Did God Condone Slavery?: Slavery in the Old Testament

Several years ago a friend's younger brother was laying in a hospital bed following a bone marrow transplant needed to save his life due to a rare disease known as Fanconi Anemia.1 As his mother and sister were discussing where to put the doughnut (cushion) in order to make him comfortable, young Taylor chimed in with apparent frustration, "Why don't we just eat the doughnut!"

This story still makes me smile as I recall the sweet innocence of this kindhearted boy who was taken from this life at such a young age. It also reminds me of the confusion that often ensues from equivocal terminology.

Such is the case with the term "slavery" in the Bible. Most of us think of slavery as the evil, racist, Atlantic slave trade in which African men and women were kidnapped from their homeland, shipped across the ocean like cargo in despicable conditions, and forced to live in oppressive cruelty for generations, resulting in unspeakable harm to a large segment of the U.S. population and immeasurable strife that impacts our nation to this day.

Slavery in ancient Israel, on the other hand, was so dissimilar as to warrant an entirely different word to describe it. The Hebrew word ebed was not an inherently lowly or undignified term,2 and the Hebrew concept of a slave, which would perhaps be better translated as servant or employee,3 functioned much like the indentured servitude that as many as two-thirds of white immigrants entered into when they couldn't afford the journey to Britain's colonies.4

In fact, slavery as practiced in biblical Israel wasn't much different experientially than paid employment in a cash economy like ours today.5 If a family's crops failed or if they encountered some other series of hardships that led them into serious debt, they could sell themselves into servitude (slavery) as a means of working their way out of debt and earning for themselves a fresh start.6 However, this could only happen voluntarily and many protections existed to prevent the maltreatment of such workers.7

For example, indentured servants were only to work up to six years. In the seventh year they were to be set free to pursue their own livelihood, having all their debts cancelled without further obligations to the household they had served.8 Though land could be mortgaged for up to fifty years, even that was to be returned to the family in the year of Jubilee so that even the most severe debt of one generation could not relegate future generations to poverty.9

Furthermore, kidnapping was illegal in Israel and was punishable by death.10 This law alone would have prevented the Atlantic slave trade from ever getting started, but there is more. The Israelites were often reminded that they were once slaves in Egypt and they were no better than anyone else who found themselves in a position of service to another; therefore, they were to treat others as they would want to be treated and as God had treated them - with kindness, compassion, and respect.11 This aligned perfectly with God's teaching from the very beginning that all people are made in His image and therefore are imbued with inherent dignity, value, and rights.12

In addition, if an employer were to lose his temper and cause serious injury to a servant (e.g. loss of a tooth or an eye), the servant was to be set free and given generous provisions to help him get started in his new endeavors.13 If a servant died at the hands of her employer, the employer was to be punished by death.14 In other words, slaves and masters were of equal value and worth.15

Moreover, all of Israel was to be a safe-haven for runaway slaves from foreign lands.16 Whereas in antebellum America there was a mandate to return slaves to their masters, in biblical Israel the entire country was to function as an underground railroad for escaped slaves. In fact, runaway slaves were to be given land to settle wherever they desired in Israel, unlike Israelites who had to remain in the land of their tribe.17

Under God's laws for Israel, the type of slavery that occurred in 17th- to 19th-century America would never have gotten off the ground, and if already in place, it never would have survived even a generation. In this way, the Mosaic law was millennia ahead of the United States of America. Although perhaps not an ideal situation, Israel's "slavery" provided a voluntary, temporary, and dignified path forward for those who found themselves in serious financial straits. In fact, if this were the only type of slavery practiced throughout the world, we would all be in a much better place today.18

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[1] To learn more about Fanconi Anemia or the organization that Taylor's family started after his death, go to https://www.katafoundation.org/

[2] John Goldingay. Old Testament Theology: Israel's Life, vol. 3 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 460.

[3] Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), 125.

[4] David W. Galenson. "Indentured Servitude," in The Oxford Companion to American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 368-69.

[5] Goldingay, Israel's Life, 461.

[6] Many other provisions existed for minor and temporary hardship, including gleaning the edges of fields and picking lingering fruit on trees after fellow Israelites had harvested the land (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:20-21); interest-free loans (Deuteronomy 15:7-8; Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36-37); substitutions of smaller animals for sacrifices (Leviticus 5:7; 11); and debt cancellations every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-18)

[7] Gordon Wenham. "Family in the Pentateuch," in Family in the Bible, ed. Richard S. Hess and Daniel Carroll (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 21. See also Deuteronomy 15; 23; 24; Leviticus 25; Exodus 21;

[8] Deuteronomy 15:1-18

[9] Leviticus 25:25-54

[10] Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7

[11] Exodus 22:21; 23:9; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 5:15; 10:19; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18; 24:22; see also Leviticus 23:22; Deuteronomy 10:19; 24:18-22; 24:14-15; Job 31:13-15

[12] Genesis 1:26-27

[13] Exodus 21:26-27; Deuteronomy 15:13-15

[14] Exodus 21:20

[15] This does not indicate that beating one's servants was acceptable behavior. See Laura Powell: The Bible Doesn't Approve of All that It Regulates

[16] Deuteronomy 23:15-16

[17] Deuteronomy 23:16

[18] For more on this topic and specific difficult Bible passages, see Paul Copan. Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), especially chs. 12-14.