The Old Testament Witness Against Slavery (1891).

I have reproduced this from the Commentary on Leviticus written by Dr. Daniel Steele in Whedon's Commentary on the Old Testament. This was originally published in 1891.

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 1.) The verdict of Jehovah against chattelism, and in favor of freedom as the natural inheritance of all men, is found in the sentence of capital punishment inflicted on him who steals and sells a man, or retains him in his hand. Exodus 21:16. This statute lays the axe at the very root of chattel slavery by destroying its very germ, “the wild and guilty phantasy of property in man.” For both stealing and selling assume the fact of a property value. It is to be observed that this law is universal. Stealing a man is a crime. Exodus 21:7, is not a limitation of this universal prohibition to persons of Hebrew blood. The toleration and regulation of the system of servitude in Mosaism are by no means an endorsement of its abstract rightfulness, but rather a concession to the depravity of the times. “Servitude existed before Moses. It was no part of the mission of the Hebrew code to create it. Let it be forever admitted that the laws given of God through Moses cannot be held responsible for its existence. They found it existing, and proceeded, therefore, to modifyit; to soften its more rigid features; to extract its carnivorous teeth; to ordain that the slave had rights which the master and the nation were bound to respect — in short, to tone down the severities of the system from unendurable slavery to very tolerable servitude.” — Cowles.

We are certainly safe in following the inspired prophets in their interpretation of the spirit of Mosaism. Isaiah says that the acceptable fast consists in letting “the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke,” and that the work of the Messiah will be to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. “No candid reader of the New Testament can doubt that if the principles of Christianity were universally followed the last shackle would soon fall from the slave. Be the following facts remembered: 1.) No man ever made another originally a slave under the influence of Christian principle. No man ever kidnapped another or sold another BECAUSE it was done in obedience to the laws of Christ. 2.) No Christian ever manumitted a slave who did not feel that in doing it he was obeying the spirit of Christianity, and who did not have a more quiet conscience on that account. 3.) To man doubts that if freedom were to prevail everywhere, and all men were to be regarded as of equal civil rights, it would be in accordance with the mind of the Redeemer. 4.) Slaves are made in violation of all the precepts of the Saviour. The work of kidnapping and selling men, women, and children, of tearing them from their homes… is not the work to which the Lord Jesus calls his disciples. 5.) Slavery, in fact, cannot be maintained without an incessant violation of the principles of the New Testament. To keep man in ignorance, to withhold the Bible, to render the marriage contract nugatory, or to make it subject to the will of a master, to deprive a man of the avails of his labour without his consent; to prevent parents from training up their children according to their own views of what is right, to fetter and bind the intellect as a means of continuing the system, and to make men wholly dependent on others whether they shall hear the Gospel or be permitted publicly to embrace it, is everywhere deemed essential to the existence of slavery, and is demanded by all the laws which rule over a country cursed with this institution.” — Albert Barnes.

(2.) Among the ameliorations of their condition were admission into covenant with God, (Deuteronomy 29:10, 13,) participation in all family and national festivals, (Exodus 12:43, 44; Deuteronomy 12:18; 16:10-16,) appeal to the laws, (Deuteronomy 1:16; 27:19,) instruction in morals and religion, (Deuteronomy 31:10-13; Joshua 8:33-35; Nehemiah 8:7, 8,) exemption from labour nearly half the time; namely, every seventh day and year, twenty-two days at the three annual festivals, also on the new moon, feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, local festivals, family feasts, as marriages, circumcisions, child-weanings, sheep-shearings, and making covenants. The servant might wholly or jointly inherit his master’s estates, (Genesis 15:3; Proverbs 17:2,) and aspire to the hand of his daughter in marriage. 1 Chronicles 2:35. He was shielded against personal injury by the requirement to set him free when the master’s smiting had knocked out a tooth or an eye. He might become naturalized, a step which sooner or later resulted in the independence of his offspring, and their complete fusion with Israel. There are no traces of prejudice among the Hebrews, as among other nations, against the servile class as inferior beings. Caste was unknown. The free spirit of Mosaism continually softened down the contrast between the condition of the master and that of the servant. Hence, in the history of the Hebrew state during fifteen centuries, there is not the first intimation of a servile war or insurrection, or dissatisfaction on the part of the servants. A great mitigation of the hardships of his condition was the right to run away from a cruel master, whether Hebrew or pagan, and to be protected in his refuge by a law not only positively forbidding his rendition, but also protecting him in his chosen abode. Deuteronomy 23:15, 16. The slave found a protecting asylum the moment he set his foot on the soil of Palestine. Hence, no better fortune could befall one destined to slavery than that he should be sold into Palestine, where the mildest lot awaited him in Hebrew servitude, the furthest possible from chattel slavery. From Abraham down there is no instance of any man or master selling a servant as merchandise. Such buying, selling, or holding, against the will of the servant, or without his voluntary contract, was an oppression threatened with the wrath of God. Amos 2:6, and 8:6; Joel 3:2-8. Nor is there an instance of the purchase of a servant from a third person, or of his sale to a third person, or of his being put away from the family of the master, except as free. A daughter sold for a wife regained her freedom when defrauded of her rights. Exodus 21:10, 11. There were also various methods of emancipation. The rabbins specify five: 1.) Will; 2.) Money payment; 3.) Gift of free papers; 4.) Adoption; and 5.) The master dying, leaving no male heir. The Jewish Essenes and Therapeutae went so far as to abolish servitude in their own sects as inconsistent with the common brotherhood of mankind. The powerful sect of the Pharisees, by their hostility to the system, must have softened its asperities and limited its spread. But the grand amelioration was the system of periodical emancipation for the Hebrew every seventh and fiftieth year, and for the non-Hebrew every year of jubilee. “To one who should read this law, ‘Ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof’ — if there were no other to conflict with it, or that made it necessary to seek a different interpretation, the plain meaning of the statute would appear to be, that all who resided in the land, from whatever motive, or whatever were their relations or employments, were from that moment to be regarded as freemen.” — Albert Barnes. Not an instance can be found in Mosaism where “all the inhabitants of the land” is a phrase restrictively used of the Hebrews alone.

The various regulations with reference to the rights of servants constitute one of the chief difficulties in the harmony of the books of the Pentateuch. It is respecting them in particular that Rationalism asserts that the legislation in Leviticus stands in absolute contradiction to that in Deuteronomy; forgetting that the discrepancies might all vanish if we had the vast volume of details of which the Mosaic books are only the synopsis. To the Pentateuch, as to the Gospel of John, may well be appended, “that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” if every one of the sayings and doings of Moses should be written. 

It has been said by sceptical anti-slavery doctrinaires that the Old Testament is a millstone upon the neck of the slave. But a candid examination of its code of servitude proves that it is so much more humane than any other that it is almost freedom itself. Professor Goldwin Smith has given the most lucid discussion of this subject in his tract, “Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery?” He justly characterizes the Old Testament legislation as “a code of laws, the beneficence of which is equally unapproached by any code, and least of all by any Oriental code, not produced under the influence of Christianity.” The purpose was not to transform society by a miracle. That is not God’s method, which aims to limit, reform, and finally sweep away the evil usages already existing. When Moses was born slavery was universal. All wars ended either in the wholesale butchery of captured cities or in wholesale slavery. Bible servitude was of the very mildest type. It was domestic; the servant was one of the family, a companion of his master, armed for his defence (Genesis 14:14) and sharing his religious privileges, worshipping his God, and resting on his sabbath. Life and limb were protected by Mosaic statutes, which forbade the master’s rigorous rule. The periodic interruptions of this servitude by years of jubilee and seventh year releases kept the servant from hopeless chattelism. The marriage code, though to us seemingly harsh, was merciful indeed when compared with the ordinary codes and customs of slavery. There were no slave markets in Palestine, nor auction blocks, nor bloodhounds. Kidnapping, and the surrender of the fugitive fleeing from his heathen master, were punished as crimes. The Hebrew is most emphatically commanded to be kind to the stranger, which generally means the slave, and not maltreat or oppress him. When his term of servitude ended he was not to go away empty.