Exodus 21 - Slaves and Marriage

[Corey Powell]

My wife was reading Exodus 21 this morning and was confused and I am uncertain how to explain certain parts of the text.
I understand that slavery was not our modern conception of ethnic chattel slavery and manstealing, which the very chapter condemns. But I'm curious what the answer is for why these things are commanded, or at least regulated instead of forbidden, by God:

1. Buying and selling humans as property, even if only for 7 years (Exod 21:1,7)
2. Intentionally separating a man from his wife and children when he gains his freedom (Exod 21:4)
3. Selling your daughter as a concubine (Exod 21:7-8)
4. Taking an "additional" wife (Exod 21:10)

Are these examples of regulating things that were already happening out of the hardness of hearts, similar to divorce?

I aim to have 0 problem passages, and this one feels like a doozy. If the law is pedagogical and all God's laws are good, why would God command a husband and his family of whom he is the head to be separated, and simply "regulate" polygamy? What am I missing?

 

[jwright82]

My wife was reading Exodus 21 this morning and was confused and I am uncertain how to explain certain parts of the text.
I understand that slavery was not our modern conception of ethnic chattel slavery and manstealing, which the very chapter condemns. But I'm curious what the answer is for why these things are commanded, or at least regulated instead of forbidden, by God:

1. Buying and selling humans as property, even if only for 7 years (Exod 21:1,7)
2. Intentionally separating a man from his wife and children when he gains his freedom (Exod 21:4)
3. Selling your daughter as a concubine (Exod 21:7-8)
4. Taking an "additional" wife (Exod 21:10)

Are these examples of regulating things that were already happening out of the hardness of hearts, similar to divorce?

I aim to have 0 problem passages, and this one feels like a doozy. If the law is pedagogical and all God's laws are good, why would God command a husband and his family of whom he is the head to be separated, and simply "regulate" polygamy? What am I missing?

It could be a cultural accommodation, not sure on this though. We always need to be aware of the fact that the Bible was revealed to a particular group of people at a particular time. It seems to boggle our minds because of changing circumstances. So as you pointed out it could be because of hardness of hearts issues.
I would love better answers from others, that would be my guess. As far as problem passages go though, we must always ask why it's a problem? It could be a legitimate problem or a perceptual problem.
We on this end of history can be thankful for our collective moral development on the issue of slavery but what about our LGBTQ issues? I could be wrong here but I believe that even in societies that tolerated homosexuality, same sex marriage would be unthinkable (could be wrong though, never cared to look that up).
What I mean is there are moral issues that we have progressed on and moral issues that we have degraded on. They could say, if given the chance, "we'll keep our slavery and y'all can keep your girls aren't girls and boys aren't boys craziness". C. S. Lewis called that "chronological snobbery".
Just my thoughts though.

 

[Corey Powell]

It could be a cultural accommodation, not sure on this though. We always need to be aware of the fact that the Bible was revealed to a particular group of people at a particular time. It seems to boggle our minds because of changing circumstances. So as you pointed out it could be because of hardness of hearts issues.
I would love better answers from others, that would be my guess. As far as problem passages go though, we must always ask why it's a problem? It could be a legitimate problem or a perceptual problem.
We on this end of history can be thankful for our collective moral development on the issue of slavery but what about our LGBTQ issues? I could be wrong here but I believe that even in societies that tolerated homosexuality, same sex marriage would be unthinkable (could be wrong though, never cared to look that up).
What I mean is there are moral issues that we have progressed on and moral issues that we have degraded on. They could say, if given the chance, "we'll keep our slavery and y'all can keep your girls aren't girls and boys aren't boys craziness". C. S. Lewis called that "chronological snobbery".
Just my thoughts though.

Thanks for your input.

By problem passage, I just mean something that presents as a problem or challenge to my understanding of scripture, which cannot be properly understood within my system or that I have not yet wrestled with.

I get the point of chronological snobbery, but what would be the accurate comparison? The church still clearly proclaims that homosexuality is a sin, we know we ought not to compromise just because it's part of the culture. Is the snobbery at the point that we don't want to give them the death penalty? Would it be that if they come to church instead of stoning them we invite them to lunch to hear the gospel?
My concern comes from the fact that these were laws given directly by God to Moses. Am I overemphasizing the implication of this as opposed to the cultural context?

 

[jwright82]

Thanks for your input.

By problem passage, I just mean something that presents as a problem or challenge to my understanding of scripture, which cannot be properly understood within my system or that I have not yet wrestled with.

I get the point of chronological snobbery, but what would be the accurate comparison? The church still clearly proclaims that homosexuality is a sin, we know we ought not to compromise just because it's part of the culture. Is the snobbery at the point that we don't want to give them the death penalty? Would it be that if they come to church instead of stoning them we invite them to lunch to hear the gospel?
My concern comes from the fact that these were laws given directly by God to Moses. Am I overemphasizing the implication of this as opposed to the cultural context?

No. Your concern is a good one. Look at it this way, either it's a moral precept for all time or a cultural accomodation for that time and place. If it's a moral precept than all of us opposed to it are in wrong, slavery that is, pure and simple.
Now no one agrees with that because on that issue we've made moral progress.
I think sometimes we like it to be simple when it's not. Slavery is good because it's in the Mosaic law, pure and simple, but our gut tells us that's not right. If simplicity is always great the world would be a boring place. Why is homosexuality never ok because the bible has always revealed it's evil nature. So I don't have to care what the culture says but we know that slavery was permissable like divorce in that time and place. But a permissable evil doesn't make a good.

 

[SolaScriptura]

One thing that is often overlooked is that Exodus 21 is speaking almost exclusively to owning fellow Israelites.

It is important to note that in Lev 25 - the famous legislation about the Year of Jubilee in which "all slaves" are to be freed... It is gross commission of eisegesis to ignore that this is again limited in applicability to other Israelites being owned. But yet, precisely in the context of talking about the Jubilee, Moses clarifies in vv.44-ff, "As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45 You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46 You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever."

Sounds like chattel to me.

 

[py3ak]

What am I missing?

Seeing things from such an ancient and different mindset is challenging at the best of times. And the taboos of our time don't make it any easier. One way to think about the tension we feel with these laws and some other parts of Scripture is to remember that the "conceptual reader" Scripture addresses is usually a property-owning head of household. There are exceptions: in Proverbs it's largely the heir to the throne. One step in appropriate interpretation, then, is to remember that at least in some parts of Scripture we are "overhearing" words that in their exact form were addressed to a different situation. That doesn't mean they're irrelevant or inapplicable; but it means we have to respect the difference. So children "overhear" their parents being told not to provoke them to wrath. It's good for them to do that, and there's something they can learn from it; but they hear directly, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord."

What difference does it make to remember the "conceptual reader" in Exodus 21?

One element that I think is often overlooked is that property ownership was normative. No property meant significant restrictions on your potential; that was perhaps especially true in a typological economy. Other options to mitigate the risks of that anomalous situation then become much more conceivable. Without property ownership, those risks need to be mitigated.

The man who married while a slave was not the head of a family; he was embedded inside a different family. The lack of authority is partially due to lack of property, because without property he is a dependent of someone else.

That outlook may be a little easier to understand even today if you ask yourself how someone can establish their own domain if they are not self-supporting. Our society is structured rather differently, so you don't become part of your manager's household. But even with our different social template, the property owner will have more independence (and somewhat more authority in his own domain) than someone in a different situation.

Of course that ties into one of the deep evils of Communism. Human potential is restricted, rather than released, by the artificial, statist interruption of the relation between people and property.

 

[Charles Johnson]

The following is my opinion on the chapter. Take it for what it's worth.

1. Buying and selling humans as property, even if only for 7 years (Exod 21:1,7)

Slavery of this sort was a "lesser evil" occasioned by war. In war, one's enemy is ordinarily killed, compared to which, becoming someone's lifelong fieldhand or maid isn't all that bad. This is the view Rutherford takes in Lex Rex.
So, it was allowed to avoid something worse.

2. Intentionally separating a man from his wife and children when he gains his freedom (Exod 21:4)

Bear in mind the law wasn't "he must leave his wife and kids," but "when he gains his freedom, he may leave them."
What would be the better alternative? If the wife and kids had to go free as well, the owners would either 1) never free the man, which we see was a real danger in Jeremiah 37, or 2) never give the woman in marriage, which would lead to fornication and other undesirable outcomes.
So the law was written in this way: he may go free and leave his family, or stay with them and remain enslaved. His choice.

3. Selling your daughter as a concubine (Exod 21:7-8)

The law, it seems, was that a man could, in exchange for money, marry his daughter into a concubinic marriage.
Consider the alternatives, and we see why the law was wise.
One alternative was having no formal, matrimonial relationship between the purchaser and the girl, in which case the resulting sexual relations would be illicit. You can't take it for granted that there would be no sexual relations. Male masters ordinarily slept with their female slaves in the ancient world (and the American south, it seems) and no laws protected the women. The resulting children were bastards, and the women were treated like prostitutes. This is a situation that Augustine complains of as frequent in one of his early sermons, showing the problem persisted into the Christian era. According to Augustine, the masters didn't even count it as fornication, since "she was his slave."
That the situation the law permits is far more desirable than the one Augustine describes is apparent from the mention in the law that there is "faith," i.e. covenantal obligations, between the man and the woman, and he is not free to dispose of her as he pleases.
Another alternative, even worse, would be the indigent father pimping his daughter to a variety of men, instead of her entering into a marriage with just one. Again, terrible, and not unthinkable in that day. Remember that Rahab the prostitute was not estranged from her father and mother (Joshua 2:13). That could very well have been her situation.

4. Taking an "additional" wife (Exod 21:10)

Similar to the other situations, this was probably tolerated due to "the hardness of their hearts" (Matthew 19:8), and to prevent a worse crime, which was that of abandoning one woman to marry another, if one may only have one at a time. We see this danger realized in our own day, when men and women routinely divorce and remarry without sufficient grounds. Even with the toleration of polygamy, we see from Christ's criticism of the practices of his day on what poor of grounds divorce was entered into.

 

[MW]

Servitude is closer to the original idea than "slavery." I think Charles is getting at the real issue. Servitude wasn't considered the end of the world. The Bible calls us to worship God, not a goddess called Liberte. Even those who were "free" in those times were bound hand and foot by the economic system in which they lived. Life was hard. A person could be sold into servitude for any number of reasons. The law of God imposed restrictions on the system. It provides a wise balance of mercy and justice. We think we are free today, but are we? To be a responsible adult you will sell yourself into servitude for the good of your family. That's just the way it is, even in the most free societies. I wish our young people would recognise this and assume more responsibility rather than run away from it. God's commandments are as necessary now as they were then. There is no accommodation, no slackening of the principles of justice and mercy. There are, however, differing conditions to which the same principles are to be applied.

But then, as Ben has noted, there is a focus on Israel here. This brings in the redemptive-historical element. So there will be areas of discontinuity to be factored into it.

 

[Theoretical]

Remember that Rahab the prostitute was not estranged from her father and mother (Joshua 2:13). That could very well have been her situation.

That's...an eyebrow raising point and would also make some other things about her click into place.

 

[Corey Powell]

The man who married while a slave was not the head of a family; he was embedded inside a different family. The lack of authority is partially due to lack of property, because without property he is a dependent of someone else.

Interesting. I see the point about the head of the household being the "owner," which is seen also in the instruction of Abram to administer the covenant sign of circumcision to his slaves.
However, does this mean that there is no covenant between a husband and his family while he is a slave? Is not the husband the head of the wife (Eph 5:3), or is this not the same thing? or does the new administration or even just a new culture change the nature of who is covenanted together? If the husband has always been the head of the wife and they become one flesh when leaving father and mother, I struggle seeing the justification for separating them, though Charles did address that below.

Thank you also for your explanation of the conceptual reader, that is helpful.

Bear in mind the law wasn't "he must leave his wife and kids," but "when he gains his freedom, he may leave them."
What would be the better alternative? If the wife and kids had to go free as well, the owners would either 1) never free the man, which we see was a real danger in Jeremiah 37, or 2) never give the woman in marriage, which would lead to fornication and other undesirable outcomes.
So the law was written in this way: he may go free and leave his family, or stay with them and remain enslaved. His choice.

Seeing the text's framing as a choice of the man is helpful. Yet an issue with this explanation is that the verse says that if he comes in married then he will go out with his family, but if he is given a family they remain the owner's property. Maybe it's chronological snobbery, but It seems to me that the family relationship between a husband, wife, and children would be more valuable before God than a property owner. But here if a man desires to not be separated from his family, he has to become a permanent slave.
I guess the issue is the line "If she bears sons and daughters, they will be her masters." Again, why is her being owned by a human master more important than her being one flesh and in covenant with her husband?

I appreciate Rev. Winzer's comments about our attitude toward servitude, so I don't want to overvalue our conception of freedom and "judge" the culture Scripture speaks into. But that granted, I'm uncertain how to vindicate this owner/family distinction and what implications that might have for the very nature of the family. I certainly don't want to overstate the case either.

Many excellent and helpful points were made above. Thank you for the interaction and clarification.

 

[py3ak]

Interesting. I see the point about the head of the household being the "owner," which is seen also in the instruction of Abram to administer the covenant sign of circumcision to his slaves.
However, does this mean that there is no covenant between a husband and his family while he is a slave? Is not the husband the head of the wife (Eph 5:3), or is this not the same thing? or does the new administration or even just a new culture change the nature of who is covenanted together? If the husband has always been the head of the wife and they become one flesh when leaving father and mother, I struggle seeing the justification for separating them, though Charles did address that below.

Thank you also for your explanation of the conceptual reader, that is helpful.

The limited tolerance for polygamy and concubines shows that people were not being consistently held to that Ephesians standard. Paul is speaking in terms of the ideal from creation, not addressing the different kinds of variations that could make that ideal unattainable. Lest I be misunderstood, that doesn't mean he's speaking of something that is optional, but that it's not his purpose in Ephesians to address every conceivable twist.

From the text it does not seem like the dependent husband is able to function as a head. Think about it in terms of leaving father and mother. If you are a dependent of another person's household, in what sense are you leaving when you get married? The dependence remains, even if the person is your creditor rather than your actual father.

It seems to me that the family relationship between a husband, wife, and children would be more valuable before God than a property owner.

This is the kind of thing it's helpful to interrogate and game out a little. Is that seeming a consideration drawn from the Bible, or does it have another source? If it's a moral intuition or an aesthetic preference, is it open to reformation from God's word?

Or what about the presupposition? Does this law express a scale of values on God's part? In other words, is it part of the burden of the text to say, "Marriage is important but when people are personal property their marriages are less important?" If not, does the text serve a different purpose?

Case laws like these are not primarily about declaring a moral value, but about preventing/mitigating concrete harm. They have to be wisely and discriminatingly applied by prudent judges with knowledge of local circumstances; otherwise they are vulnerable to abuse. But they have to be framed in a way that they can be applied to a wide variety of cases, so they can't legislate to exceptions.

So you could think about how this works in practice. If you can enter someone's house with nothing, multiply the drain on his resources, and leave with significant economic assets that he provided for, but that were not included in the terms of your time of servitude in his house, what incentive does the householder have? In that situation his incentive is either not to accept debtors into service, or his incentive is to disallow any marriage during that time of service. If both of those provisions are ways to provide for people in tough circumstances and mitigate risk, raising the barrier for them isn't necessarily best for a society.

Please note that I'm not saying that this is how a householder should behave; but laws at times must take into account how people actually behave. Given what people are like, it's not surprising if we sometimes feel a little nauseated at what it takes to rein them in.

 

[Charles Johnson]

I guess the issue is the line "If she bears sons and daughters, they will be her masters." Again, why is her being owned by a human master more important than her being one flesh and in covenant with her husband?

It's not that her "being owned by a master is important" on a moral level. If she were to go free that would be perfectly acceptable, and even desirable, on a moral level.
But if her marrying would necessarily lead to her going free in the next seven years, what slave-owner would allow her to be given in marriage in the first place?
Civil law is never a simple application of what is right and wrong, and banning everything that's wrong. One must fashion the law in a way that is likely in actual practice to best promote virtue and discourage vice, and that means being selective about what sins are chastened and the manner in which this is done.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Here are some of my thoughts, taken from sermon notes. I don't offer them so they will be taken as better than any other thoughts offered in this thread.

​

Israel is fresh out of Egypt, and about to make her formal covenant with her divine King. Fundamental to this interpretation and application of that law which was given to them is this idea: Voice of the Lord; Finger of God; Tablets of Stone—vs. a scroll, written in pen by Moses, who mediates the covenant to the people.​

​

The former is an expression of the moral law, not especially bound to a time or place. And in that ancient era, it aligned and informed Israel’s national constitution: which is expressed in the latter phrase. For purpose of analysis, chiefly (not exclusively) each one of the 10C is a particular lens for each grouping of these judgments (rules based on the 10C precedents) “set before” the people, v1, so they all should know them.​

​

The Book of the Covenant (the Constitution, less the moral Preamble) doesn’t mirror the sequence of the 10C. After beginning with the 1C (Ex.20:22-26), now comes up in ch.21 the lens of the 5C. After the introductory 1C, a considerable space is spent on “second table” issues, on neighbor-love.​

​

For sure: the matter of servitude, of slavery was not some distant issue to an Israelite, not by time nor by distance. He was keenly aware of his immediate past experience; therefore if nothing else, introducing this topic early on encouraged his sympathetic agreement with such covenant stipulations.​

​

The Israelite was now a free man. He was much more likely in the present circumstances to have power over another, rather than to be under the power of another. And yet, this passage presumes that Israelites—Hebrews—would be both masters and slaves in their own society. Jesus taught (Mt/Mk/Jn), “Ye have the poor always with you.” Solomon wrote, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender,” Prv.22:7. Natural inequities and variable needs inevitably lead to one man having superiority over another.​

​

Like Christians today, the covenant-people of the OT lived between two worlds: this present age and the age to come. In those days God made his Sovereign, kingly presence an almost palpable reality. Instead of being the servants or slaves of another man exalted over them as their king (a functional superiority over created equals); Israelites were servants of God, who was their creator and essentially superior to them. You see inside the order of the 5C a reflection of the ultimate Creator-creature distinction—a basic 1C issue. There is a God; you are not him.​

​

Any person, therefore, who occupies a position of superiority relative to other men, is in the place of God; he is a minister of God, represents God’s authority, and should behave toward all so as to honor God, for he will give account to God. The text contains a very explicit reference to this in 21:6, but it is not apparent in many English Bibles.​

​

In vv2-3 the primary thrust of the regulation is for the protection of the servant. The situation envisioned in the text is one caused by poverty. Poverty is an ill, but it is not necessarily ill-deserved. It could be caused by sin, but also by ignorance, by failure, by calamity, or by something else. In those days, one solution for the desperate man was to sell his labor completely, whether to pay his debts or simply to survive, thereby making himself completely dependent on another (a childlike condition).​

​

But in Israel he was not expected to forever alienate his labor, his body, his self-interest. After six years, he was to be let walk, without purchasing his freedom. If v3, he came in with his wife, he did not lose her, though they both likely worked for her upkeep and that of any children. In the end, the man received a fresh start, a second chance, probably with better hope of success.​

​

V4’s material is related to v3, treating of a servant’s wife and children. The differences, however, may shock at first—is this describing a “temporary” marriage? Is this woman a life-support system for a womb, is she a broodmare for slaves? Remember: regs are not written for beauty, but efficiency. The point of v4 is to balance the rights of the servant in vv2-3 with the rights of the master. As further kindness to his brother (the servant), the master found him a wife from in his house. The servant must know when he married (for this law was set before him too) that while the law demanded his freedom without a ransom; he had a duty to ransom his wife and their children. Despite our modern sensibilities, we should see the basic evenhandedness here.​

​

Moving further into the vv that were presented (in the OP) for consideration, remember whether we think in terms of ancient Israelite society, or modern Christians, I hope you can agree that joint ownership of a human body is not an intrinsic evil, even though it has its evil corruptions (something else I trust we agree on). If it appears today, it is still morally governed significantly by the 5C just as in those ancient days. Don’t imagine the judgments encountered here in Ex.21 merely regulated otherwise intolerable evil, so men could (in those dark days) just manage to bear a degree of evil. No, but Israel was meant to flourish.​

​

Parents still have the first joint-ownership of each life they bring into the world. Because we witness God as the ultimate giver of life, Job 10:12, even from the first moment of life, neither one nor both parents have absolute, despotic power over this life. But they do own the majority of this life in guardianship from God, until conditions warrant a shift to personal responsibility. This is the essential starting point for comprehending what follows in the text. Israelite parents who began with such an understanding of the value to God of this life in their care, who respected his law, and who had natural affection for the fruit of their bodies: they could never make merchandise of their dear daughters. This is not a passage about the rules of a meat-market for human flesh.​

​

The heathen round about Israel did sell their children! Sometimes no doubt for the same depraved reasons we may read about children “trafficked” today. Though it is hard to conceive it, some sold their children to pay debts, or to survive. Perhaps some parents hoped to ransom them back shortly. For some hopeless parents, even a slim chance their child would survive in other circumstances, or else likely die in the home, led them to that desperate expedient. It's hard to imagine a more vulnerable person in a more exploitative situation, than a young girl essentially turned into prey. How would things be different in Israel, among the people whom the Lord had claimed, yea even the little girl of a poor household, a covenant daughter?​

​

This little one was precious to the Lord. He would allow her to be sold into conditional service, having established safeguards, with a goal of her long-term blessedness and happiness, and the consequent comfort of her parents. “This girl is not a slave girl in the usual sense that we understand the term. She is better protected, and is not to be treated as other slaves…. The law presupposes that she will marry either her master or his son. Therefore, she has the status of a married woman, and she is to be treated kindly and with the utmost respect.” [Currid, p68].​

​

Throughout these vv, it is clear these provisions (along with the previous portion) exist to prevent in Israel the degradation one’s own people, brothers and sisters. Compare Lev.25:46, “…But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.” So, v7, her treatment is distinct from the indenture of the male, because this girl did not receive a living on the same terms. V8 shows that if her contract to marry (the betrothal) is voided, the master (who already paid a price instead of a dowry) bears the entire cost. It’s nearly impossible to justify the idea of simply sending the girl back to her home and writing off the fee paid initially for her service: that was equivalent to her redemption. This would hardly be honorable, nor recognize his “deceitful” dealing, v8. If we assume the redemption values found in Lev.27 is a standard of sorts, we might well think the girl went home bearing her price—somewhere between 3 and 30 shekels of silver.​

​

Vv9-11, envisioning an arranged marriage to the master’s son, state that in this case this girl is immediately to be granted status equal to the master’s daughters. The law is extra-clear in this situation, so that if it were needed, she should be granted legal standing in any proceeding as one free-born. I interpret v10f as describing not a second marriage, but that if she be not wed after all, neither shall she be shunned in the home; otherwise she shall be released as in the other case.​

​

Do you see what the Sovereign Lord has done? If Israelite parents should sell their daughter, it could only be in expectation of a marriage. If she returned unwed, her master would have paid for her twice. From the time she was betrothed, she should be known as a free woman.​

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This law did not dress up tawdry flesh-peddling. It was meant to protect Jehovah’s lowly maidservant, and even to raise her up, and to honor her who, in some other nations, might easily be degraded. No other “sale” receives the slightest sanction from heaven. Any lesser treatment of a holy covenant daughter would be the setting up of an unlawful despotism, claiming the absolute rights of God, a revolt against the moral limits imposed by the 5C, and the judgments of the Book of the Covenant to which every OT Israelite was sworn.​

I hope these are helpful food for thought, for contemplating the will of God for his ancient church, as we sometimes struggle to come to grips with its modern applications for the church.