Exodus 21:1-6 - These are the rules you shall set before them

21:1,2

This chapter starts off with various instructions concerning slaves. We tend to find these sorts of passages difficult, largely because our immediate reaction is ”they shouldn’t have slaves!” However, there are a few things we should bear in mind then we can have a more intelligent approach. The first is that slave has been endemic to almost every civilisation. Secondly, slavery was not like the people trafficking and slavery that existed in America. Most importantly, the rules given were far more progressive than anything that existed in the culture at the time. It is also worth noting that while slavery has been outlawed in the West for many years, the mistreatment of human beings, treating them as “goods”, has continued to exist. 

The first instruction limited the length of servitude. In the seventh year a Hebrew slave was to be set free, without price. Later on in the Law we will get more details of Sabbaths and Jubilees, but this is a precursor of that. It is an example of the Sabbath being about setting people free.

21:3-6

We then get more details added to the general principle. If he was single when he was enslaved, he would leave single, but if he was married when he was enslaved, then his wife would be freed alongside him. There was a principle of keeping families together. This principle comes out again in the following verses, but not in a way that we would immediately like. If the master gave him a wife and they had children, then the man would be set free, but not his wife and children. On the one hand, the fact that the master could give the man a wife shows that the matter is not quite as inhuman as we might think. However, the setting the man free alone does jar with us. But there was a way out of this. The man could choose to be a slave forever if he wanted to remain with his wife and children. The details of this do not sit easily with us, but we do need to remember that the whole cultural and economic situation was very different. So we might be better to look at things bearing this in mind, rather than sitting in judgement upon situations about which we appreciate little.