The Bible and Slavery

Slavery and the Bible

The Bible's defense of slavery is very plain. St. Paul was Inspired, and knew the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and was only intent on obeying it. And who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God... and invent for ourselves a

"higher law” than those holy Scriptures which are given to us as a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths, in the darkness of a sinful and a polluted world?"

—Pro-Slavery advocate, John Henry Hopkins (1864)

Slavery seeks refuge in the Bible only in its last extremity.... Goaded to frenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, ... it courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest and finding none." The law of love, glowing on every page, flashes through its anguish and despair.

—Pro-Abolition advocate, Theodore Dwight Weld (1837)[1]

Slavery in the Ancient World

Slavery in the Old Testament

Slavery in the New Testament

Slavery in Church History

Slavery in the Ancient World

“Slavery . . . was practiced by every ancient people of which we have any historical record. . . . [It] was as integral a part of ancient culture as commerce, taxation, or temple service.”” (Gleason K. Archer, cited in Gavin Ortlund’s TGC article “Is the Bible Pro-Slavery?”)

“…those who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast—and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature. For them it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule, if such is the case for the other things mentioned.” – Aristotle, Politics, Book 1

“If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall be guiltless.” – The Code of Hammurabi (1700 B.C.)

“If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.” – The Code of Hammurabi (1700 B.C.)

Ancient slavery was distinct from antebellum slavery in America in a number of ways:

• It wasn’t race based.
• It most often came from debts or war.
• It wasn’t as binary (slave vs. free) but had many different kinds of servitude.
  • For instance, Felix, the Roman governor of Judea (see Acts 23-24) was once a slave.
  • Slaves could make themselves wealthy enough to buy their own freedom (see Lev 25:49, “if he grows rich”).
• But, in some ways, ancient (Greco-Roman) slavery was worse than the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
  • “Free males sexually exploiting male and female slaves was an essential feature of Roman slavery. It was widely assumed that free men in the Roman world had virtually unrestricted access to slaves and enslaved prostitutes for sexual release. Such predation was viewed almost as akin to access to food and water, the mere satisfaction of natural urges…On balance, there doesn’t seem to be much merit in the argument that ancient Greco-Roman slavery was more humane than that which appeared in the early modern world. Both featured physical and sexual abuse, though if anything the sexual exploitation in the ancient system may have been more overt and systemic. Teenage male slaves (for instance) suffered open sexual predation from free Roman men in ways that had no direct American parallel. ” (Thomas S. Kidd, “Slavery Old and New” on Desiring God website)

The Term “Slave” (עֶבֶד  δοῦλος)

The Hebrew word ‘ebed and the Greek word doulos is difficult to translate. “These terms…cover a range of relationships that requires a range of renderings—“slave,” “bondservant,” or “servant”—depending on the context.” (Preface to the ESV)

For instance…

• Abraham sends his ‘ebed “who has charge of all that he had” to go far off, loaded with ten camels loaded with “choice gifts” of gold, silver, and costly garments (Gen 24).[2]
• Court officials in Egypt were described as ‘ebed (Ex 5:21; 7:10)
• Israel is to be set free from being servants in Egypt so that they may serve Yahweh (Ex 4:23; 7:16; 8:1, 20; 9:1, 13; 10:3, 7, 8, 11, 24, 26)
• Moses is an ‘ebed of the Lord (Deut 34:5)
• Paul frequently refers to himself as a doulos of Christ (Rom 1:1; Gal 1:10)
• Jesus Himself is identified as doulos (Phil 2:7)

“The word “servant” (ebed) is not inherently negative…The term doesn’t assume adjectives like “degrading,” “oppressive,” or “owned.” The context must make clear any positive, negative, or neutral association…This neutral term has the basic meaning of “worker” and is related to the verb abad—“work” or “serve” or even “worship” (e.g., Exod. 8:1; 20:5; Josh 24:15). There is a range of uses for the very same term “servant” (ebed).” (Paul Copan, Is God a Vindictive Bully? P. 170-71).

Slavery in the Old Testament

Primary Passages Assuming the Presence of Slavery in Israel

• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob possessed slaves (Gen 12:16; 26:19; 30:43)
• Joseph is sold into slavery (Gen 37:28, 39:1)
• Solomon owned slaves (1 Kings 5:13)
  
  

Remember: Description ¹ Prescription

Primary Passages Regulating the Practice of Slavery in Israel

[The servant in Old Testament Law] “was given human and legal rights unheard of in contemporary societies,” (Christopher J.H. Wright, Walking in the Ways of the Lord, p. 124)

1. The imago Dei—the basis of human rights
   
   “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” – Gen 9:6 (see Gen 1:27)

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. – Prov 14:31

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy – Prov 31:9

2. Regulation ¹ Prescription
   
   God never commands or prescribes slavery in the Law, but acknowledges its existence, and seeks to regulate it.
   
   Consider: “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,” (Ex 21:22).
   
   Is this telling us that the Law thinks “hitting a pregnant woman” is an ideal? No, it is regulating a sad reality of living in a fallen world.
   
   3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Matt 19:3-9)
   1. This demonstrates a category of Law that Jesus has that is not the Eden-ideal, but a concession to the reality of the broken world as it is.
      
      
   2. The Law is not putting forward an idealistic society but realistic trajectory to move towards the ideal from the real.
      
      “In the law, God engages with human society where he finds it, and he takes steps to leave it better than he finds it.” – Iain Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion, 266
      
      
   3. So, as we read the laws concerning slavery in the Old Testament we should note that they are not seeking to construct the institution of slavery; they are seeking to regulate a fairly brutal, but universally practiced institution.
      
      Which means we should expect to find things that we would say are not ideal. This would explain why we also find things like polygamy regulated in the Law (see Ex 21:10).
      
      
3. Israel’s identity is forged out of their own crushing experience as slaves
   
   

If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15. – Deut 15:12-15 (see also Deut 5:15)

For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. – Lev 25:42

This is why the first category of laws given to Israel after the 10 commandments in Ex 20 is laws concerning slaves in Ex 21

4. Laws concerning Hebrew slaves
   
   
   1. Slavery is not perpetual
      1. Every six years, Ex 21:2, Deut 15:12 (note: in Deuteronomy, when the slave is released he must be furnished liberally by the master)
      2. The year of Jubilee, Lev 25:39
   2. Slaves cannot be kidnapped
      1. Exodus 21:16 prescribes the death penalty—not only for stealing, but for owning a slave a who was stolen. See also Deut 24:7 ( and 1 Tim 1:10)
      2. “It can also be pointed out that, although a form of slavery did exist within Israel’s economy (as we noted in the last chapter), Israelites themselves were stringently prohibited by this law from engaging in slave trading as captors and vendors. That in itself was a major subversion of the whole practice of slavery.” – Christopher Wright, The Story of God Bible Commentary: Exodus
   3. Runaway slaves must be protected from their masters
      1. You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him. – Deut 23:15-16
      2. Compare this with other Ancient Near Eastern laws about runaway slaves
         1. “If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him. – Ur Nammu Code, (Summerian, 2050 B.C.)
         2. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death…If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver. – The Code of Hammurabi (Akkadian, 1700 BC)
      3. George Bourne, the abolitionist, argued in 1845 that if this law were enacted in the American south, it would end the institution of slavery in a week. (Cited in Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women by Willard M. Swartley)
   4. Slaves cannot be treated harshly
      1. They cannot be separated from their families (Ex 21:3-4)
      2. They must be given sabbath rests and participate in all of the covenantal feasts and celebrations (eg. Deut 16:14)
      3. They are protected from abusive physical treatment (Ex 21:26-27)
         1. Remember, this is “case law.” You extrapolate the principle from the specifics. Just because “eye” and “tooth” are designated here, it does not limit the application of the principle only to those particulars. The damage to the “eye” represents a serious bodily injury (functional capacities are seriously inhibited), while the loss of a “tooth” represents a less serious injury (the slave would still be capable of working without a tooth). While corporal punishment would still take place in that world (see Ex 21:21), the principle was clear: you could not cause lasting damage of any kind to your servant.
            
            
         2. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value. - The Code of Hammurabi (1700 B.C.)
         3. “The law quoted above from the Code of Hammurabi (CH 119) refers to injuries that a man might inflict on another man’s slave. There are various such laws, stipulating various levels of compensation. But there is no law of any sort about a man injuring one of his own male or female slaves—except in Israel. The assumption elsewhere seems to have been that whatever a master might do or not do to his own slave was a matter for himself alone, since the slave was his own property. In Old Testament Israel, however, while the slave was counted as property, he or she was not merely property. Their status and value as fellow human beings also counted. So, a master was not permitted to injure a slave with impunity. Even a relatively minor injury, such as knocking out a tooth, is to be remedied by giving the slave freedom. These verses, Exodus 21:26-27, “bestow on the slave a status that is unique in the ancient world.”” – Christopher Wright, The Story of God Bible Commentary: Exodus
            
            
      4. But what about Exodus 21:20-21?
         1. The death penalty is given for a slave-owner who beats his servant to death.
            1. “…there is no such law (punishment for killing your own slave) comparable to this in any other ancient Near Eastern collection.” – Wright, Exodus
         2. Remember, we are not getting the ideal, but regulating the real. Corporal punishment—to a severity that we would all feel very uncomfortable with—was ubiquitous in the ancient world, not only in the disciplining of children, but in many areas of life, including servants.
            1. Consider this excerpt from Martin Luther, recalling his childhood: “My mother caned me for stealing a nut, until the blood came…My father once whipped me so that I ran away and felt ugly toward him…[At school] I was caned in a single morning fifteen times for nothing at all.” – cited in Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand, 7
         3. “Verse 21 immediately grates with modern ears, but it is simply a balancing of the rights of a master with the remarkable rights granted to a slave in verse 20. For if a slave died at any time, it could easily be claimed by his family that it was the result of some previous beating, however far in the past. The law sets a limit (one or two days) within which a claim that a slave’s death had actually been caused by a beating could be reasonably investigated.” – Wright, Exodus
         4. Paul Copan in Is God a Moral Monster? And Is God a Vindictive Bully? Makes the argument that the phrase “for the slave is his money” is not referring to the idea that the slave is the property of the owner and therefore can be beaten (provided he doesn’t die within a few days). The word “slave” is not in the Hebrew text, but here there is only a masculine pronoun: “he” or “it.” Copan is arguing that the “he/it” here isn’t the slave, but the medical payment mentioned back in 21:18-19 Thus, he cites the Hittitologist, Hary Hoffner, who renders Exodus 21:21 as “That [medical payment] is his silver.”
            
            
      5. Female slaves were protected from the worst practices common of the day
         1. In Israel, sexual activity was restricted to marriage (Gen 2:24; Deut 22:13-18; cf. Mark 10:7-9).
         2. “In the situation where a father sells his daughter to another man (Ex 21:7-11), concern for the woman’s rights and dignity predominates. This transaction is best understood not as the purchase of a concubine but as the purchase of a wife for either the master or his son, where the woman’s father cannot afford a proper dowry,” (G.H. Haas, Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch, “Slavery”).
         3. When women are sold into marriage-contracts, they are given a number of protections (Ex 21:7-11).
            1. If, a man purchases her and decides not to enter into a marriage with her, he is forbidden from selling her into perpetual slavery, especially to foreigners (21:8)
            2. If the purchaser is not buying her to be his own wife, but for his son, he must treat her like a daughter—meaning she cannot be used a sexual object for all the men in the household (21:9)
            3. If he takes another wife, he must continue to provide for her food, clothing, and “marital rights” (21:10-11). If he fails to do this, she shall be free from her servitude and all debts will be cleared.
               
               
         4. Job’s example
            1. “If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant, when they brought a complaint against me, 14 what then shall I do when God rises up? When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? 15 Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” – Job 31:13-15

But what about non-Hebrew slaves?

Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15 specify that these are Hebrew slaves who are released every 6 years.

As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. – Lev 25:44-46

1. Consider how “aliens” and “sojourners” are to be treated
   1. ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.” – Lev 25:23
   2. “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.” – Lev 25:35
   3. “If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40 he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.” – Lev 25:39-40
   4. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ – Deut 27:19
   5. You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. – Deut 24:14
   6. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. – Lev 19:34

[1] Both quotes found in Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women by Willard M. Swartley

[2] See also the example of Abram arming his servants in Gen 14; something that would not be expected in modern slavery. “Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” – Gen 14:14, NKJV. Hamilton explains: “This hapax legomenon is further explained by the phrase household servants (yelîḏê ḇêṯô). Here yālîḏ does not refer to physical descent; rather, it designates membership in a group by a means other than birth. Here in particular the term is applied to a slave or servant whose major function is to provide military assistance,” (NICOT: Genesis).