I was thinking about slavery a while back and came to a tentative conclusion that I would like to bounce of you guys. If we look at everything the Torah says, I think we can posit the possibility that the OT view of slavery didn't necessarily entail the involuntary keeping of slaves AFTER they had worked off their debts. Let's look at a few details (I'm just going off memory here and may be getting some details wrong).

 

1) Hebrew slaves could never be held indefinitely since they were God's servants. Thus, they had to be freed after debts were payed off and restored to freedom with a portion of the flocks, etc of the master. The idea there is the same as in 1 Cor. 7. There, Paul says something like "but if thou art able to become free, use if (i.e., FREEDOM) even MORE. For every freedman is the Lord's servant, and every servant is the Lord's freedmen." IOW, being free just makes us more accountable according to the principle that "to whom much is given, much is required." Likewise, Israelites were meant to be free except for cases of restoration so they could do MORE for God as priests and kings to the nations. The same level of accountability was not required of circumsized Gentile servants.

 

2) If an Israelite master gave his Hebrew slave a wife, then the wife and the children from that wife remained with the master (presumably until the year of atonement at the longest). Thus, the slave had the option to CHOOSE to remain the servant of the master (again, presumably until the year of atonement at the longest). This means that BEING a slave/servant is not NECESSARILY a forced state of affairs. This is important for what follows.

 

3) Gentile slaves were provided asylum in the nation of Israel (if they chose to live in accordance with the Torah, I presume). This implies that for a Gentile, BEING a slave for Israel could actually be BETTER than their alternative options elsewhere.

 

4) Gentiles were NOT allowed to own land in Israel. For the land was given to the seed of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob. Thus, for a Gentile to live in Israel, they pretty much had to be a proselytized slave.

 

5) This brings us to the part where God said that the Israelites could keep Gentile slaves unto perpetuity, unlike their brethren who were God's servants and could not, therefore, be perpetually kept from that duty. I had always assumed before that this meant that Gentile slaves could have been kept against their will. But the above examples of VOLITIONAL servitude seems to make this hypothesis unnecessary.

 

6) It may be that the verse about punishing a disobedient slave applies ONLY to those slaves that still OWE debt that hasn't been worked off. Why, e.g., would the master of that slave, who volitionally stayed with his master to remain with his gift-wife and his children, punish that slave so long as he was working to provide for himself? After all, the debt had already been paid off. So it seems reasonable to assume that the right to motivate a slave by punishment had to do with the fact that a debt was still OWED. In the case of a Gentile slave, that debt would be the very cost of the purchase of the slave. Beyond that, the slave was free to go. The master could even demand the slave leave if the slave wasn't satisfying the ends of the master. But punishment for refusal to work would be of no point once the debt was paid off, since relieving the slave would cease free-loading off the master just as well.

 

Putting these points together, I see no reason to assume that Gentiles were meant to be kept unto perpetuity INVOLUNTARILY. Remember, Abraham's servants fought with him against Sodom. They outnumbered him and were armed. Had they wanted to become free, they could have. But they DIDN'T. It is simply not true that EVERY human would prefer freedom (with the responsibility that entails under certain conditions) over slavery if the master is "good and gentle," to use Peter's description. In pre-modern conditions, choices were made with different consequences in mind than the ones we experience in our world.

 

There is always a degree of being "bound" in the economic world for all but the independently wealthy, even if that degree of "binding" is not legally enforced. There are many things that I restrain myself from saying or doing at work that I would not restrain myself from saying or doing elsewhere. Because there are CONSEQUENCES for those words and actions at work that "bind" me as surely as do the consequences of legal action against me. In the pre-modern world, consequences were different and had to be evaluated accordingly.

 

Justice has its ills in the form of accountability. Injustice has its ills as well. Supposedly, the former ills are less than the latter over the long term not only because of post-mortem accountability but because of how human nature actually works as well, pre-mortem.