CLAIM: Exodus explains: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property” (Ex. 21:20-21). Does the Bible teach that slaves are the “property” of slave masters?
RESPONSE: Because the slave was working off debt, Exodus refers to them as “property” (keceph). Literally, this Hebrew word means “silver” or “money.”[1] Of course, the person wasn’t literally made of “silver” or “money.” Rather, because the person was paying off their debt, they were equivocated with money, because they financially owed their employer.
The context shows that the servant wasn’t considered mere property (i.e. chattel slavery). After all, there would be no reason to punish an owner for taking the servant’s life if the servant was his own “property.” Yet, owners were punished for killing their servants: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished” (v.20). Later in the passage, the slave masters were punished for brutality—such as knocking out a tooth or harming an eye (see vv. 26-27), which was unknown in the ancient Near East. Kaiser writes, “This law is unprecedented in the ancient world where a master could treat his slave as he pleased.”[2]
The mention of recovering after “a day or two” relates to the context of two men fighting (vv.18-19). Earlier, if one man was beaten to the point of missing time from work, then the offender needed to “pay for his loss of time” (v.19). But what should an owner do with a servant if they get into a fight? Is the owner supposed to pay for his time off? No. The indentured servant already owed the man money through the form of work. This is why the law states that “he is his property.” Stuart writes, “There was, in other words, no point in asking the servant’s boss to compensate himself for the loss of his own servant’s labor. If the servant had been too severely punished, however, so that the servant took more than a couple of days to recover completely or was permanently injured, some combination of the terms of the prior law (vv. 18-19) and the law in vv. 26-27 would be used to make sure the employer did not get off without penalty.”[3]
For a thorough defense of OT slavery, see “The Bible and Slavery.”
[1] Gleason L. Archer, “1015 כָסַף,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 450.
[2] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “Exodus,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 433.
[3] Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 490-491.