A Biblical Condemnation of Slavery

Introduction

Does the Bible really condone slavery? This is a message spread far and wide by modern atheists in an attempt to make a moral claim against the character of God, and I am sure you have seen or heard this message before in some form. In fact, you have probably even heard the rebuttals made by everyday pastors and Christians, something akin to saying that the Old Testament of the Bible was written in a different time and that laws discussing slavery in the Bible were actually a big step forward for humanity. While this is a well-intentioned argument, it is not one which I intend to propose today. I don’t believe that the Bible gives any grounds for the concept of chattel slavery at all, none whatsoever.

I know what you are probably thinking, you have read the verses that specifically talk about buying and punishing slaves. Of course, you have, so have I, which is why I decided to undertake this research. It didn’t take me long to discover that this topic is rather nuanced and muddied by our shared history at a global level, but in this work, I will attempt to lay out the most plain and coherent explanation that I can, one which will leave us with little room to imagine any form of slavery being condoned by God or codified as law in the Bible.

What is a Slave?

In modern times, when we think of slavery, we commonly think of something akin to the movie Roots, which depicted the transatlantic slave trade. We envision people being kidnapped in their homeland, shipped across the world in the harshest of conditions with many dying along the way, being sold at a market, and finally living a life in captivity, all while being severely beaten and treated as less than human. For the duration of this writing, I will refer to this form of slavery as chattel slavery. In fact, for the sake of clarity, lets reference several American legal definitions for the word slave.

Article 35. A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but what must belong to his master.
THE CIVIL CODE OF LOUISIANA.
Promulgated June 20, 1825.

As you can see from this definition, a slave, in the American institution, was purely property and not to be thought of as a human being. A slave cannot own anything, and the very life of a slave is the possession of the master, to be disposed of at will. Judge Thomas Ruffin, of the North Carolina Supreme Court, provided the following description in 1829:

“one doomed in his own person, and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make any thing his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits.”
Judge Thomas Ruffin
North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Mann, 1829

This is a very concise definition and given these descriptions we should be able to easily distinguish this use of the word slave from its usage in Old Testament law. In fact, many Christians within the abolitionist movement pointed out this very discrepancy in their efforts to combat any biblical justification of slavery. I will reference some of their writings in a moment, but the first distinction I want to make is between the modern usage of “slave” and the Biblical usage of the word, which comes directly from the Bible itself.

Old Testament Slavery

If you have ever taken a look at the most common English translations of the Bible, you will find that the laws laid out in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus contain many verses dealing with people who are referred to as slaves. It is important to note that the Bible was not originally written in English, and that these are “best effort” translations from the original Hebrew. The word translated as slave is actually ebed, and is a rather versatile word in its native tongue of Hebrew.

The verb עבד (‘abad) means to work or serve, and the noun עבד (‘ebed) denotes someone who works: from a slave to a hired expert. The Greek equivalent of this noun is δουλος (doulos).
Excerpted from: Abarim Publications’ Biblical Dictionary

Ebed can literally mean anything from a slave to a hired worker. So how do we know the most appropriate English-equivalent word to use in its place? It is rather simple, if there is no direct, word-for-word translation, then we use the context provided by the rest of the text. First, let’s examine the types of Hebrew words being used in regard to this topic.

The Hebrew terms used in reference to this subject are עָבַד, auvadh, “to serve;” the noun, עֶבֶד, evedh, “servant” or “bondman,” one contracting service for a term of years; שָּׂכִיר, saukir, a “hired servant” daily or weekly; אָמָה, aumau, and שִׁפְחָה, shiphechau, “maid-servant” or “handmaid;” but there is no term in Hebrew synonymous with our word slave, for all the terms applied to servants are, as we shall show, equally applicable and applied to free persons.
Isaac Allen, 1860
Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible?

In order to determine if the verses relating to slave laws in the Old Testament were speaking of chattel slavery, as defined above, or if they were general laws also referring to contracted employment, we will take a look at these verses cumulatively and determine some very important facts by which we can make such a determination. I think you will be surprised by the result.

Cannot Take Slaves

This may come as a surprise for those who believe that the Bible condones slavery, but the simple fact is this: Old Testament law forbids the kidnapping, possession, and selling of people.

Whoever kidnaps another man must be put to death, whether he sells him or the man is found in his possession.
Exodus 21:16 Berean Standard Bible

This verse makes it very clear that selling a person or holding them against their will (kidnapping) is a capital offense, punishable by death. The very first step required in any slave trade is to obtain people that will be sold as slaves, this verse makes that action a crime. If you cannot kidnap people, hold them in your possession, or sell people, how can someone keep slaves?

It cannot be done. God was explicit. In fact, this verse alone would destroy the very possibility of the transatlantic slave trade, or any form of servitude in which there are people being held against their will.

Slaves Were Allowed to Leave

Workers in Israel, or slaves from foreign nations, could seek refuge with anyone in Israel without fear of being forcefully returned to whomever or whatever situation they may have escaped from. This doesn’t simply refer to slaves sneaking away from some plantation somewhere, but any individual who may be leaving a bad work situation, forfeiting a contract or agreement, or any situation of that sort. These people were not to be oppressed, nor enslaved, by any resident within the borders of Israel.

Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him.
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 Berean Standard Bible

The people within Israel were considered free and could choose their place of residence, employment, and so on. This remained true if they had escaped slavery in a foreign land, or even from within Israel.

This verse is important because it displays the power held by the individual. No person was forced, against their will, into servitude with very few exceptions, very much like modern society in countries like the United States. In America, labor is only forced in very specific situations such as debt collection, prisoner labor, and military conscription.

Buying Slaves

If you noticed earlier, the Bible explicitly prohibited the acts of kidnapping, possessing, and selling people, essentially prohibiting most forms of slavery within the borders of Israel, but that verse does not prohibit the act of buying slaves. Many people will use the following verse as a loophole by which Israelites could purchase slaves and still benefit from the kidnapping and selling of people by foreign countries.

Your menservants and maidservants shall come from the nations around you, from whom you may purchase them.
Leviticus 25:44 Berean Standard Bible

This is where we need to apply some critical thinking in order to end up with a coherent understanding of what was actually allowed in ancient Israel. First, I will provide a quick summary:

Cannot kidnap a person
Cannot possess a person against their will
Cannot sell a person
Cannot return a person to their master, they must be allowed to live freely
Allowed to purchase servants/employees from other nations

Now, it is important to point out that some translations use the word slaves rather than servants in Leviticus 25:44 and that is where the accusation arises. But, if we look closely at what is prohibited, you will see that it is actually impossible to hold slaves purchased from other nations.

If a person were to purchase a slave from a foreign nation, they could not legally hold that slave in their possession against their will. This means that the slave is allowed to leave at any time they choose. If that slave did choose to leave, other citizens within Israel could not legally return them and instead the slave had to be allowed their freedom. This is not a description of slavery, but rather a description that more accurately represents an employer/employee relationship. As I stated earlier, the Hebrew word ebed is translated as slaves or servants in these verses, but the meaning of that word can just as easily represent an employee, and this is our first real contextual point which demonstrates this. If a slave can leave any time they want and are allowed to live freely, that person is not a slave, they are an employee. As a result, you could not purchase the person, only their labor, just as any modern-day employer purchases labor from their employees.

Keeping Slaves as Property

Now, we just established that a person could not forcefully keep a slave or employee against their will, in fact, they would be free to leave any time they want. However, some employers might still try to do so, slavery was, after all, a very familiar practice to the Jewish people, who had been subjected to generations of slavery in Egypt before escaping. Keeping someone against their will is not easily made into a peaceful affair, and typically results in violence. Here, we see a verse which addresses that violence.

If a man strikes his manservant or maidservant with a rod, and the servant dies by his hand, he shall surely be punished. However, if the servant gets up after a day or two, the owner shall not be punished, since the servant is his property.
Exodus 21:20-21 Berean Standard Bible

This verse is indeed a bit misleading in its English translation. It is written in such a way that implies someone could beat their servants to within an inch of their life, so long as they do not die within two days. This is, however, an incorrect understanding of the verse. There are two parts to this verse, the first in regard to death, and the second regarding injury. Let’s address each portion respectively, and I will also address the final portion of this verse, which refers to the servant as property.

First, let’s address the murder. If a person strikes their servant and kills them, they will surely be punished. What is the punishment for murder? Death.

Whoever strikes and kills a man must surely be put to death.
Exodus 21:12

This is very much different from the transatlantic slave trade, where death was common and largely unpunished.

Next, lets address the concept of injury. If a person strikes their servant and they “get up” within a day or two, that person shall not be punished. This part of the verse is a bit difficult to grasp because a casual reading of the verse, out of context, makes it seem far more brutal than it actually is.

So, lets run through a series of quick examples:

A man beats his servant with a club and breaks his leg. The servant is unable to “get up” within a day or two and so the man is punished.
A man punches his servant and breaks his nose. In this time period, without someone knowledgeable enough to properly reset the nose, the servant may very well die and if not, will certainly not “get up” within a day or two. The man is punished.
A man beats his servant but does not break any bones at all, however, swelling and bruising occur which causes the servant pain. The servant chooses not to stand through the pain for more than two days. The man is punished.

From these examples, hopefully you can see the risk being taken by any man willing to beat his servants for any reason. Each example ends with the man being punished, but the punishment is not made clear in the verse.

Restitution

So, how would a man be punished for injuring his servant? Punishments were calculated based on the nature of the injury. First and foremost, the servant was granted the opportunity to leave the employment of their master, it is most important to realize that this option is available any time and is especially prevalent in the case of injury, even if the injury is slight.

And if he knocks out the tooth of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth.
Exodus 21:27 Berean Standard Bible

Even an injury as light as a lost tooth results in the opportunity for a servant to go free. Free, in this sense, does not refer to general freedom, as we have already established that servants were allowed to leave at any time, but rather, any debt owed by the servant to their master would be forgiven. You see, debts were the primary cause of someone choosing to contract their labor to a particular person in the form of servitude, and we will discuss how that transaction worked later on. Right now, it is important to understand that even the slightest injury would result in the forgiveness of this debt and the termination of any arrangement with the servant’s master. As a result, even if the master is not punished as a direct result of the injury, he is indirectly financially punished for it as any debt owed to him by the servant would be forgiven, and any future profit he could have earned from the servant’s labor, would be rendered forfeit.

Finally, lets address the portion of the verse which refers to the servant as property. In order to best explain this, we will need to compare the verse speaking about servants, as opposed to a similar verse which speaks about two men, neither of which are in an employment relationship with one another, striking and killing or injuring the other.

Original verse, speaking about someone striking a servant:

If a man strikes his manservant or maidservant with a rod, and the servant dies by his hand, he shall surely be punished. However, if the servant gets up after a day or two, the owner shall not be punished, since the servant is his property.
Exodus 21:20-21 Berean Standard Bible

Compare to this verse, speaking about someone striking any other citizen:

If men are quarreling and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist, and he does not die but is confined to bed, then the one who struck him shall go unpunished, as long as the other can get up and walk around outside with his staff. Nevertheless, he must compensate the man for his lost work and see that he is completely healed.
Exodus 21:18-19 Berean Standard Bible

First, we see that the punishment is the same if the person dies, regardless of whether they are a common citizen, or a servant being stuck by their master. Second, we see that the perpetrator is required to pay the victim for any financial losses due to the incident. So, why not make the employer or master do the same? The answer is that the in the case of a bondservant or indentured servant, the employer is already doing this. If the servant does not leave their employer, the employer will have to bear the cost of their recovery as well as the financial loss incurred as a result of their inability to work, while simultaneously continuing to pay the servant. If the servant decides to go free, which is completely within their rights, not only is any debt that they owed forgiven, but a court would likely find that the employer is also required to pay them a severance. In fact, there is a formal procedure by which a court would determine how much would be owed to the newly freed servant and it is well documented in the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law as interpreted from the Old Testament or Torah. There are five types of compensation that would be due to the freed servant:

Damage (Injury)
Pain
Medical costs
Loss of livelihood
Humiliation

Restitution for Injury

In the event that a man strikes his servant, and the servant decides to go free, how does a court evaluate the amount that is owed to him as restitution for the injury?

If one blinded another’s eye, severed his hand, broke his leg, or caused any other injury, the court views the injured party as though he were a slave being sold in the slave market, and the court appraises how much he was worth before the injury and how much he is worth after the injury. The difference between these two sums is the amount that one must pay for causing damage.
Bava Kamma 83b – The William Davidson Talmud

Essentially, the court looks at the injury of the person, their skills, and how much they could reasonably expect to earn both before and after the injury. The difference between the two figures is the sum that would be awarded to the servant, very much like modern courts handle the situation.

Restitution for Pain

In the event that a man strikes his servant, and the servant decides to go free, how does a court evaluate the amount that is owed to him as restitution for the pain experienced by the servant?

If one burned another with a skewer [beshapud] or with a hot nail, or even if one burned another on his fingernail, which is a place where he does not cause a bruise that would affect the victim’s value on the slave market, the court evaluates how much money a person with a similar threshold for pain as the victim is willing to take in order to be made to suffer in this way. The one who burned the victim must then pay this amount.
Bava Kamma 83b – The William Davidson Talmud

This is a very interesting solution. The example given in the text is a burn, however, this applies to all forms of pain restitution. Basically, the court determines how much money a reasonable person would expect to be paid before having the same thing done to them. In other words, if a servant had a broken bone, how much money would a reasonable person expect to be paid in order to allow someone to break the same bone on their own person?

How much money would you charge before allowing someone to break your leg? I bet the sum would be considerable, I know I wouldn’t be cheap in this regard. Whatever your number, that is the price that would be awarded to the servant.

Restitution for Medical Costs

In the event that a man strikes his servant, and the servant decides to go free, how does a court evaluate the amount that is owed to him as a result of medical costs?

If one struck another, then he is liable to heal him by paying for his medical costs. In a case where growths, e.g., blisters or rashes, appeared on the injured party, if the growths are due to the blow, the one who struck him is liable; if the growths are not due to the blow, the one who struck him is exempt. In a case where the wound healed, and then reopened, and again healed, and then reopened, the one who struck him remains liable to heal the injured party by paying for his medical costs, as it is apparent that the current wound resulted from the original injury. If the injury healed fully, the one who struck him is not liable to heal him by paying for any subsequent medical costs.
Bava Kamma 83b – The William Davidson Talmud

Here, we see that the victim is entitled to the recuperation of all medical costs, just as we would expect a court to find today.

Restitution for Loss of Livelihood

In the event that a man strikes his servant, and the servant decides to go free, how does a court evaluate the amount that is owed to him as a result of their loss of livelihood?

The court views the injured party as though he were a watchman of cucumbers, and the one who caused him injury must compensate him based on that pay scale for the income that he lost during his convalescence. This indemnity does not take into account the value of the standard wages of the injured party because the one who caused him injury already gave him compensation for his hand or compensation for his leg, and that compensation took into account his professional skills.
Bava Kamma 83b – The William Davidson Talmud

The restitution for injury covers the monetary value of the person as a whole, but this form of restitution considers the income that any man in Israel could have made during the recovery time of the injured servant and pays accordingly.

Restitution for Humiliation

In the event that a man strikes his servant, and the servant decides to go free, how does a court evaluate the amount that is owed to him as a result of public humiliation?

It all depends on the stature of the one who humiliates the other and the one who is humiliated.
Bava Kamma 83b – The William Davidson Talmud

This form of restitution is probably the most malleable, and least likely to pay any substantial amount to the servant. However, depending on the nature of the injury and the circumstances by which the person became a servant, it still has the potential to pay a decent sum.

The Cost of Violence Towards Servants

As you can tell, the financial risk to the master of a servant is far greater than any potential reward or satisfaction that may come from violence towards his employees. Not only does the slightest injury provide legal grounds for the servant to go free, regardless of how much money the servant may owe the master, but the master also loses any potential income that servant could have provided, as well as being held liable for the injury, pain, medical costs, loss of livelihood, and humiliation that the servant may have experienced as a result. Not to mention the inherent risk of being put to death as a murderer should the violence escalate to such an outcome. This is not to say that people did not perform acts of violence against their servants, but to say that there were a great number of legal protections in place that applied to servants, as well as the population as a whole.

How to Take Slaves (Exceptions)

We have already established that the Israelite people could not kidnap, possess, or sell others against their will, and this essentially shuts down the concept of a slave trade altogether, especially any form of chattel slavery. However, there were exceptions to the rule, so let’s take a look at these exceptions and how they incorporate into the larger picture.

Year of Jubilee

Under Mosaic law, every seventh year is considered a Sabbath. This means that all debts are forgiven, and no one tills or harvests the land. Since the only form of slavery, that we have identified up to this point, is indentured servitude, or bondservants, this means that anyone who has contracted themselves to a master for debt forgiveness is set free. Their debts are forgiven and so their contract has been fulfilled. This happens every seven years, regardless of when the person enters into servitude.

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is the manner of remission: Every creditor shall cancel what he has loaned to his neighbor. He is not to collect anything from his neighbor or brother, because the LORD’s time of release has been proclaimed.
Deuteronomy 15:1-2 Berean Standard Bible

Compare this to our modern society. Some debts can be forgiven through bankruptcy, which is a complicated process under which many of your resources are sold off and you are punished through your credit score, preventing most institutions from lending you money for quite some time. Other debts, like student loans, taxes, and spousal/child support debts are not forgiven in this manner. In fact, courts have the ability to force you to work while garnishing your wages until these debts are repaid. Sounds a bit like indentured servitude to me, although in this case it is not voluntary. Like I said earlier, this is a very important distinction.

Israelite Servants

If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor. Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released
Leviticus 25:39-41 Berean Standard Bible

The only way to take an Israelite as a servant is through a form of indentured servitude. Although this situation should be fairly uncommon, and I will explain why it should be rare in a moment, if a male is unable to repay his debts while providing for himself and his family, he is able to voluntarily (which is a very important distinction) go to work for his creditor in order to repay what is owed. If the amount is repaid before the Year of Jubilee, he will no longer need to work for his creditor. If he is unable to repay prior to the Year of Jubilee, then any remaining debt is forgiven, and he no longer needs to work for his creditor.

Now, I said that it would be uncommon for someone to become so impoverished that they could no longer sustain themselves, and it should be that way if the entire Israelite community were to follow the Old Testament law. This is because people were expected to help provide for one another, they were expected to be fair with one another and not to charge interest at all or attempt to make a profit from those in need.

Now if your countryman becomes destitute and cannot support himself among you, then you are to help him as you would a foreigner or stranger, so that he can continue to live among you. Do not take any interest or profit from him, but fear your God, that your countryman may live among you. You must not lend him your silver at interest or sell him your food for profit.
Leviticus 25:35-37 Berean Standard Bible

Wives and Children of Servants

If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything. If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go
Exodus 21:2-4 Berean Standard Bible

Now, with this passage there are many things to consider. Hebrew servants, whether male or female, were to be released after six years with their debts paid in full and a severance. Only foreign servants were treated differently in this regard, but, as we already explained, were free to leave at any time and allowed to live freely within Israel without discrimination. If we were to follow all of the law regarding this matter, to the letter, then slavery as we understand it today simply could not exist. All that could reasonably exist in such an environment would be voluntary employment. Given this, we must ask ourselves why the wife of a man who had been freed of his debt, and subsequent commitment to his master, would choose to stay when her husband went freely out into the world. There are many reasons why this might occur, but the prominent one would be financial stability. Her master was required to care for her and her children while they remained working for him. This means that her husband was able to find gainful employment, and build a life for them, before requesting that she come to join him. This is quite a charitable arrangement in reality, not only has the master paid whatever dowry that may have been required on behalf of the husband, and their newly formed family isn’t forced to face the world alone, continuing to rely on the support system that they already have in place. Their debts are forgiven and they are provided with livestock, food, and money to start a new life, while also being provided a safety net for the women and children.

Israelite Daughters

And if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as the menservants do. If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who had designated her for himself, he must allow her to be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, since he has broken faith with her. And if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, or marital rights of his first wife. If, however, he does not provide her with these three things, she is free to go without monetary payment.
Exodus 21:7-11 Berean Standard Bible

Selling a child into servanthood, or to marriage, was an act that occurred in conditions of extreme poverty, or when it would most greatly benefit the child. Going to work for, or marrying into, a very wealthy family could open doors that would have otherwise remained closed to such a child. Certainly not an ideal decision, but neither is a life condemned to extreme poverty, illness, and malnutrition. This is in no way defending the practice, merely explaining why it would have happened even if it were against the law. You see, in order for such conditions of poverty to exist, a great deal of other Old Testament laws would have to have been ignored.

“If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother. Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.” – Deuteronomy 15:7-9
“At the end of every three years, bring a tenth of all your produce for that year and lay it up within your gates. Then the Levite (because he has no portion or inheritance among you), the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied. And the LORD your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.” – Deuteronomy 14:28-29
“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.” – Deuteronomy 15:1
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.” – Leviticus 19:9-10
“There will be no poor among you, however, because the LORD will surely bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, if only you obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commandments I am giving you today.” – Deuteronomy 15:4-5

All of this would have to be ignored by society as a whole, leaving the impoverished with no other choice for their survival, ignoring their pleas for help and disobeying all of the laws provided above as well as others which I have not listed. Of course, this is precisely what happened and it is documented in the Bible.

“So all the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their menservants and maidservants and no longer hold them in bondage. They obeyed and released them, but later they changed their minds and took back the menservants and maidservants they had freed, and they forced them to become slaves again.” – Jeremiah 34:10-11

And God repaid these acts in kind:

“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying: Every seventh year, each of you must free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself to you. He may serve you six years, but then you must let him go free. But your fathers did not listen or incline their ear. Recently you repented and did what pleased Me; each of you proclaimed freedom for his neighbor. You made a covenant before Me in the house that bears My Name. But now you have changed your minds and profaned My name. Each of you has taken back the menservants and maidservants whom you had set at liberty to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves. Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.” – Jeremiah 34:13-17

This has happened to every great nation and people who have openly adopted slavery throughout history. Perhaps not as quickly as some would have wanted, but God is indeed merciful, giving the undeserving many opportunities to repent. Those who love the poor, the needy, the oppressed, have risen up against those who would harm them, and God has made them free to fall by the sword.

Foreign Servants

Your menservants and maidservants shall come from the nations around you, from whom you may purchase them. You may also purchase them from the foreigners residing among you or their clans living among you who are born in your land. These may become your property. You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life.
Leviticus 25:44-46 Berean Standard Bible

I realize this may seem redundant, but I feel that it is imperative to address the context of the law for each of these passages. Yes, Israelites could purchase slaves from other nations, but they were not treated as slaves according to the law. Although an Israelite would pay the same as anyone else at the market, these people were treated the same as any other bondservant within Israel, and violence toward them was not tolerated under the law. They were allowed to leave employment at anytime, per the law, and would not be returned to their purchaser. However, if they stayed, their children would become native Israelites (Genesis 17:12) and heirs to the family for which they worked (Genesis 15:3, Proverbs 17:2). So, the power belonged to the servant, they could leave and attempt to return to their homeland, facing the same slavers who captured them the first time, or they could attempt to build a life in Israel, either as a servant knowing their children would be naturalized citizens, or as a free person building their own wealth and buying their own property.

War Captives

When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace. If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.
Deuteronomy 20:10-11 Berean Standard Bible

During times of war, the law required Israel’s army to offer peace to each city it encountered. Either live peacefully next to Israel, without conflict, or be conquered and put at the mercy of Israel. The wording here sounds harsh, but it is no different from the effective policy of any modern-day nation. The translation here uses the term “forced laborers”, but the King James Version translates the Hebrew a bit more accurately as “tributaries”. A tributary nation effectively conducts its own affairs while paying a fee or tax to the conquering nation. Much like Puerto Rico pays the USA and receives certain services in return, and Bermuda has a similar arrangement with the UK.

Certainly, in the ancient near east, this was a rather positive outcome in a situation where peaceful negotiations had broken down. Other nations would be far more brutal in their conquest. Ultimately, when two civilizations cannot live peacefully with one another, there is no outcome that is ideal for everyone. This may be as close as it gets.

Why Not Clearly Ban Slavery in the Law

A common complaint among Bible skeptics is that there is no clear ban on slavery in Old Testament law. There is no passage which says, “Thou Shall Not Have Slaves”. I believe we have demonstrated that condemning the kidnapping and sale of people fully prohibits any form of slavery similar to chattel slavery and that the remaining allowances for the treatment of “ebed“, or contracted workers, is intended to outline the minimum standards for the treatment of those that you employ, as well as the punishment guidelines for those that fail to meet this standard. Ebed is used in the Bible to describe every type of worker, even the most trusted servants of the King. The law is expressly stating that even the King has a duty to God regarding the treatment of those under his charge. No one is exempt, no one is special, everyone should be treated with kindness and love.