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The Jewish rabbis restricted the power of the father to do this. He
had to be extremely poor in order to do this. She could not sell herself
and she had to agree to the marriage. The Hebrew word for slave in
Exodus 21:7 is AMAH and not the usual one EBED. There is another word
for female slave, SIPHA. SIPHA has the idea of "property and
a laborer" but AMAH has the idea of being a person with a higher
social status. It means "servant" and not slave. In fact,
a better term for what we find in scripture is not slavery but "servant." Ancient documents also tell us that a Jewish thief was required to give back or pay for what he stole. If he did not have the money, he could be sold as a slave in order for the payment to be made. In this situation, men and women became slaves involuntarily. A few important facts need to discussed before we leave this section. First, Deuteronomy 20:10-19 has a curious discussion about forced labor resulting after war. God required the total destruction of the nations living in the land of Palestine at the time He gave the land to Israel in order that,
This means there should have been only Jews in the land. Nations outside of Palestine, non-Jews, were to be offered terms of peace, that is terms of submission (Deut. 20:10-11). The meaning of the expression "terms of peace" has the same idea as the terms of peace offered to the Japanese and the Germans at the end of World War II. They had to submit themselves to the conquering allies. They were to be "forced laborers" - they paid for their crime. But neither history nor the Hebrew language give us enough information to know if they were part-time, casual or permanent laborers of the nation of Israel. Non-Jews who were living in the land could voluntarily choose to be slaves(Lev. 25:47). Scripture also tells us that non-Hebrew ABAD, "slaves," could remain with their master permanently (Lev. 25:44-46). The Hebrew word ABAD really means "worker, or laborer." Ancient records again reveal that this individual was an educated worker. He was not considered a slave in the typical sense. Mistreatment of Slaves. Slaves or servants were not to be mistreated. God required the master or employer to be punished for mistreating men and women servants.
Exodus 21:20 appears at first to be in contradiction with Ex. 21:12. But this is cleared up by the Hebrew meaning of the phrase "he shall be punished." The phrase refers to capital punishment, any violence to a slave resulted in either life for life (master's death) or the slaves freedom (Ex. 21:26-27). The master never had freedom to abuse his "slave." |
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