By saying in Exodus 21:3-4 that a spouse given by the master is not to go free when the now-married servant's maximum years of service expire, the Bible is not teaching that the other spouse is a permanent slave. It just means that if the wife (or husband), a separate servant of the same master, still has time remaining before her release on the seventh year, she does not yet receive freedom just because her husband does. The marriage itself is not dissolved or trivialized. It is not as if they cannot see each other until the other is also freed. They are not forced to live miles or towns apart. No, this is not the gratuitous breaking apart of a family for the sake of exploitation or profit. Biblical servitude, which is a word with less of an association with the race-based, malicious slavery of many pagan societies or even America before The Emancipation Proclamation of 1865, is not about dehumanization.
What of what Exodus 21:7-8, which says a daughter sold by a parent does not go free like the aforementioned servant? It is the fact that she is a child of the parent, not that she is a woman, that is given as the reason for this. Deuteronomy 15:12 separately specifies that men and women can voluntarily sell themselves and that men and women are to be freed on the seventh year, irrespective of gender or leftover debt. However, the exact words of Deuteronomy 15:12 are not necessary to establish this. The literal wording of Exodus 21 does not necessitate this complementarian-style concept, and Genesis 1:26-27 already would entail that men and women, as metaphysical and moral equals, have the same rights and obligations. However, Deuteronomy 15:13-14 even says right after to liberally supply the newly freed servant with material wealth of animals or food and wine. The slaves were not to go free empty-handed.
On each individual Sabbath day in the meantime, the servants, male and female (some proponents or haters of Christianity like to distort such tenets) are to rest no less than their "masters"/"mistresses" (Exodus 20:8-11), who share the humanity of all their servants and who cannot in an ultimate sense actually own them in the first place. For one day out of every seven, not that abuse against them is to be tolerated on other days, all slaves are prescribed the opportunity to experience leisure, peace, and freedom of sorts that parallels the status awaiting them after their debts have been paid. This is not the only specific way Mosaic Law either promotes the wellbeing of servants or takes cruelty against them very seriously. In addition to the same sins that merit capital punishment not being trivialized if done to servants, for example, acts of physical abuse resulting in permanent injury release the slave by default.
As compensation for the damaged/lost body part, the abuse victim, male or female (though the rights of one would be the rights of the other in light of Genesis 1:26-27 even if the text did not touch on this matter), would go free without making any payment for outstanding debt (Exodus 21:26-27). This kind of mistreatment nullifies whatever monetary amount is owed that led to the servitude to begin with. No one is morally obligated to remain in abusive circumstances like this, even if poverty or a sin punishable by monetary damages they could not afford landed them in servitude. Of course, even in legitimate cases of corporal punishment applied to servants, the absolute maximum allowance is 40 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3) and killing a slave by unjust excess is punishable (Exodus 21:20-21).
Now, kidnapping of any kind is automatically sinful on the Biblical worldview--no, Exodus 21:16 says this is sinful no matter who the victim is, even if Deuteronomy 24:7 focuses on the kidnapping of fellow Israelites. Unlike Deuteronomy 23:19-20, which does specify that charging interest to foreigners is allowed but not to people of one's own country, Deuteronomy 24:7 does not even say that other people outside of Israel can be kidnapped (but some idiots might assume otherwise). It just mentions a subgroup of general humanity. Freedom is never to be taken from someone by abduction, for slave trading or other purposes. Leviticus 25:44-46 does say that servants can be bought from foreign lands--not kidnapped--and that they can be retained for life. A Hebrew servant had to request this voluntarily, meaning the permitted kind of slavery is obviously not abusive as already clarified elsewhere, and since the servant rightfully regarded this as a favorable but optional thing (Exodus 21:5-6, Deuteronomy 15:16-17).
No, this is not how some conservatives present the dehumanizing style of slavery of America. These Hebrew servants are not "brainwashed," with the many other passages addressing how this servitude is not abusive or exploitative. There is still the parallel of how charging interest is not disallowed entirely, only to fellow countrypeople. Even then, the foreigner living among a community is to be treated exactly as a native-born in contrast with certain exceptions for foreigners abroad (Leviticus 19:33-34; also, compare the already-mentioned Deuteronomy 23:19-20 with Leviticus 25:35-38). Nevertheless, all of the safeguards, such as automatic freedom in cases of abuse such as physical mutilation (Exodus 21:26-27) and the inability to return a fugitive slave (Deuteronomy 23:15-16), would still apply to any servant. A foreign slave could simply leave and it would be sinful for the Israelites or anyone else to hunt them down unless they committed some criminal sin in the process. Anyone interested in self-preservation and humane treatment would have preferred being a slave in Israel even with the stipulation of potential lifelong servitude! There is freedom for the slave even in the midst of service under Mosaic Law.
No comments:
Post a Comment