The Lord places us in families for particular purposes and blessings. Mine was a middle-class Reform Jewish family in Baltimore, Maryland. I am the only daughter and middle child with an older and younger brother. My parents did their best but had few good parenting skills from their own childhoods. My mother grew up in a wealthy environment until the stock market crash in 1929 when her family lost everything. Her mother died when she was seven, and she never formed good relationships with her stepmother or father. She held onto her hurts tightly, along with the values of her childhood. Money was a volatile subject that she and my father never discussed in my hearing. Later I learned that there were many times when our family was living on the edge of bankruptcy, despite having two housekeepers who also served as nannies. As I began life on my own, my view and practices of saving or spending money were also conflicted. By God’s grace, I learned how to manage my income effectively after I came to faith in Jesus Christ, and I developed a passion for helping those less fortunate who may be oppressed by poverty. When God called me to Africa, I wasn’t surprised since my desire for justice for poor and oppressed people had stayed with me, much as my mother’s values stayed with her. But I was in Africa to help the young and old raise their standard of living, not to rescue anyone. I saw some missionaries giving people all they needed as if they could not earn it while lay farmers worked their land to grow subsistence for their families. Street beggars wanted handouts, but poor volunteers were serving with honor. Some students were willing to work hard, and others resented their poverty, feeling entitled to a better life. But God never intends for us to belittle, oppress, or dishonor the poor by rescuing them if they can contribute to their subsistence. He also never commands us to neglect the less fortunate but to be ready to be respectfully compassionate to them. In Leviticus, we see these principles at work in God’s instructions. If someone had to commit to working for others to repay a debt or earn their keep, the Lord provided regular times of redemption. We, who are God’s people, are called to be respectfully compassionate to poor brothers, sisters, and neighbors through Christ’s grace and mercy. Christians especially strive for their gospel redemption by witnessing Christ’s sacrifice.
Kindness for Poor Israelites
“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you…If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.” (Leviticus 25:35-44) “God’s directions to His people about taking care of the poor were very practical, since they were about to become farmers in Canaan. In such a subsistence, agrarian economy it was easy for people to become poor. Furthermore, becoming poor was not just tied to a job loss or salary reduction. It came about by crops having too little rain or the death of an ox or a few goats. When tragedies like that happened to people a few years in a row, they would lose the ability to support themselves. That meant having no food. In Canaan virtually all the Israelites were poor farmers by our standards. So when God said in verse 35, ‘If your brother becomes destitute,’ He was referring to desperate, life-threatening poverty.” (1) “Creditors could not oppress their fellow Israelites. Instead, creditors were to provide them with loans, including food staples, so they could eat, and money, so they could buy seed, grow crops and ‘make a living.’ It is assumed that the creditor would let them work the land as tenant farmers, paying back their debt with the crops and making a little extra to support themselves. Creditors were also forbidden from taking advantage of debtors by charging interest on the loans. They were instead to show the same merciful love the Lord had shown them…This law effectively abolished permanent servitude of one Israelite to another (unless they so chose)…They are ‘permanent servants’ of the Lord, who brought them out of Egypt to be their King and they his people…the Israelites must not rule over these servants ruthlessly…the ways in which Egyptians had made Israelites’ lives bitter with hard labor. Naturally, Israelites must never repeat such wickedness, especially because these servants belong to the heavenly King. But in this context, the term ruthlessly might refer specifically to extending servitude beyond the agreed time limit, the Jubilee.” (2)
God’s Word on Slavery
“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.” (vs. 44-46) As we can see, slavery began a very long time ago. Many of us know about it from what we have learned about the African and other modern slave trades. Unfortunately, the slave trade still exists today. The latest Global Slavery Index reports, “Globally, nearly one in every 150 people are in modern slavery.” (3). “The Hebrew term, ‘ebed’… is sometimes translated ‘slave,’ which is misleading, since many moderns think of a ‘slave’ as ‘a person who is the legal property of another or others and is bound to absolute obedience, human chattel’…[with] no rights…But this type of slavery is forbidden to Israelites. To begin with, servants had legal rights in Israel. Israelite law stipulated that they went free if their masters abused them and that they had the right to rest on the Sabbath (Exod. 20:10). In addition, Israelite masters were commanded to treat their servants with compassion…The word ‘ebed is therefore better translated—depending on the context—as ‘servant,’ ‘indentured servant,’ or ‘permanent servant.’” (4)
Hebrew Servants Were God’s Property
“[Another] problem involving Leviticus 25 is that servants are described with terms normally reserved for property, suggesting to some that they were viewed as less than fully human…[But] In English, we regularly use commercial language to describe people when the context is commercial…To say that servants are property (Lev. 25:45) or inherited (25:46) is not to put them on the level of furniture, any more than to say a sports star who is ‘traded’ puts him on the level of a stock…these types of servitude, if performed under the humane conditions required by the law, ‘could be said to be little different experientially from many kinds of paid employment in a cash economy.’ In both cases, one person submits to the control of another and provides labour in exchange for certain benefits, whether money (in many of today’s economies) or food and shelter (in ancient Israel)….These benefits included protection from poverty, provision of regular food and shelter, and a place in a stable family. For those in poverty or facing it, this type of servitude was literally a lifesaver. The text does make clear that permanent servitude was not to be applied to Israelites (unless they so chose.) The reason is theological: they are servants of the Lord who had delivered them from Egyptian slavery into his permanent service. This rationale does not apply to non-Israelites, who have not experienced such redemption and are not naturally covenant members. But even here, the same legal safeguards applied…even those from foreign lands, would be treated as household members, and thus able to partake in Israelite celebrations like Passover and the feasting of Israelite festivals. This was the very opposite of dehumanization…Even when the ideal world comes [when ‘everyone will sit under their own vine and under their fig tree’ Micah 4:4], servitude will not stop. Indeed, in that world, all the Lord’s people will be permanent servants of the heavenly King—and will consider it the greatest blessing. It was the duty of the Israelite master to imitate his heavenly Master so closely that he gave his own servants a foretaste of that day.” (5)
Gospel Liberty from Enslavement to Sin
In “an attempt to put Leviticus 25 in the context of what the entire Bible says about the issue of slavery,” Mosley lists twelve biblical truths. A few that are relevant to our study are quoted here. “God commanded Israelites to love their neighbors and to treat the weak compassionately, commands that would eventually undermine the institution of slavery. Old Testament laws regulating slavery recognized the worth of persons and the inviolability of the family and required release in the case of harsh treatment. The slavery of fellow Israelites described in the Old Testament was allowed by God only to provide relief from debt and included provisions for the release of slaves [pointing to]…the gospel of Jesus Christ [which] equalizes people, since slaves are free in Christ and freemen are slaves to Christ. The New Testament emphasizes that no matter what our status (married, single, divorced, free, or enslaved) we are to use it as an opportunity to serve God and advance the gospel…As we share the gospel through example and words, people receive Jesus, their hearts are changed, and then societal structures change. Once the gospel is applied by enough people in a society, the elimination of slavery is inevitable…[And] the slave who knows Jesus always has an advantage over the master who does not.” (6) I went to Africa at the Lord’s bidding because he freed me from my enslavement to sin and Satan’s entrapments. Christ liberated me from my prison of self-righteousness and vanity. I was spiritually destitute, worthless to God or anyone else; then Christ redeemed me and continues to call me to exercise my freedom for the benefit of others. I belong to him; I am his permanent servant, saved from a life of never having or being enough. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Onesimus—the Story of a Liberated Slave
Paul wrote to Philemon about Onesimus, who seems to have run away and found Paul in Rome. Paul was God’s witness, used to bring him to faith Christ through God’s grace. Paul wanted to send him back to Philemon to be received as a brother in Christ. “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment…I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord…no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.” (Philemon 1:10-16) Is this not a beautiful New Testament account reflecting the principles of Leviticus? The Lord commanded Israel: “You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.” (Leviticus 25:10) “Jesus takes the principles of Jubilee and applies them to his mission. This is especially clear in Luke 4:18-19, where he reads from Isaiah 61, a passage that uses the language of Jubilee to describe a future restoration of the people of God…Jesus fulfilled the Jubilee principles on an entirely new level, by releasing people from physical sickness, demonic oppression and, above all, the debt of their sins, giving them present peace and a future hope that they were members of the family of God.” (7) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And [Jesus] rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” (Luke 4:18-21)
Related Scripture: Exodus 21:1-11, 26-27; 22:25; Deuteronomy15:12-18; 16:11-12;23:20; Acts 2:44-47; 4:34; 1 Corinthians 7:20-23; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-24; 4:1; Titus 2:9; Philemon 14-18.
Notes:
1. Moseley, Allen, Exalting Jesus in Leviticus, Christ-Centered Exposition Series, B&H Publishing Group, 2015.
2. Sklar, Jay, Leviticus, An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, IVP Academic, 2014.
3. https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/findings/regional-findings/overview/
4. Sklar, Ibid.
5. Sklar, Ibid.
6. Mosley, Ibid.
7. Sklar, Ibid.
August 3, 2023
Divine Wisdom for Daily Living by Joanne Colvin 