Introduction
One of the most frequent moral objections leveled against the Bible is the charge that God endorsed, codified, and regulated chattel slavery. Critics point to Old Testament statutes to argue that the God of Israel sanctioned treating human beings as disposable property—bought, sold, and passed down as permanent hereditary assets.
TL;DR
Biblical servitude was fundamentally an economic safety net—voluntary indentured service and debt relief - not race-based chattel slavery. Under Mosaic Law, kidnapping or forcibly possessing another human carried the death penalty (Exodus 21:16), runaway servants could never be extradited to their masters (Deuteronomy 23:15–16), and foreigners were protected by strict anti-oppression commands. Far from sanctioning human ownership, the biblical text systematically outlawed the mechanisms of chattel slavery.
Superimposing modern, race-based chattel slavery onto ancient Israel ignores both the socio-economic realities of the Ancient Near East and the explicit protections embedded in the Mosaic Law. When the biblical text is examined within its historical context and legal framework, a vastly different picture emerges: an institution rooted in voluntary debt relief, strict employee protections, and severe penalties against human trafficking.
These 7 facts prove that slavery as outlined in the Bible was indebted servitude, not chattel slavery.
Foundational to my view is what the 8th commandment says: Thou shalt not steal - Exodus 20:15. Stealing is basically taking anything (or anyone) that isn't yours. Kidnapping is stealing a person. Chattel slavery is taking [stealing] another. The whole of chattel slavery is founded upon breaking the 8th commandment - and thus it is at odds with the Bible and God.
Definitions
Chattel
slavery - allows people to be bought, sold and owned, even
forever
Indentured servitude - a form of labor where a voluntarily person
agrees to work without pay for a set number of years
The
seven facts
1) Ebed - The English word "slave" and
"slavery" come from the Hebrew word Ebed. It means servant, slave, worshippers (of
God), servant (in special sense as prophets, Levites etc), servant (of Israel),
servant (as form of address between equals.; it does not necessarily mean
a chattel slave in and of itself, thus it is incumbent upon those who say it
does to provide the reasons for that conclusion if they are going to use.
Whether "ebed" mean indentured servant, chattel slave, or something else would have to be determined by the context.
2) Everyone was an Ebed - From the lowest of the low, to the common man, to high officials, to the king every one was an Ebed in ancient Israel, since it means to be a servant or worshipper of God, servant in the sense as prophets, Levites etc, servant of Israel, and as a form of address between equals.
It's more than a bit silly to think that a king or provincial governors were chattel slaves - able to be bought and sold.
3) Ancient Near East [ANE] Slavery was poverty based - the historical data doesn’t support the idea of chattel slavery in the ANE. The dominant motivation for “slavery” in the ANE was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--not by the "owner"--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects).
The definitive work on ANE law today is the 2 volume work (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law - HANEL). This work surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery.
A few quotes from HANEL:
"Most
slaves owned by Assyrians in Assur and in Anatolia seem to have been debt
slaves--free persons sold into slavery by a parent, a husband, an elder
sister, or by themselves." (1.449)
"Sales of wives, children, relatives, or oneself, due to financial
duress, are a recurrent feature of the Nuzi socio-economic scene…A somewhat
different case is that of male and female foreigners, who gave themselves in
slavery to private individuals or the palace administration. Poverty was
the cause of these agreements…" (1.585)
"Most of the recorded cases of entry of free persons into slavery are by
reason of debt or famine or both…*A common practice was for a
financier to pay off the various creditors in return for the debtor becoming
his slave.*" (1.664f)
"On the other hand, mention is made of free people who are sold
into slavery as a result of the famine conditions and the critical economic
situation of the populations [Canaan]. Sons and daughters are sold for
provisions…" (1.741)
"The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement [Neo-Sumerian, UR
III] was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows,
selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There
are also examples of self-sale. All these cases clearly arose from
poverty; it is not stated, however, whether debt was specifically at issue."
(1.199)
[If interested, HANEL is available for download for free at academia.edu - see here - though you might have to resister]
Quotes
from other sources
Owing to the existence of numerous designations for the non-free and
manumitted persons in the first millennium BC. throughout Mesopotamia in
history some clarification have the different terms in their particular nuances
is necessary the designations male slave and female slave though common
in many periods of Mesopotamian history are rarely employed to mean chattel
slave in the sixth Century BC in the neo-babylonian
context they indicate social subordination in general [Kristin
Kleber, Neither Slave nor Truly Free: The Status of Dependents of
Babylonian Temple Households]
Westbrook states: At first sight the situation of a free person given and
pledged to a creditor was identical to slavery The pledge lost his personal
freedom and was required to serve the creditor who supported the pledges labor. Nevertheless
the relationship between the pledge and the pledge holder remained one of
contract not property. [Rachel Magdalene, Slavery between Judah and
Babylon an Exilic Experience, cited in fn]
Mendelshon writes: The diversity of experiences and realities of
enslaved people across time and place as well as the evidence that enslaved
persons could and did exercise certain behaviors that would today be described
as “freedoms”, resist inflexible legal or economic definitions. Economic
treatises and legal codes presented slaves ways as chattel while documents
pertaining to daily life contradict this image and offer more complex picture
of slavery in the near East societies. Laura Culbertson, Slaves
and Households in the Near East
Some of the misunderstanding of the biblical laws on service/slavery arises
from the unconscious analogy the modern Western Hemisphere slavery, which
involved the stealing of people of a different race from their homelands,
transporting them in chains to a new land, selling them to an owner who possess
them for life, without obligation to any restriction and who could resell them
to someone else. Weather one translates “ebed as” servant,
slave, employee, or worker it is clear the biblical law allows for no such
practices in Israel [Stewart Douglas, Exodus - NAC]
So, it would seem that there was no need to go through the trouble of capturing people to enslave them since a lot of people were willing to work in exchange for room/board.
But it gets worse for an Israelite if he wanted to make one a chattel slave because of the...
4) Anti-Kidnap law - Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” [Exodus 21:16, see also 1 Tim 1:9-10]
This is clear that selling a person or buying someone against their will into slavery was punishable by death in the OT.
5) Anti-Return law - “You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him.” [Deuteronomy 23:15–16]
Some dismiss DT 23:15-16 by saying that this was referring to other tribes/countries and that Israel was to have no extradition treaty with them. But read it in context and that idea is nowhere to be found; DT 23 Verses 15-16 refers to slaves, without any mention of their origin.
I'll quote from HANEL once again, Page 1007: "A slave could also be freed by running away. According to Deuteronomy, a runaway slave is not to be returned to his master. He should be sheltered if he wishes or allowed to go free, and he must not be taken advantage of. This provision is strikingly different from the laws of slavery in the surrounding nations, and is explained as due to Israel's own history as slaves. It would have the effect of turning slavery into a voluntary institution.
**The importance of Anti-Kidnap law & Anti-Return law**
These laws very explicitly outlaw chattel slavery. With the anti-kidnap law, one could not take anyone against their will, sell or possess them, nor could they be returned. LV25:44-46 is the main verse critics use to argue for chattel slavery, but given these two laws, it's reasonable to read that passage through the lens of indentured servitude.
6)
Anti-Oppression law- “When a stranger sojourns
with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the
stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him
as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your
God. [Leviticus 19:33-34]
You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for
you were sojourners in the land of Egypt [Exodus 23:9]
The fact is Israel was not free to treat foreigners wrongly or
oppress them; and were, in fact to, commanded to love them.
In two most remarkable texts, Leviticus 19:34 and Deuteronomy 10:19, Yahweh charges all Israelites to love ('aheb) aliens (gerim) who reside in their midst, that is, the foreign members of their households, like they do themselves and to treat these outsiders with the same respect they show their ethnic countrymen. Like Exodus 22:20 (Eng. 21), in both texts Israel's memory of her own experience as slaves in Egypt should have provided motivation for compassionate treatment of her slaves. But Deuteronomy 10:18 adds that the Israelites were to look to Yahweh himself as the paradigm for treating the economically and socially vulnerable persons in their communities." [Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. Campbell, Ken (ed). InterVarsity Press: 60]
7) The word buy - the word buy - The word transmitted “buy” refers to any financial transaction related to a contract such as in modern sports terminology a player can be described as being bought or sold the players are not actually the property of the team that has them except in regards to the exclusive right to their employment as players of that team - [Stuart, Douglas K. Exodus: (The New American Commentary)
The verb buy/acquire [qanah] in Leviticus 25:39–51 need not involve selling or purchasing foreign servants. For example, the same word appears in Genesis 4:1 Eve’s having “gotten a manchild and 14:19 - God is the “Possessor of heaven and earth” Later, Boaz “acquired” Ruth as a wife (Ruth 4:10). So you are trying to force a narrow definition onto the word. And as noted earlier, "buy" can refer to financial transactions, as in "work for x amount of time for x amount of debt to be paid off".
See Kidnapping, Slavery, Exodus 21:16. and Joshua Bowen for an examination of an argument thsat tries to say that kidnapping laws didn't apply to everybody
Objections
A) The Anti-Kidnap law has Nothing to do with slavery
The response: in order to enslave someone, you must take and hold them against their will. So, Exodus 21:16 does apply to slavery
B) Exodus 21:4 says that a woman and her children are slaves for life!
The verse: "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 alone.
The response: Ex 21 was for protection of the rights of both worker and employer. The provisions for what you refer to is: if an already married servant contracted for a term of service, that servant should have built into the contract some provisions for the keeping of a spouse (i.e., the boss had to figure in the costs of housing, food, and clothing for the spouse as well). But if a boss allowed a woman already serving him to marry the servant he had hired while single, there had to be a compensation for the boss's costs incurred for that woman servant already serving him. Her potential to provide children was also an asset—considered part of her worth—and had to be compensated for as well in any marriage arrangement. Therefore, as a protection for the boss's investment in his female worker, a male worker could not simply “walk away with” his bride and children upon his own release from service. He himself was certainly free from any further obligation at the end of his six years, but his wife and children still were under obligation to the boss (“only the man shall go free”). Once her obligation was met, she would be free. [Stewart Douglas, Exodus - NAC]
C) Deut 20:10-15; if you sack a city you can enslave them!
The verse: ″when you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.”
The response:
The
surrounding text makes clear that these nations live at some distance outside
the territory of Israel. Israel was allotted the land, but the boundaries were
quite clear and quite restricted by God. Their dominion (via vassal treaties)
could extend further, but their ownership could not. There was almost
zero-motive, therefore, for Israel to fund long-distance military campaigns to
attack foreign nations for territory, or for the economic advantages of owning
such territory.
Dominion could be profitable since it left people to work the land for
taxes/tribute; but war always siphons off excess wealth, thus reducing the
'value' of a conquered country, but displacement, ownership, colonization was
much more expensive. These cities (not nations, btw) are enemies of Israel,
which can only mean that they have funded/mounted military campaigns against
Israel in some form or been key contributors to such.
"...the verse indicates that the Israelites were to offer to the
inhabitants of such cities the terms of a vassal treaty. If the
city accepted the terms, it would open its gates to the Israelites, both as a
symbol of surrender and to grant the Israelites access to the city; the
inhabitants would become vassals and would serve Israel." [New
International Commentary on the Old Testament]
"Offer it shalom, here meaning terms of surrender, a promise to spare
the city and its inhabitants if they agree to serve you. The same
idiom appears in an Akkadian letter from Mari: 'when he had besieged that city,
he offered it terms of submission (salimam).' In an Egyptian inscription, the
prostrate princes of Canaan say shalom when submitting to the Pharaoh. The same
meaning is found in verse 11, which reads literally "If it responds
'shalom' and lets you in," and in verse 12, where a verb derived from
shalom (hislim) is used for 'surrender'" [Tigay, The JPS Torah
Commentary]
"Literally, as 'forced laborers.' Hebrew mas refers to a contingent of forced laborers working for the state. They were employed in agriculture and public works, such as construction. In monarchic times, David imposed labor on the Ammonites and Solomon subjected the remaining Canaanites to labor...see 2 Sam 12:31; 1 Kings 9:15, 20-22; cf. Judg. 1:28-35. When imposed on citizens, such service took the form of periodic corvee labor. [corvee means unpaid labor - as toward constructing roads - due from a feudal vassal to his lord] Solomon, for example, drafted Israelites to fell timber in Lebanon; each group served one month out of three (1 Kings 5:27-28). It is not known whether foreign populations subjected to forced labor served part-time or permanently." [Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary]
"The
likely meaning is that the city, through its people, was to perform
certain tasks, not that individual citizens were to be impressed." [The
Torah, A Modern Commentary, Union of American Hebrew Congregations]
"Israel must give its enemy an opportunity to make peace. Those who
accepted this offer were required to pay taxes, perform national
service, and, if they were going to live in the Land, to accept the Seven
Noahide Laws." [Tanaach, Stone Edition]
This forced, or corvee labor (cf. Gibeonites in Josh 9), but this would hardly be called chattel slavery since it is also used of conscription services under the Hebrew kings, cf. 2 Sam 20.24; I Kings 9.15).
So, no Deut 20:10-15 does not support/endorse chattel slavery
D) Deut 20:14 says the Israelites could rape women since they are plunder
The verse: See above.
The response:
Notice
that nothing is said about rape, and no reference to sexual intercourse is made
in the text. However, in the next chapter this is not true.
When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God
delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, and see among the
captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take
her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her home to your house,
and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the
clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father
and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband
and she shall be your wife. It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then
you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her
for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her. (Deuteronomy
21:10-14 NASB)
The captives in Deuteronomy 21:10 are the women and children in Deuteronomy
20:14. The event of chapter 21 is an example of case law. That is, in the event
that one of the captives pleases the male who took them. It is not the case for
every female whom he captured. The Scripture concerns one man and one woman.
Some critics presume that because the text says the Israelite has “a desire for
her” (the woman POW) that he already has raped her, but this isn’t so. At least
the Hebrew cannot be made to indicate that he raped her. The Hebrew word (H2836) means to love, be attached to, or long
for. The word is used eleven times in the Old Testament, and never used
for raping a woman.
"The
position of a female captive of war was remarkable. According to Deuteronomy
20:14, she could be spared and taken as a servant, while Deuteronomy 21:10-11
allowed her captor to take her to wife. While the relationship of the Hebrew
bondwoman was described by a peculiar term (note: concubine), the marriage to
the captive woman meant that the man 'would be her husband and she his wife.'
No mention was made of any act of manumission; the termination of the marriage
was possible only by way of divorce and not by sale." Hebrew
Law in Biblical Times. Falk, Ze'ev 127]
E) Exodus 21:7- a father can sell his daughter into sex slavery!
The verse: 7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
The
response: Most critics stop reading at verse 7 but if they continued,
they'd see that this is about marriage not sex slavery. If the family was poor
and needed money, they could give her away in marriage to an interested suitor
(v. 8) where there was a dowry.
This ensured that the woman was to be cared for in a family system that had
enough, and that the family could be cared for by the dowry. Even today the
dowry system exists in many cultures, and it has its benefits.
But if the new husband found her to be bad or evil (the meaning of
“displeasing” in the text v. 8), then he was not to divorce her and give her
away to someone else for a dowry of his own. That would be evil as already he
is “acting treacherously” towards her. But the family could get their daughter
back and return the dowry if she was found to be bad/evil.
If the man got her as a wife for his son, then the man must deal with her as
full rights and provisions of a daughter. He is not to deal with her any other
way. She has the full privileges of family.
And if the man (or his son presumably) takes another wife, in no way was he to
reduce his care for her. He is to make sure she has equal food, clothing and
marital rights as the first wife. If he does not provide fully in these areas
for her, she is free to leave and return home and the family is under no
obligation to return the dowry money.
Verse 11 states “she shall go free for nothing, without payment of money.” The husband and his family cannot invoke the card of her being formerly a servant and therefore she’s obligated to stay and work for them. This is where the normal protocol of marriage is important mentioned in verse 9. In the instance where she has the right to leave her husband under the conditions of verse 10 and 11, since there are the normal customs of marriage back then, she can go back to her family who have the dowry from the husband and thereby she can survive - she has more protection than a male servant!
F) Leviticus 25:44-46: says you can buy foreign slave and you can bequeath them to your children!
The verse: 44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
The response: First one would have to ignore points 1-7 above to reach that conclusion. One must assume, without any rational basis, that “ebed” must mean “chattel slave”. But as argued above the passage can mean, and most likely does mean "servants". As Stuart notes [fact 7 above] "buy" means financial transaction related to a contract. And note that vs 45 and 46 say that they may be your property and bequeath them to your sons. It doesn’t say must or will, it wasn't required or nor could it be imposed by force. Given that, this passage loses all of the bite that critics assume it has.
They were not considered property in the same sense as an ox or coat because escaped slaves were not to be returned (Deut. 23:15-16) but an ox or coat was to be returned (Exodus 23:4; Deut. 22:1–4). Since they were not considered strict property nor chattel slaves, it must be that the work these inherited slaves produced was considered the property of the master.
Furthermore, Leviticus 25:47 states that the strangers living within Israel could “become rich.” In other words, a foreign slave could eventually get out of poverty, become self-sustaining, and thus wouldn’t have to be a slave anymore. While foreigners in Israel could serve for life, serving multiple generations if they wanted (just like an Israelite slave could), the Torah didn’t require that. Third, except for automatic debt cancellation in the seventh year, foreign slaves were afforded the same protections and benefits as Israelite slaves, including protection if they decided to leave at any time.
To properly evaluate passages Leviticus 25, we have to look at the regulations God gave previously as a foundation and they completely destroy any idea that Leviticus 25 is talking about chattel slavery.
First would be the anti-kidnap law: “*Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death*” in Exodus 21:16,
Critics ignore these two foundational laws and try to interprete the practice in Lev 25: 44-46 sans this foundation. That is their error.
What Lev 25: 44-46 is saying is, peoples from other nations were going to volunteer themselves into the hands of the Israelites - it was permissible to only "purchase" men and women who voluntarily sold themselves into indentured service, which is a big difference from being held against one’s own free will. Voluntary service doesn't equal chattel slavery.
And remember, any bond-servant purchased from the Gentiles had the right to flee their master, and receive the protection of the Law of Moses if they did so:
G) Slaves could be beaten
The verse: "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. – Exodus 21:20-21
The response:
Corporal punishment has nothing to do with the slavery question since free persons could be beaten as well. You have moved the goalposts from chattel slavery is condoned/endorsed in the Bible to the question of whether corporal punishment is bad.
The law
allowed disciplinary rod-beating for a servant (Ex 21.20-22), apparently under the same
conditions as that for free men:
If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does
not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held
responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff;
however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he
is completely healed. If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and
the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be
punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his
property (ksph--"silver"; not the normal word for property, btw).
Free men could likewise be punished by the legal system by rod-beating (Deut
25.1-3; Prov 10.13; 26.3), as could rebellious older sons (Prov 13.24; 22.15;
23.13). Beating by rod (shevet) is the same act/instrument (flogging (2 Sam
7.14; Ps 89.32). This verse is in parallel to verses 18-19. If two people fight
but no one dies, the aggressor is punished by having to 'retributively' pay
(out of his own money--"silver", ksph) for the victim's lost economic
time and medical expenses. If it is a person's slave and this occurs, there is
no (additional) economic payment--the lost productivity and medical expenses of
the wounded servant are (punitive economic) loss alone. There was no other
punishment for the actual damage done to the free person in 18-19, and the
slave seems to be treated in the same fashion. Thus, there doesn't seem
to be any real difference in ethical treatment of injury against a servant vs a
free person.
H) Scholar X or the consensus of scholars say the Bible endorses/condones chattel slavery
The response:
First, scholarship disagrees on almost every subject.
Second, to accept a claim merely because a scholar says so is not critical thinking - one must examine the arguments presented.
Third, this objection presumes that a scholar or a scholarly consensus cannot be wrong, this is most assuredly wrong.
Fourth, the "consensus of scholars" isn't how scholarship works; it's who has the Best Explanation of the Data
Fifth, I cited multiple scholars in my argument. I don't mean to imply a tit-for-tat scholar v scholar, just that my view is supported by scholarship.
The word translated as slave or slavery has a wide range of meaning that doesn’t necessarily mean “chattel slave”. One would have to show from the text what that meaning is.
The Biblical text is clear that kidnaping/buying/selling/possessing someone is punishable by death. And that if a slave escapes they are not to be returned, and all slaves are not to be oppressed. The word “buy” doesn’t have to mean buying a person, but can mean buying one’s services/labor.
Thus, it is clear that the Biblical text and history do not support the idea that the Bible or God endorsed, sanctioned, or condoned chattel slavery. In fact, God and the Bible outlawed chattel slavery
Other posts of interest on this topic
Has My "Seven Facts About Biblical Slavery Prove that It Was Not Chattel Slavery" Been Debunked?
Exodus 21:1-6 - An Involuntary Slave for Life?
Exodus 21:7-11 Protection for Female Servants
Kidnapping, Slavery, Exodus 21:16. and Joshua Bowen
Leviticus 25:44-46 does not Support Chattel Slavery
Are Christians dishonest and obtuse in defining and defending the Old Testament slavery as more akin to voluntary servitude than involuntary chattel slavery?
