Judaism and Slavery - Biblical Era

Biblical Era

In antiquity, Jewish society allowed slavery. Slaves were seen as an essential part of a Jewish household. It is impossible for scholars to quantify the number of slaves that were owned by Jews in ancient Jewish society, or what percentage of households owned slaves, but it is possible to analyze social, legal, and economic impacts of slavery.

The Jewish Bible contains two sets of rules governing slaves: one set for Jewish slaves (Lev 25:39-43) and a second set for Canaanite slaves (Lev 25:45-46). The main source of non-Jewish slaves were prisoners of war. Jewish slaves, in contrast to non-Jewish slaves, became slaves either because of extreme poverty (in which case they could sell themselves to a Jewish owner) or because of inability to pay a debt.

In biblical times, non-Jewish slaves were drawn primarily from the neighboring Canaanite nations, and the Jewish Bible provided religious justification for the enslavement of these neighbors: the rules governing Canaanites was based on a curse aimed at Canaan, a son of Ham, but in later eras the Canaanite slavery laws were stretched to apply to all non-Jewish slaves.

The laws governing non-Jewish slaves were more harsh than those governing Jewish slaves: non-Jewish slaves could be owned permanently, and bequeathed to the owner's children, whereas Jewish slaves were treated as servants, and were released after 7 years of service. One scholar suggests that the distinction was due to the fact that non-Jewish slaves were subject to the curse of Canaan, whereas God did not want Jews to be slaves because he freed them from Egyptian enslavement.

The laws governing Jewish slaves were more lenient than laws governing non-Jewish slaves, but a single Hebrew word, ebed (meaning slave or servant) is used for both situations. In English translations of the Bible, the distinction is sometimes emphasized by translating the word as "slave" in the context of non-Jewish slaves, and "servant" or "bondman" for Jewish slaves.

Most slaves owned by Jews were non-Jewish, and scholars are not certain what percentage of slaves were Jewish: one scholar says that Jews rarely owned Jewish slaves after the Maccabean era, although it is certain that Jews owned Jewish slaves during the time of the Babylonian exile. Another scholar suggests that Jews continued to own Jewish slaves through the Middle Ages, but that the Biblical rules were ignored, and Jewish slaves were treated the same as non-Jews.

Scholars are not certain how faithfully Jews obeyed the slavery laws. Jeremiah 34:8-22 describes, in very forceful terms, how God punished the Israelites for not properly following the laws on slavery, and that suggests that the laws were not followed very strictly.