The issue of the Bible’s stance on slavery has been controversial at best. There are those who have used it to say that the Bible condones and supports slavery. But this is to take a far too simplistic view of the matter. Like with many subjects, slavery was a nearly universal practice during the historical period when the Scriptures were written. Furthermore, the practice of slavery predates the authorship of the Bible easily by thousands of years. And, far from being a single, monolithic narrative, the texts of the Scriptures were themselves written by different authors in different societies at different points along a fifteen hundred year time span. Each of those societies had different rules and laws regarding slavery.
Like with many things, such as polygamous marriages, God did not first either initiate the practice of slavery in the Mosaic Law, the Torah, nor does the Torah or the rest of the Scriptures really promote it. The Scriptures acknowledge the reality of its existence in the world and don’t sugarcoat it. These things existed long before God met with Moses on Sinai, and were already practiced by virtually every society and civilization in existence from Europe to Asia to Africa. Instead, God gave rules and regulations regarding how these things were to be practiced and handled with the explicit intention of protecting and caring for the vulnerable and defenseless.
As the following references will show, these regulations involved protecting escaped slaves, the death penalty for those kidnapping people in order to sell them as slaves, a time limit on how long a slave may be kept as property and the compensation to be given with their release, protection for the family of a man who became a slave after marriage as well as protection for the man who wished to remain a slave out of love for his family and his owner, justice for the slave whose owner beats him to death, freedom for the slave who is injured by his owner, and the protections of a wife for female slaves meant as concubines. Virtually all of these regulations are given the force of “I am the Lord” within the text at some point, meaning that to violate them was to break the contract with the Lord and He would enforce His justice upon the violator. The whole point of the laws about slavery was not to promote the practice, but to acknowledge its existence and protect the slaves themselves.
Those who used the Torah to defend the practice of slavery, especially with the American practice, didn’t actually follow the Torah’s regulations, at all. The abuses, deprivations, and atrocities against Africans and their descendants on American plantations is well documented, and are in fact clear violations of the legal codes which Yahweh laid down for the treatment of slaves. Under the Torah, most American slave owners would have been condemned to death and brought to justice for their abuses. Men and women slaves would have had the right to immediate freedom across the American South for the injuries and abuses they sustained, and would have had the right to be freed with compensation by the seventh year of their enslavement. The actual slave traders would have been executed for kidnapping.
Just as with the practice of divorce, just as with the widow, the orphan, or the foreigner, God was concerned with protecting the vulnerable slave in the ancient world as well. He was angered when any of the people were abused and mistreated, and took it upon Himself to avenge them when no one else would give them justice.
All quotations are taken from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.
Deuteronomy 23:16-17
“You shall not deliver to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best. You shall not oppress him.”
Deuteronomy 24:7
“If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and he deals with him as a slave, or sells him; then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from your midst.”
Deuteronomy 15:12-18
“If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. When you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press. As Yahweh your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today. It shall be, if he tells you, “I will not go out from you,” because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you; then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for he has been double value of a hired hand as he served you six years. Yahweh your God will bless you in all that you do.”
Exodus 21:2-11
“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;’ then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.
“If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she doesn’t please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights. If he doesn’t do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.”
Exodus 21:16
“Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”
Exodus 21:20
“If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.”
Exodus 21:26-27
“If a man strikes his servant’s eye, or his maid’s eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. If he strikes out his male servant’s tooth, or his female servant’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.”
Leviticus 25:39-43
“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you; you shall not make him to serve as a slave. As a hired servant, and as a temporary resident, he shall be with you; he shall serve with you until the Year of Jubilee: then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family, and to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.”
Leviticus 25:47-55
“‘If an alien or temporary resident with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him has grown poor, and sells himself to the stranger or foreigner living among you, or to a member of the stranger’s family; after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him; or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself. He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; he shall be with him according to the time of a hired servant. If there are yet many years, according to them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. If there remain but a few years to the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according to his years of service he shall give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by year shall he be with him. He shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight. If he isn’t redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee, he, and his children with him. For to me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.”
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