Slavery Part 1:

Greg said,

"Personally, I believe that Paul’s expression 'slaves obey your master' is as true today as it was almost 2000 years ago. We no longer have slaves, but if we did the biblical mandate would apply today."

Brian Murphy said,

" 'Slaves' is a word with a very clear definition, then and now. It means 'one bound in servitude as the property of a person or household.' I am not the property of any employer. Nobody is. A slave is someone unable to escape their condition, and I can just say 'I quit!' "

Here is the dictionary definition of it from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, fifth edition:

slave 1. A person held in bondage; a thrall. 2. One who has lost control of himself, freedom of action, etc.; as, a slave to ambition or of drink. 3. A drudge.

I also found a definition in Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedic Dictionary which seems more precise:

slave 1. A person over whose life, liberty, and property someone has absolute control. 2. A person in mental or moral subjection to a habit, vice, or influence. 3. One who labors like a slave; a drudge.

The word drudge is defined as :

To work hard at wearisome or menial tasks, or one who drudges.

Therefore, Greg’s use of term slave in this way is correct, even though it is the least common use of term. But since slavery under the first definition is what Brian Murphy was talking about (and probably was what St. Paul was talking about as well), this is worthy of further investigation. I will begin six part series on the topic, starting with slavery in Egypt and Canaan before the Mosaic Law.

I will consider six instances of slavery in Egypt in the book of Genesis and Hebrew slavery in the book of Exodus.

1. The pharaoh of Egypt in Abram’s (Abraham’s) time gave slaves to him (Genesis 12:16). One of these slaves was probably Hagar, who Abraham later took as a concubine (a wife) because Sarah could not conceive (or so they thought). It is not clear from the scriptures whether Hagar had a choice or if she was compelled to do this. Hagar was later sent away.

2. Jacob agreed to serve Laban for seven years in exchange for permission to marry his daughter (and ended up working for him 13 more years).

3. Joseph was sold into slavery (Genesis 37:27) because his brothers were envious of him. (Genesis 37:11) He was sold to the Ishmaelites who sold him in Egypt.

4. After Joseph had become governor of Egypt, he acquired the best land for crops for the Pharaoh at the beginning of the seven years of plenty and stored the surplus grain (which therefore belonged to Pharaoh). After the seven years of plenty were over and the famine started, people began to buy the Pharaoh’s grain. Their money soon ran out and so they pleaded with Pharaoh to “Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh.” (Genesis 47:19, 25) Joseph made a covenant with them that they could continue to use the land and keep four-fifths of the grain grown on the land (the other fifth went to the Pharaoh). This was still the law hundreds of years later during the time of Moses (Genesis 47:26).

5. When Joseph’s brothers came to buy grain, Benjamin was accused of stealing the governor’s (Joseph’s) cup. The punishment that Joseph proposed for this alleged crime was that Benjamin would become his slave. (Genesis 44:16) (Benjamin, of course, was innocent and this never happened.)

6. The enslavement of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus is described as “bitter bondage”. It was acceptable for Hebrew slaves to be beaten (Exodus 1:11). The reason that the Hebrews were enslaved was because the Pharaoh was afraid of the Hebrews. He was afraid that they would revolt or join the enemies of Egypt if there was a war. The value of the life of a Hebrew was regarded so low under the law by this Pharaoh that he ordered that all male Hebrew babies be murdered. This was a culture that thought that the life of animals should be protected under the law. The slavery was ongoing as long as the Pharaoh ordered it, with no possibility of redress. This seems to be the only pre-Mosaic case in which slavery can be proven to fit the first dictionary definition.

In the third instance, though Joseph was treated well, his enslavement was definitely unjust. The sixth case was also unjust enslavement. One could argue that there could have been a better way to settle cases 4 (hypothetically) and 5 besides enslavement, but at least there were legitimate reasons for the enslavement (or potential enslavement) in these cases. We are dealing with Egyptian law in these cases, so in any case, this is no reflection on what a Biblical stance on slavery is, except possibly in cases 4 and 5 since Joseph was considered a righteous man. But Joseph would have had to have acted within Egyptian law and it had to be acceptable to Pharaoh. I will bring out the Biblical stance in my next two articles. I will examine slavery under the Mosaic Law next.