I just showed you the verse in which the Bible says you may use a slave's family as blackmail so that the slave may never leave and I also showed you where the Bible says you may beat your slaves almost to death and you didn't address either of those things
Perhaps this may help...
The beginning of Exodus 21 quotes laws from God about how we are to treat other human beings.
The treatment of slaves and women doesn't seem respectful or fair. For example, verse 20: why is the man who beats his servant to death not put to death himself? Does God not hold each of His created beings with equal care? Shouldn't we also?
Your civil & human rights advocate, 1440 BC
This is a great question. Before I discuss the implications of Exodus 21:20 I need to discuss “distance.” That is the distance that lies between myself and the historical setting of the Biblical text. This will help when it comes to the question:
Why did God allow this? Consider the nature of some of the laws being discussed in Exodus 21.
We see discussion of slavery. Something considered deplorable in our day and age. We may ask: how could God allow such a thing to happen?
We see discussion of a father selling his daughter. Why in the world would a father do such a thing?
We see a law that condemns a person to death for striking or cursing their parents. By this standard, there would be a lot of dead teenagers in America!!!
Obviously, a quick glance at this reading places me in a time and a culture that is quite different than my own. It makes me feel tension with the Scriptures because I have framed how life should look according to my culture and my upbringing. It might tempt me to read the Scriptures anachronistically, saying, “
God should have changed this wrong thinking” Or “
These people should have known better because I know better.” We fail to recognize that our thinking might be strikingly different had we grown up in this different setting.
There are several considerations that we must think through with a passage like this: (1) Who is to say that our so called “modern” or “enlightened” thinking is best? (2) Are our suppositions about the passage 100% correct? (3) Would the people of this day have considered the laws in this passage to be unjust or we they consider it an advancement in justice from what they had previously know justice to be?
I will begin with the first consideration. The major tension that we feel with Exodus 21:20 is
corporal punishment. In this society (3500 years ago), it was perfectly acceptable to punish a servant physically. In fact there are still cultures in our “modern” world, which use this mode of discipline. Read this commentators comments (Stuart,
NAC: Exodus, p. 490 footnote):
“Corporal punishment remains widely in use in the modern world, being built into the familial and even formal legal structures of many nations. It was virtually universally practiced in the ancient world and predominated in the modern Western world until the latter part of the twentieth century. Although many modern Westerners would today regard slapping, spanking, caning, to be forms of abuse, it should be noted that their opinions are not
historically grounded.”
So then, we need to understand that in this day and age—the historical circumstance in which this passage of Scripture was written—it was perfectly acceptable to use corporal punishment with a servant. The Scriptures indicate that this should be done when a servant has willfully done wrong. God’s Word is beautiful because it is
revelation—God speaking to people. But as we read through the Scriptures we are quickly confronted with the fact Scripture was written to people in a specific situation. For example, we broadly read in the Old Testament about one nation and the concerns of this one nation. The writings spoke to this people during this time about specific situations that concerned them. This isn’t to say that God’s Word is “confined” to that situation. But it certainly speaks most clearly to a person living in that situation. So for God to speak to a person living in 1500 BC and to say that everything they understand about life is wrong or to speak to matters that would have been completely outside of their scope of understanding would not have made much sense. For God to have spoken to circumstances that concern us more than them would have meant that He was speaking to us and not them—3500 years would have passed without people being able to interact with the Scriptures. That is precisely why anachronism doesn’t work with revelation. We can look back at history and understand historical circumstances and learn from these historical circumstances. But antiquity could not have looked forward to our time, analyzed it and bridged the gap.
The second consideration… Exodus 21:20 in my understanding does require a life for a life if a master kills his slave. The word “avenge” (translated this way in the ESV) is a rather specific term in the Hebrew language. It is used to talk about God’s justice and fairness (Smick,
Theological Words of the Old Testament, p. 598-599). In this context, it appears that the meaning of the word is “life for life” justice. Verse 21 is a bit trickier: “But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money” (Exodus 21:21, ESV). It appears that the slave is bed ridden for several days and then is able to get up again and work. As we saw in the previous section (vv. 18-19), a man who injures a free person owes compensation for the number of days it takes for him to recover. However, this is not possible in the context of a slave or servant. The master is losing money because the slave is not working. He can’t compensate the slave because he is not paying the slave. We see later in the passage (vv. 26-27) that if the master disciplines the slave so that they receive physical damage (i.e. an eye or a tooth) that fair compensation to the slave is freedom. Therefore, it seems that this passage elevates the dignity of slaves. (1) Slaves are considered just as valuable in terms of life. If a master kills a slave, they have shed blood and deserve the punishment of a murderer. (2) If a master hurts his slave, he has proven himself unfit for the slaves service and must give the slave their freedom.
The third consideration... Exodus 21 is an advance in this cultures justice system. The primary fact to keep in mind is that the Jewish people chose to become slaves. It would look more like the “indentured servitude” that took place in America. Also, Hebrews could not enslave one another for life (they were not to hold each other in bondage like they were held in Egypt). Masters could discipline their slaves but only within reason. As we saw above, the master was to be tried for murder for killing his servant. If the master maimed a servant, the servant was to go free. The loss of work to the master and the gain of freedom to the servant were considered adequate compensation. The servant likely would have preferred their freedom to knocking out their master’s tooth regardless. God in Exodus is changing the way these people treated one another and teaching basic justice principles. The “eye for an eye” principle (also called
Lex Talionis) changed a system that was rather lawless. People in this time period might have sought a person’s life if they injured them. God was establishing checks and balances. Where slavery is concerned, we have to remember that there was no such thing as the middle class as we know it today. People became slaves of other people in order to survive (again, reading through the context seems to indicate that they became servants by choice)—they wanted food and shelter in exchange for work! And we also need to remember that we in our day and age struggle with how to deal with the poor just as much as these people did. How do we take care of the 30,000 children who lose their life every day in Africa? What do we do with the rising homeless population in our own backyard? These are difficult questions. Just like how does one treat slaves left under their care was for this people.
So to conclude this rather lengthy response… God’s law does require equal treatment of all people. God does not show partiality. This is a principle we see repeated throughout the Scriptures. The reason we feel tension is because we have “distance” between us and the setting in which this Law was written (this was the rather lengthy portion of this reponse). God is equally concerned about all people. Listen to a description out of Deuteronomy concerning God’s concern for people:
“
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. [SUP]18 [/SUP]He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.[SUP]19 [/SUP]And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. [SUP]20 [/SUP]Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. [SUP]21 [/SUP]He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. [SUP]22 [/SUP]Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now theLord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky” (Deuteronomy 10:17-22; emphasis mine).
Questions Along the Way: Exodus 21: Does God Approve of Slavery?