Bond Servants

A correspondent asked me to comment on Exodus 21:20-21.

Atheists attack it saying you can beat your slave half to death and if he dies a day or two latter your off the hook for manslaughter and the only punishment is the loss of the slave and your money. A slap on the wrist for the master. What is your opinion on all this?

You have asked a really good question. It illustrates the basic problem with the law.

• People who hate the law, read it looking for evidence against God.

• People who love the law, read it looking for evidence of God’s goodness. I presume that you are in this group.

Most human legal systems protect the rich and the powerful. God’s law works the other way. The verses in this part of Ex 21 must be read together, because they build on each other to provide protection for victims and the vulnerable, while preventing the perpetrator from wiggling out of their responsibility.

• It deals first with assault leading to death (vv. 12,13). I have written about that elsewhere.

• "Eye for eye and tooth for tooth" is not license for revenge (vv. 22-25). It was a method for working out the financial payment to be made in restitution for injury caused by assault. It is was a scale, a bit like the ones that accident insurance companies use today. An eye is worth more than a toe. Financial restitution must compensate the person for what they have lost from the loss of a limb or organ.

• Women are protected. In most cultures men can beat women, especially wives with out any consequences. Restitution for assault applies to women and wives in God’s law (v. 22).

• A person who is assaulted but recovers quickly is protected. If he recovers in a few days, there would be no permanent injuries to justify a restitution payment. In this case the assaulter is not let off the hook, but is required to care for the person while they are injured and compensate them for the time they have lost (vv. 18-19). Restitution is required whether the person recovers or not. If the person recovers, the restitution is for lost time, rather than lost limb or organs.

• Bond servants have the same level of protection. vv. 20, 21 must not be looked at in isolation, but is clarification of vv. 18-20. Most cultures allow servants to be mistreated without redress. God’s law treats everyone the same. If a man injures his bond servant, he must care for them if they are injured, but recover, as vv. 18-19 requires. However, there is a difference. The master does not need to compensate the servant for their loss of time. The reason is that the master has already bought the servant’s time, so he is the one who is losing while the servant is injured. The passage is not saying that the bond servant is a chattel as some suggest. It is saying that the master has already paid money for the bond servants time.

• A person becomes a bond servant when they got into debt. They bonded themselves for a time to someone in return for their paying their debt. The bible limited the bond to seven years.

• The NIV speaks of slaves in vv 18,19 and bondservant in vv. 26-27. This is misleading because the same Hebrew word is used in both. The bible does not support chattel slavery. I explain this here.

• The protection for bond servants was higher than for ordinary people (vv. 26-27). If a bond servant was permanently disfigured, they were set free. This was even more generous restitution than in vv. 18-19, and it did not set it aside. This protection was unique in being available for women as well as men.