and what we see going on between Abraham and Hagar with the birth of Ishmael), then the wife that belonged to the master to start off with and the child would belong to the master at the time that the man's service was fulfilled.  The master would then be responsible to treat the wife and child as one of his own and take care of them for their entire lives (until the child grew up and became of age if a male or until she was married if a female).

Now for one of the more interesting provisions.  What if the servant loves his master and doesn't want to go free (or realizes that he can't live on his own out in the world and needs someone to take care of him and his family)?  A provision was made then for the servant to initiate the request to become what would be called a bond-servant, meaning that he had a lifelong covenant with his master that he took voluntary and that covenant would be made before God and there would be a sign of the covenant where the servant's ear would be pierced as a sign to all the world that the master was not in violation of the statute regarding setting his servants free after seven years, but that this man voluntarily became his master's servant for life.

It is unfortunate that this next part even had to be discussed in the Bible, but we need to remember again that the people lived among a very corrupt and wicked people that did not value women or children and often were involved in sex trafficking and using their slave trade as part of this.  The female slave who comes to a man to be his wife would probably be doing so in an arranged capacity between the master and the father, and likely because of some kind of debt that the family of the girl owed the master.  To be clear, the Bible is not saying that it condones or approves of this situation or that it doesn't, but just what rights the girl would have in such a situation--we'll get into God's rules about both sex and owning other people later in the Law.  I'll say now though that it was God's intent for His people to take care of each other and to take care of the foreigners that lived among them and not to own, trade or sell people.

With that said, there was a real problem with no-fault divorce among the pagans and if a woman was found "unacceptable" to her husband then she would be thrown out without any way of supporting herself, and without her virginity, no one would want to marry her again--this would force the woman to turn to begging, theft, or prostitution to survive, and we see many cultures in the world today where those who have escaped the sex-slave market have this exact problem if they don't find a safe house that will rescue them and educate them and get them jobs.  So, we are told that the men cannot do this.  The next natural thought then is that if he's forced to keep the woman that he finds unacceptable, he'll just move on to someone else and will stop taking care of the woman and her children--again, polygamy was never God's design, but God knew it would happen and addressed the "when it happens" situation without condoning or endorsing it.  But isn't it great that God still gave rights to the slaves and servants and to the women and children to make sure that they would always be protected and cared for, and that God set up his own "welfare" system within His society so that those that were poor and destitute could be taken in as bond-servants by those who were wealthy and they would be taken care of and the people of God should never need to be out on the streets begging?  Do you see how this system is so different than what we normally think of as slavery?

The next part of this chapter will deal with the sanctity of all life and how to deal with all kinds of manslaughter whether it is willful, accidental, or negligent in nature and what the punishment for such crimes.  All lives matter to God, even the lives of slaves and I think that's partially why God deals with those human relationships first so there is no question that when he talks about "a man or a woman" in the laws about manslaughter and murder that he is including the lives of these servants and slaves.  No man had a right to beat his servants until they died or to kill them for any reason outside of the fact that they had committed a capital offense that was worthy of death, and even then it was to be done with a trial will all the elders of the community being the jury and the community as a whole would agree to and execute the punishment.  We'll see God's provision for a criminal justice system later, but that's not the purpose of this portion of the Law.  It is sufficient right now for these people to know the rules and the consequences for breaking the rules--the exact details on how people will be tried for their crimes and how they should serve their sentences will be covered later.

Please do note that all of these rules in this section have to do with how the Hebrews were supposed to treat one another when they got into a situation where they were indebted as individuals or families to someone else.  It has nothing to do with the treatment of foreigners (though God is going to cover that later), so it certainly does not speak to an issue of slavery as we typically think about it in the United States of America where people were sold, traded for goods or kidnapped and then sold again at a slave market and treated as property.  All these issues will be addressed later in the Law--just not here, and I won't gloss over them when we get there.  People have long twisted the Bible to fit their sinful lifestyles in all kind of abuse and exploitation, but we serve a God who hears the cries of the needy, poor, and slaves (see Psalm 72:12-14) and calls them all "precious" in His sight.  We are not living by the letter or the spirit of the Law when we devalue other human beings in any way shape or form, nor are we living in the letter or spirit of the Law when we fail to take care of our brothers or sisters who are in need.  This is not just an Old Testament teaching, but one of the New Testament as well (see James 2:15-17).  God cares about those that the world treats as having no rights and no status, even those that were servants or slaves.

Now keep this in mind when you read the New Testament and we are called to be slaves or bond-servants to Christ (usually the word used there is the lowest category of slave that was given the dirtiest task of washing peoples' feet when they came into the house) and the Bible talking about being slaves of sin.  Which system is the system that abuses you and exploits you?  It is sin that does this, not Christ!  We are told in many places in the New Testament that we are set free of this kind of slavery by Christ and that it is for freedom that Christ set up free, but we also know that we call Jesus both "Lord" and "Master."  It is important for us to have the right understanding of what this relationship is and that we serve a loving master who will take care of His servants as if they were part of His own family.  We have nothing to fear from Him and call call Him "Abba Father" if we belong to HIm