seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Exodus 21:1 “These are the laws you are to set before them:
2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
5 “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.
7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
Here's the link to the commentary I use.
If you buy a Hebrew servant: With ancient Israel, as in the entire ancient world, there were people who worked for others on the principle of servitude. They were slaves in some sense, though not necessarily in the brutal and degraded sense most think of slavery.
If a man sells his daughter to be a female slave: The matter described here seems to describe the selling of a young female as a slave to a family with the intention of marriage. This is why the text explained, who has betrothed her to himself.
I strongly suggest you read the commentary. According to the commentary, and a Bing search, God gave these laws to Moses and the Israelites. Apparently, according to the commentary, this is the section on "employment law".
These laws weren't engraved in stone like the Ten Commandments.
This is from "Got Questions".
Slavery has been a fact of human existence for almost as long as the human race has been in existence. Physical punishment to enforce compliance has been part of slavery for just as long. Corporal punishment has also been used in situations other than slavery. For example, physical chastisements were commonly employed as punishment for crimes committed and for the enforcing of discipline in the military. We are not so far removed from the time when brutal physical punishment was administered and accepted by almost everyone as legitimate. In the British Navy, flogging for disobedience or insubordination was common until the mid-19th century, and caning was used until the mid-20th century. In some places, such as Singapore, caning is still an official form of punishment for certain crimes.
The Bible does not forbid slavery, nor does it demand that every slave owner who wants to please God must immediately emancipate his slaves. Instead, the Bible at every turn calls for a treatment of slaves that would have been more humane than any found in the culture at large. The very idea that a master could be punished in any way for killing a slave would have been scandalous at the time Moses gave the Law. The culture at large made no attempt to grant slaves any rights. Slaves in Egypt or Moab, for example, were afforded no such protection.
I did some digging into my family history. My great, great. great, whatever grandfather was "indentured" to Sir William Dent. He needed to get to the Americas because of religious issues in Ireland. So, he was "indentured" as a bodyguard. He had to work for Sir William Dent for a period of seven years and then he would be free. On top of that, at the end of his servitude, he was granted some land in Southern Maryland. My great, great, great, whatever grandfather [Captain George Athey] was a white man... a protestant.
There had to be a lot of reasons back in the days of Moses, for people to become "servants". If the contract was successful, the "servant" was free to leave at the end of 7 years, or the "servant" could renegotiate the agreement, drive a hole in their ear, and become a "servant" for life. Now there's a benefit package a man couldn't turn down, right?
So... This chapter is actually called "employment law" by the commentary. Seems like a good title to me.
Employment Law....
