Quick notes on slavery in the Bible: • The Hebrew term for slave, eved, is a direct derivation from the Hebrew verb laavöd (to work), thus, the slave in Jewish law is really only a worker or servant. • The English Bible renders it servant (a) where the word is used figuratively, pious men being servants of the Lord (Isaiah 49), and courtiers servants of the king (Jerimiah 36); and (b) in passages which refer to Hebrew bondmen, whose condition is far above that of slavery (Exodus 21). • The slavery mentioned here is not the same as the slavery that we know in recent history where Africans were abducted, brought to america and were treated cruelly. Back in Biblical days, slavery was synonymous to bond-servitude. When a Hebrew was in debt, he can work off that debt by being a bond-servant. Under the system, even a monarch can be a slave (bond servant) of a superior sovereign, such as when a sovereign state annexed a sovereign territory by force/war. Was the monarch a slave then in the sense as the abducted Africans during the 17th century. • Now, does the Old Testament condones slavery, the slavery that we know of from recent history in which people are captured and sold as slaves? Certainly no. Mosaic penal laws treated slavery as heinous crime and prescribed the capital punishment of death for such. He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:16) As to bond-servitude mentioned in other verses of Exodus 21, it is clear, by reading these verses that it is NOT the same as the slavery that was practiced in 17th century Americas and the Mosaic penal laws has even instituted ways to protect these bond-servants. * If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. (Exodus 21:20) * If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth. (Exodus 21:26-27) * He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:12)
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 14:01:26 +0000
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