Exodus 21:1-11

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. This year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today.
We are at a difficult portion of the Bible, but one that's going to be very helpful, I think, as we continue to read through the law of God. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the great blessing it is to walk after you and to follow in your ways. Father, we pray that as we read your word this morning, that you would please help us to understand it. We pray that you would Let it be instructive to our eyes. Teach us about who you are and help us to walk in your ways in Jesus's name. Amen.
OK, so we're at Genesis chapter 21, Genesis chapter one, and we are going to read the first 11 verses, the first 11 verses. Now, this begins what's known by as the case laws, right? The case laws or sundry laws. So if a situation comes up, this is what must be done. And there's some moral questions in here that we're going to have to look at, some things we're going to have to explain. And so it's a really great passage for us to kind of see what's going to happen in Israel and what are God's priorities here. So let's go ahead and read. Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them. If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years.
And in the seventh, he shall go out free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.
And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go free without paying money. Well, we have need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So what is this about?
This is a law for Hebrew slavery. There's no getting around it. They lived in a time and age in which every law code of their day dealt with slavery. Why? Because it was real. It was real. Now, does that mean that slavery is a moral good thing? No, I don't think it does. I think we still have types of slavery in our own day. We'll get to that in a moment, most likely. But the point being is that we don't need to justify what's going on here. Because God is dealing with real people. in a real location.
If you go to the laws of Egypt, they have slavery. If you went to the Code of Hammurabi, you would find laws about slavery. If you went to laws that predated this by hundreds of years, they talk about slavery. Why? Because in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Near East, there was slavery all over the place. And this continued on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
There's statistics that show, you know, people get all squirmy about this even in the New Testament that Paul talks to slaves and the Bible in the New Testament during the Roman era talks to slaves. Because slaves are real. They're real people. And what we see even in the New Testament is up to some historians think that over half the population, maybe even two thirds of the population in Rome was either a slave, had been a slave, or owned slaves. It's the same in the Hebrew culture. And so there's a difference here, though.
What we're going to find as we read through this code for laws is that even slaves have human dignity and certain rights. And so as we go through the background of this and we work through this, we're going to see that God is dealing with real people in a real situation, and he's calling them to a higher moral standard, even with how they're going to deal with their slaves. So let's go ahead and look at that, right?
So first, These are the laws or the judgments that you shall set before them. God is telling this to Moses. When the people come to those rulers of tens and fifties and hundreds and thousands, and then finally you, here's kind of the principles of which you'll judge.
If somebody buys a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years. In the seventh year, he shall go free and pay nothing. This is essentially a term limit, right? You can't own a slave forever. His service to you only lasts for six years. In the seventh year, he must go free. We're going to find other laws that are going to talk about how when they bought slaves, or even when they had debt, right? It all depended on when that seventh year was going to come, when the Jubilee was going to come.
Because on that seventh year, you had to let them go free. Now, why would somebody be in slavery, especially a Hebrew, right? If you buy a Hebrew servant, Why would somebody go into slavery? Most often, as we look through the other law codes of the day, it's because of debt slavery. People who are so in debt, people who are so poor that they can't ever pay their creditors back. And so they find themselves in absolute destitution.
And so they'll look around and they'll say, well, there's, there's a wealthy person there. I'll go sell myself to them. And we notice selling themselves to them and they're going to get that. Slaves themselves are going to get money. We just need to just just talk about this for a second, right? This is very, very different than chattel slavery that we found in the American South and in American North. These are slaves.
Who they sold themselves into slavery. and they would receive that money to go pay off their creditors. That money was essentially saying, I'm gonna contract myself out to you for a set period of years, you're gonna pay me that money, I'm gonna take that money, and they're able to pay off their debts. It's very different than being stolen away, kidnapped from a foreign land, however you were acquired, right? Well, I don't know how deep to go into this with the history of African slavery, but there were many people vast vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of people who were stolen away from their families by intertribal wars and things like this in Africa and brought to the shores of West Africa to be sold to the Americas. They were not the benefiters of their slavery. That chattel slavery that was practiced is not what we're finding here.
So every six years, they're able to go free on the seventh year. And if he comes by himself, he shall go out by himself. If, though, he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. This is a protection for this man. If you're going to go in as a debt slave, it's not like the master now owns your wife also and you've lost her forever. No. No. God is saying there's a preservation here of the family unit time and time and time again. You read the stories of what happened in American slavery and families were ripped apart. That's not what this is talking about.
Another protection, if a master has given him a wife and she has born him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out by himself. Why would God allow this? Doesn't this seem like that breaking up of the family? Well, it could be. If the man wants to leave her, the master is saying, okay, I have another Hebrew slave, I'm gonna bring her.
Now remember, she gets freedom after this, six years also. But if he's brought on this person who has massive debts, So destitute that sells himself into slavery and the master provides him a wife and then that wife has children. That master is now obligated morally by God to provide for that woman and her children. He cannot just send them away. to be poor, to be under the pains of poverty and of destitution. So he must, before he, this is all meant to make a master think, right?
Before I bring on this male slave, I need to recognize I don't own him for life. He's got human dignity in and of himself. I'm not allowed to own him. And if I give him a wife, I've got to, for the rest of that person's life, care for her and her children. It's meant to make the Israelites step back and think, do I really want to enter into this contractual agreement? And do I really want to give this man another a wife or do I just let him work for me for six years?
And then he goes off and does his thing. But if the servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children. I will not go out free. So the man comes in poor and destitute. And then he finds that this is actually pretty good working for this master, right? He's played matchmaker. He's given me a wife and now we have kids. We have a family here. This is good.
Now it's up to the slave. Notice it's up to the servant. He can choose to stay in his master's house forever. Again, that would put you on your heels if you're a master. you're coming into a contractual agreement that was not just hold on you know I can take care of your debt but if you're going to do that you are also coming with the risk of saying you are going to support a man his wife and their children the rest of their lives. Sure you want to do that?
This is a protection of that family. It's not meant to be cruel. Speaking into the real situation of what happens in society, what they've seen all around them. And God is saying, you're going to take care of them. If there's gonna be this slavery, if there's gonna be this stuff, guess what? It's not gonna look like the other nations where there's allowed to be cruelty and things like this. If there's gonna be debt and there's gonna be this contractual type agreement that happens, there are rights to this that the slave has.
And there's a ceremony to this also. You're not allowed to just do this. You've actually got to take it to the judges And the judges are going to try to figure out, is this this guy who actually wants to do this? Or is this just you wanting to actually do this? The judges are to hear it out of the servant's own mouth. Yeah, I love this guy. He treats me and my family well. Yeah, I think I think I'd like to keep this contract forever. All right, well then there's an official sign for that to show that the judges have clearly done this. They're going to pierce your ear right through the earlobe to show that you are that master's servant for life. This is This is a contractual type obligation. Now we need to be clear about something else here.
People have written things even in reformed circles that is absolutely horrible about they will take a passage like this and show perpetual servitude and they'll try to say, see, see the Lord's okay with this perpetual servitude as long as it was based upon love and fidelity. And they'll try to come up with stories that would justify the chattel slavery of the South in America. This is deceitful. This is deceitful.
Go read the literature yourself and you'll find you might have a few people who would be willing to do that, but not most. How do we know it's not most? Because there's something called the Great Migration. Because as soon as slavery was Eradicated, canceled out in the South, slaves fled. Hundreds of thousands of people left the plantations to go get their freedom. and went to the North to go find economic freedom because they had not been given what this passage is talking about. So don't let people try to fool you into thinking that somehow the South was morally upright keeping these types of laws.
This isn't the case. It's not the case. Okay, so let's go, and I'm simplifying things, right? So people are gonna argue about this and that's fine. We could talk more. Maybe if you wanted to send me an email or call. All right, so verse seven, it changes a little bit. This is, if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. Okay, so now there's a different category.
First was a man, a Hebrew man being sold into slavery. Now it's a female being sold into slavery. This again is primarily, as we read through other ancient Near Eastern documents, regularly this debt slaving. Somebody is so poor or so in debt, that they come into a contractual agreement with somebody, that they will be taken care of, that they will serve that person, and that it'll be for their well-being. And so a man sells his daughter to be a female slave. Imagine the amount of destitution a man must be for this. A father's not just gonna do this quickly, but why would he? Because he thinks if I sell my daughter to him, he'll take her as a wife.
This is essentially an arranged marriage, saying he's gonna give me a dowry, and because of that dowry, I'm gonna be able to feed the rest of my family, will be cared for. Well, if she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, notice, he's taken her to be his wife, then he shall let her be redeemed. Notice that.
She's not forced to stay in this marriage. If this ain't working out, He's not to be cruel to her and keep her locked in as if she's some type of sex slave. No, that's not supposed to happen. He shall have no rights to sell her to a foreign people since he has dealt deceitfully with her. He's not allowed to keep her airtight locked in. Nor is he allowed to just send her away, right? Well, she doesn't please me, so I'm just going to send her to the Amalekites. I'm just going to sell her to the Edomites. No. No, she has certain rights that the master, her husband, must keep.
This is to protect the human dignity of this woman. Again, do we want this type of laws in society, in our nation? No, I would say I think that we have even better laws today that improve upon the human dignity. I'm thankful that we don't see this type of thing. But maybe we do. As we see human trafficking, as we see pornography, as we see, you know, there's websites and articles that come about in the last few years that show, and I'm not saying I watch these videos, I'm saying the reporting on these videos talk about girls and women who are stuck and trapped by oppression and by men buying them. and it being taped for pleasure. So other men can watch vicariously. This is evil in our own land. If we think we're more morally upright than these people, we got a real problem.
And then he says in verse nine, and if he has betrothed her to his son, He shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. Again, do you see the rights of the girl here? She's not allowed to be treated like a second class citizen. Like, Oh, you know, we've got these other, these other women in our family and they're this way. And then there's that slave girl when she was married to the son, but we don't really talk about her. No, she's to be treated like a daughter. All the full rights and privileges of the family are hers.
And then it says in verse 10 again, it's just dealing with a real life. I don't think here that God is saying that polygamy is right. He's just dealing with a society as it is. He's dealing with their hearts as they are. It's the same way we're gonna get to with divorce. And in verse 10 he says, if he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. There's three things. Right?
He's not allowed to do. If he has taken this woman to be his wife, he's given this large dowry to this father, he must, even if he brings on another wife, he must still be a husband to that woman. He says he must give her her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. He's not allowed to start decreasing her diet. He's not allowed to start not buying her clothes. And he's not allowed to stop sharing the bed with her. Marriage rights go both ways here. He's not allowed to disinherit her.
Now, we might not like, we might think like, oh, what do you mean? She's got marriage rights. Remember, this is a society in which having children, having sons, is how you have a legitimate claim to the inheritance, to the property. And he says, she has marriage rights. She has food rights. She has clothing rights.
You're not allowed to leave her destitute. This is what God is doing here, and he says, and if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go without paying money. If he does do these things and it goes before the judges, the judges are to tell that woman, he's a horrible husband, he's not a godly master, and you're free to go. You don't have to stay here.
So what's this section about? I think this is a good section actually for us to start with as we start going through the legal codes, as we go through the case laws, because there's a few principles here. God is dealing with real people in a real place, in a real society. And he is setting down laws and they're going to start reforming the people and the principles behind those laws or what the judges are to be looking at. These people are to be treated with respect.
They are not like some type of animal. For six years they have labor and the seventh year they get to go free. They have rights in the Ten Commandments that on one in every seven days, they don't have to work. When there's a feast day, they don't have to work. They have rights in the covenant of God. This is not the type of slavery that the Israelites had when they were in Egypt.
They were to remember, we're going to see this elsewhere, they were to remember that they were slaves in Egypt and the harsh bondage that they had and their society was meant to be better, was meant to show a higher way. What we're going to find is if you go through the New Testament. The commandment for Christian masters steps it up a notch, steps it up a notch. So what we see is that biblical theology shows us that even when we're in these societies and there are these oppressive parts of society, we're to step up the morality and show a higher standard even as we live in that society. So maybe I just got you to see calling. We don't have debt slaves today. But maybe you are a Christian.
Who's the one who works for a credit card company or runs a bank or has a whole bunch of employees? How do you treat the people who are under you? How do you treat your workers? They're not your slaves. They are not your slaves. but you are their superior. Do you treat them with human dignity and respect? Do you give them the wages that they deserve? And do we look down upon the poor? Or do we treat them with dignity?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that you have called us your slaves. We were slaves to sin and death. But you have redeemed us with the blood of your own son, not with money or gold or some imperishable thing like that, but you have called us your redeemed ones. And all throughout the New Testament, Lord, we are referred to as your slaves, your servants. And yet, Lord, you have also given us your spirit and you have called us sons and daughters.
Thank you that you have dealt with us with dignity and respect. You have looked upon us with kindness and grace. You have betrothed us to yourself, and you do not withhold any good from us. Lord, please, let us walk before you and love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, may you rest in Jesus. May you love the Lord, and may you love your neighbors. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa 5 to 6 4 0 may God richly bless you today