Seder 153: Deuteronomy 23:15-16---Slavery and the Bible

 In Deuteronomy 23:15-16, Moses instructs, "You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you.  He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him.  You shall not wrong him."

This is one of those places where the Torah stands out from law codes of the Ancient Near East.  For example, item 16 in the Code of Hammurabi states:  "If a man harbor in his house a male or female slave who has fled from the palace or from a freeman, and do not bring him (the slave) forth at the call of the commandment, the owner of that house shall be put to death."

Generally speaking, ANE law codes had a bias toward the upper class and their property.  The Torah protects private property but has a greater emphasis on taking care of the vulnerable and promoting life.  

In a society where people suffering through famine and drought would need to have ways to work off debt, the Torah does not abolish servitude altogether.  Instead, it sets ground rules to curb abuses of indentured servitude and mistreatment of the poor (see Ex 21; Dt 15). 

Later, the early church was in no position to abolish slavery in the powerful Roman Empire.  Paul did not advocate the sudden overturning the social order (see Eph 6:5-9, e.g.), but he did work to set up an ideal community of mutual love within that society in which all held equal status as servants of Christ.  As he famously wrote to the Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In Paul's epistle to Philemon, he does not insist that Philemon free his runaway slave Onesimus, who has become a Christian.  But he does encourage Philemon strongly to do so, reminding Philemon that he owes his salvation to Paul (see Phm 19-21)

The Bible set human society on a trajectory toward the eventual abolition of slavery.  Today slavery is illegal almost everywhere, and Christians (e;g., William Wilberforce) were instrumental in making that happen.

Sadly, though, there is still much slavery in the world, and the church continues in its mission to change human hearts.