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[Regnis Numis]

Sorry to bring up an old topic that we've already discussed once before, but I have a question: Was Exodus 21:4-6 specifically referring to a situation where the slave’s wife and children were going to stay with the master permanently? If so, what kinds of circumstances would lead to such a situation? It seems odd that a slave would cite his love for his wife and children as part of the reason to remain with his master for life if the wife, alongside her children, would have eventually left the master after working off her debt.

[jimwalton]

No problem. Always glad to talk.

The overriding categories of vv. 1-11 are...

1. The rights and protection of Hebrew slaves—an idea totally foreign to the ancient world. Servants ('eved: "slaves") in Israel were given radical and unprecedentedly legal/human rights. They were to be treated as human beings for their own sake rather than as the property of their masters to do with as they pleased.

2. This is casuistic law: hypothetical situations anticipating a range of life situations to guide a judge in making wise community decisions. These are lists of possible situations, not necessarily real ones.

3. In Israelite law, casuistic law assumes the equality of all citizens. Punishment for crime is supposed to be neither lesser nor more based on one's class or wealth. (This is very different from what we read in contemporaneous accounts, such as Hammurabi's Code.)

4. The "Book of the Covenant" here is describing how God wants to establish a personal relationship with Israel as distinct from other nations. We must see everything here (Ex. 21-23) in that light.

5. The law was designed not as a legal code as much as to help Israel become a holy people (Ex. 19.6).

6. The law is supposed to portray the character of God.

7. Deuteronomy 15 gives us a bit of an expansion of this law. Everything is designed to prevent the establishment of a permanent poor underclass and the endless perpetuity of a debt-slave situation. Debt law was to be battled rather than institutionalized. Generosity of the have's was more important than the economic raping of the poor and unfortunate. If a creditor loaned more than could reasonably be repaid in 7 years, he forfeited the balance when the Sabbath year arrived, and he would know that when he made the loan. If he were that wealthy, and the other man were that poor, there should be debt forgiveness.

Verses 4-6 bow to various cultural mores. The "slavery" of these verses is debt slavery. Agriculture in an arid region was always a tricky business. Based on weather patterns and particular location, one farmer might thrive while another went belly-up. Farmers would hire themselves out to their creditors to repay loans, working both at their own farm and at the farm of the creditor until the debt was paid.

He could, if he were married, also bring his wife to work off the debt (v. 3). In a situation like this, when the debt was paid, they were both free to go. There are 3 circumstances possible in here. The judge was to use the principles described to make a wise decision.

• The guy was unmarried when he came, and when the debt was paid, he was free to go.
• The guy was married when he came and brought his wife with him. In this case the creditor didn't hold any particular power over the wife as a separate entity. When the debt was freed, both were released from their obligation. A judge would know that it's unfair to let the man go but keep the woman working for him. No-no.
• The man married another 'eved of the master while paying off his debt, and maybe they even had children. Now what?

This is where v. 4 kicks in. This is a different indebtedness situation because the woman is working off a different debt than the man is. And where are the children positioned in all of this? If the master is feeding them, and at a certain age they are helping around the farm, whose debt are they working off, or none at all (working for food)?

Here's how the hypothetic rolls down: The wife is considered to be working off a different debt than the husband, and so his freedom has nothing to do with hers. We can see three options, since the master's rights have to be protected as much as the servant's. Certain requirements had to be satisfied:

1. Wait for his wife to finish working off her debt. Then she and the children would be free to go join their husband on his farm.

2. The husband can always use some of his excess, if he has any, to pay off her debt so she can join him sooner than later.

3. If it's a good place to work, a kind employer, and a beneficial situation, he can commit himself to a more permanent status of employment there.

Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, in "The IVP Bible Background Commentary," say: "The record of a contract from the city of Emar (probably 13th c. BC) presents an example of such a situation. The pledge in this case may take his wife and children with him when he leaves the service of his creditor, but only if he abides by the basic agreement set forth in the contract. When this document addresses the possibility that the pledge might renege on his commitment to abide by the contract, then the pledge 'will have no claim to his wife and children.' This law in Exodus may be establishing what was standard procedure in these types of situations; modifications were probably allowed if clearly established in a contractual agreement."

The contract spells out the conditions about when he leaves, and under what circumstances he can take the wife and kids with him, what will invalidate his taking them, and how the whole thing works.) What it illustrates is that there were rules and agreements about such things, not just "the man can leave and the rest of the family can't." Exodus 21.4, then, is the same type of casuistic law, and is establishing that reference point, recognizing standard procedure in these types of situations, viz., contractual agreements are established to govern such situations, and the judge is to begin his ruling over the case by consulting the contract, and then is free to modify his verdict according to other pertinent factors. This is the way law worked then, and, frankly, it’s how it still works now.

The principles behind the laws were to be fair to all parties. The creditor should get his due, the servants should be treated with dignity, and there is flexibility in how to work out the contract to the satisfaction of all.

In answer to your specific question, we have to look at the linguistic, legal, and cultural context to get our understanding. Ex. 21.4-6 are not referring to a situation where the slave's wife and children were going to stay with the master permanently. This was never one of the choices. There was supposed to be no such system among Israelites. All debt slaves were to be released every 7 years, no matter what. No one owned another person, but only their labor, and that only temporarily.

Verses 5-6 show the hypothetical of when the man goes free before his wife's independent debt is paid. As I mentioned in #2 & 3 above, he can either work to pay off her debt or he can enter the full time employ of the creditor. If he chooses that option, they create a contract, go before a judge, and make it legal.

> It seems odd that a slave would cite his love for his wife and children as part of the reason to remain with his master for life if the wife, alongside her children, would have eventually left the master after working off her debt.

He would only do this if it were such a beneficial arrangement that he wanted to make it permanent to provide for his wife and children. I like to garden. I have always had gardens. Where I live, the summers are so unpredictable (some too cold and rainy to ever grow anything, some too hot and dry to ever grow anything, and so many vegetable predators around [squirrels, chipmunks, deer, rabbits, skunks, and shrews]) that I finally gave up. It's just impossible to grow anything here without far more work than I'm willing and able to give. If a farmer in Israel came to the conclusion that he was throwing in the towel, and it was beneficial to the other farmer and to himself to work together, they were free to make that contract.

[Regnis Numis]

> Verses 5-6 show the hypothetical of when the man goes free before his wife's independent debt is paid. As I mentioned in #2 & 3 above, he can either work to pay off her debt or he can enter the full time employ of the creditor. If he chooses that option, they create a contract, go before a judge, and make it legal.

> He would only do this if it were such a beneficial arrangement that he wanted to make it permanent to provide for his wife and children.

So if a slave chooses to remain with his master for life while the wife is working off her debt, then what happens once the wife finishes paying off her debt and may leave with their children? Do the slave's wife and children leave him behind to live elsewhere? If so, where and how would they live while the slave is providing for them? Speaking of which, what exactly does the slave earn from his master in order to provide for his wife and children? Food? Money? And how does he transfer the proceeds of his labor to them?

[jimwalton]

> So if a slave chooses to remain with his master for life while the wife is working off her debt, then what happens once the wife finishes paying off her debt and may leave with their children? Do the slave's wife and children leave him behind to live elsewhere? If so, where and how would they live while the slave is providing for them?

It's credible to believe that the husband would confer with the wife in the making of this decision. Research done into the patriarchy of the ancient world reveals that women had critical roles in maintaining household life, and that a woman was often in a position of parity and interdependence, not subordination, with her husband for most aspects of household life. Anthropological studies of ancient Israel show that women were valued in the home and that they were treated with positive regard. Carol Myers writes, "Consider the concept of patriarchy. Typically this concept has been taken to imply near total male domination in families and in other social institutions. But anthropologists, classicists, feminist theorists, theologians and others who have more recently studied the concept have shown that this understanding of patriarchy does not take into account that women often had considerable agency in certain aspects of household life and that women’s groups and institutions had their own hierarchies. ... To get a balanced view of Israelite society in the Iron Age, the broader picture must be considered. Patriarchy is a term that was invented millennia after the Iron Age and is probably unsuitable for characterizing ancient Israel."

It is likely that the family would make a decision as a family to stay with the employer after the debts were paid.

> Speaking of which, what exactly does the slave earn from his master in order to provide for his wife and children?

I don't know that I've ever come across that information. They certainly dealt in the currency of precious metals (Gn. 13.2) and in coinage (Gn. 20.16; 23.15-16, etc.). They exchanged goods: food, grain, clothing. etc. Sometimes servants ("slaves") were heirs of the family estate (Gn. 15.3; 30.1-13). In 2 Samuel 9.10, Ziba, the "slave" of King Saul, was a wealthy man in his own right. Sometimes servants ("slaves") achieved high social status, though I don't know exactly how they were paid.