Slavery Part 2: Mosaic Law

In my last article I talked about unjust forms of slavery. Under the Law of Moses, it was punishable by death to force someone into slavery without just cause (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7). (Joseph’s brothers would have been put to death if they had been under the Law of Moses.) But what were the just causes of enslavement under the Law of Moses?

Prisoners of war were sometimes made to slaves by the victor of the war (Deuteronomy 20:10, 11, 21:10, I Kings 9:21). The Israelites were commanded to go to war with various nations at various times because of unprovoked attacks and also because of detestable practices.

If a thief could not make restitution for the property he stole and for any damages, the affected parties could make the thief a slave (Exodus 22:3).

Under the Law of Moses, if a man was poor, he could voluntarily sell himself into slavery in order to pay his debts (Leviticus 25:39-43).

Ecclesiastes 2:7 mentions people who were slaves at birth. In Joshua 9:27, it indicates that people and their descendents could be kept as slaves forever in some cases. But this happened because of a covenant that God had not approved of (Joshua 9:14, 15). These Gibeonite slaves and others who came later, were slaves at the temple, and did not have private masters as other slaves did.

In Old Testament times, if a borrower could not pay his creditors, then they could enslave him (2 Kings 4:1, Nehemiah 5:5, 8). But these cases are not mentioned in the scriptures until after the time of Moses, and these ways of enslavement are not necessarily approved by God. The Law of Moses is unclear on these points.

What were the rights of slaves?

Israelites were given the right to buy permanent slaves from other nations and from the other people living among them (Leviticus 25:44, 45). But there is no means by which a person who was not already a permanent slave could be forcibly made a permanent slave under the Law of Moses, except for prisoners of war.

Anyone who had been enslaved had the right to own property. If someone was enslaved because of debt or poverty, and they could pay off their debt, then they could be freed (Leviticus 25:47-49). Families of such slaves were commanded to redeem them if they could. The maximum amount of time that a person could be enslaved for this reason was six years (Exodus 21:2, Deuteronomy 15:12). But if a slave loved his master, then he could voluntarily choose to become his slave for life (Deuteronomy 15:16). This was typical in cases where a temporary slave married a permanent slave of the master (Exodus 21:5). All debts were cancelled every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-11) and all temporary slaves were always freed in the year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:54).

All masters of slaves were required to provide for the needs of their slaves (Exodus 21:11). When a slave was freed, the masters were required to give them supplies that they would need in order to sustain themselves (Deuteronomy 15:13, 14), which would prevent them from becoming enslaved again.

If a master seriously injured a slave, then the slave would be freed (Exodus 21:26, 27). The same law “Thou shall not kill” applied to masters and slaves just as much as anyone else (Exodus 21:20). Everyone was forbidden from working on the Sabbath day, and slaves were no exception (Exodus 23:12). They were also allowed to participate in the various festivals and feasts of the Jewish tradition. If a master had no children, then his slaves could inherit his property, even if they were foreigners (I Chronicles 2:34).

If a foreign slave escaped from his master, claiming mistreatment or unjust enslavement, then the Israelites were required to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to live in the Israelite cities. They were not supposed to give him back to his master (Deuteronomy 23:15, 16).

In conclusion, the strict definition of slave, “a person over whose life, liberty, and property someone has absolute control” simply does not apply to Biblical slavery. None of the dictionary definitions completely describes the Biblical concept. Slavery is not something that God intended in the beginning, but it is a consequence of sin. In my next article, I will examine slavery in the Roman world and St. Paul’s statements concerning it.