No am not disupting that but then you keep talking about indentured servants and the bible doesnt say that they are indentured. My bible days they are hired.
You just keep mixing up the terms. Its confusing. Can you just stick to one or the other.
Perhaps it would simply be better if I started at the beginning. Let me just try to lay it all out for you.
Release of the indentured servant, 12-18
“If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free. When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I command you this today.”
“It shall come about if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you; then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also, you shall do likewise to your maidservant.”
“It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man; so, the Lord your God will bless you in whatever you do.”
It must be understood here that the release of an indentured servant has nothing to do with the sabbath-year release of debt. This is an entirely separate issue. Anyone who owed money to a creditor was to be released from his debt. However, one who had indentured himself was required to serve his master for six years. The seventh year sabbath did not release the servant from his service.
1. The wisdom of this law was to insure the nation would not be turned into a nation of slaves as they had been in Egypt.
2. This law would certainly seem to discourage the idea of indentured servitude for debt. If at the beginning of the seventh year, I not only had to release the servant, I also had to give him generously from my flock, my threshing floor, and from my wine vat in order to give him a fresh start, it would wind up costing me more than I loaned to him in the first place. It would have been much cheaper on me to simply forgive the debt. What this amounted to, was reimbursing him or her for six years of service.
The indentured servitude of the early American colonies seemed to have been somewhat patterned after the statutes in Deuteronomy 15.
“White indentured servants came from all over Great Britain. Men, women, and sometimes children signed a contract with a master to serve a term of 4 to 7 years. In exchange for their service, the indentured servants received their passage paid from England, as well as food, clothing, and shelter once they arrived in the colonies. Some were even paid a salary. When the contract had expired, the servant was paid
freedom dues of corn, tools, and clothing, and was allowed to leave the plantation. During the time of his indenture, however, the servant was considered his master’s personal property and his contract could be inherited or sold. Prices paid for indentured servants varied depending on skills.”
One major difference between the statute of Great Britton and the Law of Moses was that under the Law of Moses, the indentured servant was not considered property as was a slave. With indentured servitude, the master contracted for the servant's services, not the person himself. With a slave, on the other hand, that slave was considered property and could be bought, sold, and even transferred as part of an estate.
It may have also been the practice to pay wages to the indentured servant while he was in your service but, I cannot find anything in the Law that expressly required this. The closest thing to this is the statement made in Leviticus 25:40 that could possibly suggest this. By the same token, there is nothing in the Law that would prohibition the Master from the payment of wages which would certainly be an act of generosity.
3. The treatment of the indentured servant was strictly regulated.
He was not to be treated as the slave who was a foreigner. When a fellow Hebrew sold himself to you for his debt, this was really nothing more than a long-term labor contract between you and the debtor. Leviticus 25:39-46 says,
“If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service. He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers. For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God.” This same law of indentureship also seems to have applied to the foreigner as well.
While Israel had the right to use harsh treatment on slaves acquired from other nations, they were not permitted to treat one another with severity, not even an indentured servant. An indentured servant was never to be considered as a slave and it was not permitted to treat him as such.
“But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall NOT rule with severity over one another.” 46.
Harsh treatment of a Hebrew servant could cost you his service. Exodus 21:26-27 says,
“If a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye. And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth.”
The loss of an eye or a tooth of a servant would cost the master his servant. The eye and the tooth represent two extreme polls of importance. The eye was regarded as the most valuable part of one's body that could be taken. The tooth was regarded as the most expendable. Thus, this ordinance would certainly apply to any permanent injury done to any part of the servant's body.
The servant was not allowed in such cases, to demand equal satisfaction from his master. The law of an eye for an eye did not apply to the master/servant relationship. The servant could not demand the eye of his master in payment for his own eye, or tooth for tooth. He was however, required to be compensated by being allowed to go free. Not only would he go free but, he would also receive his due wages of release. This law protected the dignity of the servant and also restricted the brutality of those masters who were so inclined toward cruelty.
The difference between the indentured servant and the slave from another country was that the slave could be beaten almost to death for some displeasure to his master, and that was the master’s right. But, if you struck a servant and knocked out his tooth, you just lost your servant. You were not permitted to treat a fellow Hebrew with such indignity.
The law of indentured servitude was a good law. It protected the poor from destitution and offered them an opportunity for dignified survival. It preserved the dignity of the poor by preventing them from being reduced to begging in the streets. The limitations of the law protected them against extended and perhaps unwarranted length of servitude as well as cruel treatment.
