Slavery in the OT occurs when someone either voluntarily or forcibly becomes completely subject to another person's control.
Reasons for slavery
War
Deuteronomy 20:10–11 See also Genesis 14:21; Numbers 31:9; 2 Kings 5:2; 2 Chronicles 28:8
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.
Purchase
Leviticus 25:44–45 See also Genesis 37:23–28
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.
Debt
2 Kings 4:1 See also Exodus 22:2–3; Leviticus 25:39, Leviticus 25:47–48; Deuteronomy 15:12; Nehemiah 5:1–5
Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”
Birth
Exodus 21:4 See also Genesis 17:12–13; Ecclesiastes 2:7; Jeremiah 2:14
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 free.
Conscription of foreigners as forced labour
2 Samuel 12:29–31 See also Exodus 1:11–14; Joshua 9:22–23, Joshua 16:10; Judges 1:28; 1 Kings 9:20–21
So David assembled all the troops and went to Rabbah; and he fought against it and captured it. Then he took the crown from the head of their king. It weighed a talent of gold and was set with precious stones, and it was placed on David’s head. And David took a great amount of plunder from the city. David brought out the people who were there and put them to work with saws, iron picks, and axes, and he made them work at the brick kilns. He did the same to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all his troops returned to Jerusalem.
Rights of slaves
Rights of protection against physical and sexual abuse
Leviticus 25:43 See also Exodus 21:7–11, Exodus 21:20–21, Exodus 21:26–27
You are not to rule over them harshly, but you shall fear your God.
Rights to participate in religious feasts and festivals
Exodus 23:12 See also Exodus 20:9–10; Deuteronomy 12:11–12
For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you must cease, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the son of your maidservant may be refreshed, as well as the foreign resident.
Rights to inherit property
Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
Rights of asylum
Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you.
The release of slaves
Release in the Year of Jubilee
Leviticus 25:54–55 See also Leviticus 25:39–41
Even if he is not redeemed in any of these ways, he and his children shall be released in the Year of Jubilee. For the Israelites are My servants. They are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.[’’]
Release after six years of service
Exodus 21:2 See also Exodus 21:3–6; Deuteronomy 15:12–18; Jeremiah 34:8–20 The six-year principle was being abused in the time of Jeremiah.
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.
Release through redemption by a near relative
The status of slaves
Slaves as property
Leviticus 25:46 See also Exodus 21:32; Leviticus 25:39–42 Fellow Israelites were not to be regarded as property.
You may leave them to your sons after you to inherit as property; you can make them slaves for life. But as for your brothers, the Israelites, no man may rule harshly over his brother.
Slaves as trusted advisors
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.