The three laws on the release of slaves (Ex 21,2-11; Dtn 15,12-18; Lev 25,39-46)

Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Volumn 112, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 509-525

  Carmichael, Calum ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

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EID: 64949174280     PISSN: 00442526     EISSN: 16130103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/zatw.2000.112.4.509     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (35)

1. An abbreviated version of this paper was read at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 1997
2. J. Van Seters, The Law of the Hebrew Slave, ZAW 108 (1996), 534
3. For the probable source of this dominant mode of working with ancient material, see my comments in: The Spirit of Biblical Law, 1996, 1-4
4. also, J. G. Pocock's chapter, The French Prelude to Modern Historiography, in: The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law, 1957, 1-29
5. 21993
6. and F. Deng, A Challenge for Law among the Dinka of the Sudan, 1971
7. See D. Daube, Studies in Biblical Law, 1947, 190-200. The biblical narrator does not expressly draw attention to how God's justice works. The biblical lawgiver likewise does not expressly point to the Genesis episode when working out God's standards of fairness for a master-servant relationship
8. I should emphasize that the lawgiver, viewing the story from a particular angle, is not necessarily carrying over into the law the legal situation in the narrative - whatever precisely that situation is
9. G. C. Chirichigno also sees a close link between Jacob's time with Laban and a slave's acquisition of a wife from a master in Ex 21,4. He even goes so far as to suggest that the woman may be the owner's daughter (she is referred to as an 'īššāh, not as an 'āmāh), Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East, JSOT.S 141, 1993, 228-289. Noting the links between the law and the narrative, he thinks it likely that »the law in Exodus may have the background of Genesis 29-31 in mind« (229). He sees similar links between the Deuteronomic slave law and both the Laban and Exodus stories (287 f.)
10. Debt-Slavery, 236
11. When critics analyse these laws, independent of any possible link with the narratives, they too come to similar judgements about the curious slave but more than a slave status found in them. See, for example, Chirichigno: »most likely closer to the status of a free person than that of a chattel slave« (Debt-Slavery, 255)
12. J. I. Durham, Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary 3, 1987, 321: »less [status] than a full citizen but more than a full slave.«
13. Some textual variants of the LXX did, however, read lo', »not.« See J. W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus, 1990, 326 n. 13
14. As L. M. Epstein points out, it is not a full marriage with a bride price but a secondary one with a purchase price. See Marriage Laws in the Bible and Talmud, 1942, 58
15. S. R. Driver is alert to the redundancy, even though he accepts the emended reading, Exodus, CBSC, 1911, 214
16. See Mekh 3:24. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch think that another Israelite has to be the one redeeming her and not her father because, they assume, he would be too poor to buy her back. Again, however, Laban's relationship with Jacob provides illumination. Laban is not poor. See BC 2, 1887, 131
17. G. Hepner drew my attention to this possible link between the law and the narrative. The Massoretes suggested that instead of reading bgd, bā'gad (»fortune came«), should be read. Their emendation may be unnecessarily. Although the son born after Gad is Asher on account of whom Leah says that women will call her happy ('ašrê), it does not follow that Leah feels the same way. The term bgd would not then, as translators down the ages have thought, express Leah's positive assessment about Gad's birth
18. S. R. Driver struggles with the difficulty, Exodus, 214. Keil and Delitzsch are also aware of the problem but avoid it by arguing that it is the son's wife who must be in focus, BD 2, 131. Laban, it should be noted, expresses concern about Jacob's taking wives in addition to Rachel and Leah. He wishes an assurance, because of Jacob's attitude to Leah, that he will treat each of them with a status appropriate to a wife (Gen 31,50)
19. For Falk, see Hebrew Law in Biblical Times, 1964, 156, and for Paul, Studies in the Book of the Covenant in Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law, 1970, 56-61. I assume Paul is thinking of an openly recognised right. That there existed an unwritten, taken for granted right is another matter. The question then to be asked is what odd circumstances would prompt the need to bring the matter into open discussion. Jacob's relations with Leah would indeed constitute such circumstances
20. See Driver, Deuteronomy, 183
21. A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy, NCBC, 1979, 251
22. The Law of the Hebrew Slave, 541
23. Exodus, 211
24. Driver points out that the writing of words on a doorpost is an Egyptian custom and indicates that the house has come under the protection of a tutelary deity. He thinks the Egyptian custom »has been accommodated to the religious creed of the Hebrews,« Deuteronomy, 93
25. D. Daube sees parallels between the two stories precisely in regard to the notion of a master's provision of material benefits to a departing slave, The Exodus Pattern in the Bible, 1963, 66-72
26. A. B. Ehrlich, Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel 1, 1908, 295 f
27. also Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery, 292 f
28. M. Tsevat, Alalakhiana, HUCA 29 (1958), 125 f
29. J. M. Lindenberger, How much for a Hebrew Slave? The Meaning of mišneh in Deut 15:18, JBL 110 (1991), 479-482
30. The rule in Deuteronomy that comes after the rule about the release of slaves - in particular, immediately after that issue in it about the master's difficulty in letting them go - is about an apparently unrelated topic. The Israelites are to consecrate to God the firstborn of their animals (Dtn 15,19-23). The topics in the narrative - Pharaoh's harsh attitude in releasing slaves and God's responding by killing the Egyptian firstborn - account for both the choice and bewildering sequence of topics in the laws: the release of slaves and the requirement that Israel give firstborn of animals to God
31. Keil and Delitzsch had already noted that the relationship between the Israelites and Yahweh, their God-King, resembled the relationship between the Egyptians and their king, BC 1, 1869, 380
32. Not »Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant« (AV, similarly RSV and NRSV), but »They may not give themselves over into servitude,« (JPS), that is, the impoverished Israelites, not the masters, are targeted
33. At all periods in Egypt there was in fact free landed property, see D. B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph, VT.S 20, 1970, 237
34. It is the clash between this historical reality and the reality that is assumed by the lawgiver which underlies the views of Claus Westermann and Gerhard von Rad about the nature of the Genesis narrative. For Westermann, Gen 47,13-26 is an intellectual construction, Genesis 37-50: A Commentary, 1982, 173, and for von Rad, the narrative is schematic and reflects theoretical and etiological interests, Das erste Buch Mose, ATD, 1949, 357
35. The Levitical rules in turn are, I am claiming, also intellectual constructions. On the release of Israelite slaves in the Jubilee year, see C. Carmichael, The Sabbatical/Jubilee Cycle and the Seven-Year Famine in Egypt, Bib. 80 (1999), 224-239