Exodus 21:4 is one of those scriptures that are very difficult to deal with. It appears to be a very cruel law when looked at in view of our modern culture and understanding of slavery. This is also one of the verses that the agnostics and atheists use to attack Christianity and Judaism and on the surface it would seem that they have a legitimate point. Many believers have found in their walk with God that to see Him in a good light we must look through the eyes of faith in His character and when they have done this, many times hard to understand things began to make more sense in the light of God’s love and revelation.

The bible is a very unique book inspired by the very Awesome and eternal God who is known to continually be testing the hearts of men. God literally hides himself behind darkness throughout the Old Testament and yet the beloved Apostle John tells us in John 1:5 that the message Jesus brought to the world was that in God there is no darkness. Could it be that God has put such verses as Exodus 21:4 in the scriptures to test the hearts of men with its appearance?

If we take a closer look at the context surrounding this unusual portion of scripture we will find that it comes directly after the giving of the ten commandments. The last six of those commandments had to do with treating other people with love, respect and honor. After Moses delivers these commandments he begins to expound on how to carry them out. In Exodus 21 Moses is actually dealing with how to love people and treat them right. In context God was teaching them through Moses that they should not enslave their neighbors for life against their will but should make provisions for them to be set free after a period of six years of service to them.

If we read the rest of this chapter we see that Hebrew women could be sold to be wives of Hebrew men but we do not see them being sold just to be servants of other Hebrew men. We can conclude by this and the historical culture that the female slaves that were given to the Hebrew male slaves were in all likelihood foreign women who had attached themselves to the Hebrews for one reason or another as bond servants. These ladies could be the descendants of servants all the way back to Abraham’s day or they could have been the spoils of past conflicts before the Hebrews ever ended up in bondage in Egypt. These female slaves lives were possibly spared, preserved or even rescued by the Hebrews and they were bond servants for life.

If a master was to give a foreign female slave to a Hebrew male slave for the purpose of producing offspring for the master or as a blessing to the Hebrew male slave so he could have the pleasures of a woman while in bondage then the Hebrew male slave had to understand that the foreign female slave and the children that came from her still belonged to his temporary master. It does not insinuate that the Hebrew male slave had to take a wife from his master while in bondage only that he could if the master offered it to him. In some cases the Hebrew male slave would fall in love with his temporary foreign mate and he would also love his master and he would decide to stay with them forever. This was not an easy decision to be made and there was clearly a very painful procedure to make it final.

We also need to remember that slaves could almost always be bought, sold or redeemed and the Hebrew male slave, upon his release, could set out to procure the freedom of his wife and children if he loved them but did not desire to stay a slave.

It is noteworthy to mention as well that generations earlier Abraham had been worried that his servant was the only one to inherit his estate because he had no sons. We see that lifetime bond servants were at least sometimes like family members in many ways. It appears that the “slavery” that was practiced among the Hebrews was nothing like the slavery our modern culture is familiar with. God never allowed the kidnapping of people or stealing from anyone at anytime in the scriptures. He also did not approve of cruelty and mistreatment. The slave trade we are familiar with today is one of vulgar immorality, cruelty, covetousness and wickedness. God never approved of such in any way.

Commentary by Jeff Hemley
Posted on: 1/23/2009 18:12 pm