39 Bible Verses about Slavery, In Ot
Most Relevant Verses
"When you approach a city to wage war against it, extend terms of peace. If it agrees to peace and welcomes you, then all the people found in it will serve you as forced laborers.
The king of Sodom told Abram, "Return the people to me, and you take the possessions for yourself."
After this, the Israelis took captive the Midianite women and children and confiscated as spoils of war all their cattle, livestock, and their goods.
On one of their raids to the territory of Israel, Aram had taken captive a young girl when she was an infant, who had eventually become an attendant to Naaman's wife.
The Israelis carried away 200,000 women, sons, and daughters from among their own relatives. They also took a great deal of plunder, and brought it all to Samaria.
"As for your male and maid slaves who will be with you, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations. You may also buy from resident aliens who live among you and their families who are with you, whom they fathered in your land. They may become your property.
As it was, when Joseph arrived where his brothers were, they stripped off the tunic that Jacob had given him that is, the richly-embroidered tunic that he was wearing. They grabbed him and tossed him into the cistern, but the cistern was empty. (There was no water in it.) After this, while they were seated, eating their food, they looked around and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with camels carrying spices, balm, and myrrh for sale down in Egypt.read more.
Then Judah suggested to his brothers, "Where's the profit in just killing our brother and shedding his blood? Come on! Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites! That way, we won't have laid our hands on him. After all, he's our brother, our own flesh." So Judah's brothers listened to him. As the Midianite merchants were passing through, they extracted Joseph from the cistern and sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who then took Joseph down to Egypt.
Now there happened to be a certain woman who had been the wife of a member of the Guild of Prophets. She cried out to Elisha, "My husband who served you has died, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. But a creditor has come to take away my children into indentured servitude!"
"If a thief is found while breaking into a house, and is struck down and dies, it is not a capital crime in that case, but if the sun has risen on him, then it is a capital crime in that case. A thief shall certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he is to be sold for his theft.
"If your brother with you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you, you are not to make him serve like a bond slave.
"When a fellow Hebrew male or female slave is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you are to set them free.
Now the people along with their spouses complained loudly against their fellow Jews, because certain of them kept claiming, "Since we have so many sons and daughters, we must get some grain so we can eat and survive." Others were saying, "We're having to mortgage our fields, our vineyards, and our homes so we can buy grain during this famine."read more.
Still others were saying "We've borrowed money against our fields and vineyards to pay the king's taxes. Now our bodies are no different than the bodies of our relatives, and our children are like their children. Nevertheless, we're about to force our sons and daughters into slavery, and some of our daughters are already in bondage. It's beyond our power to do anything about it, because our fields and vineyards belong to others."
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and children belong to her master, and he is to go out by himself.
Generation after generation, every male among you is to be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, including the servant born in your house or the one purchased from a foreigner, who is not of your offspring. The servant born in your house or the one purchased with money is to be circumcised. My covenant is to remain in your flesh as an eternal covenant.
"Is Israel a slave, or was he born a servant? Why then has he become plunder?
So David mustered his entire army and marched on Rabbah, attacked it, and captured it. He confiscated the crown of their king from his head it weighed one talent in gold and was set with precious stones and it was placed on David's head. He confiscated a great amount of war booty that had been plundered from the city, brought back the people who had lived in it, placing them under conscripted labor with saws, iron picks, and axes. He did this to every Ammonite city, and then David and his entire army returned to Jerusalem.
So the Egyptians placed supervisors over them, oppressing them with heavy burdens. The Israelis built the supply cities of Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. But the more the Egyptians afflicted the Israelis, the more they multiplied and flourished, so that the Egyptians became terrified of the Israelis. The Egyptians ruthlessly forced the Israelis to serve them, read more.
making their lives bitter through hard labor with mortar, bricks, and all kinds of outdoor labor. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.
Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and asked them, "Why did you deceive us by saying "We live far away from you,' even though you were, in fact, living in our midst? Now therefore you are under a curse. Some of you will always be slaves, wood cutters, and water carriers for the house of my God."
However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites live within the territory of Ephraim to this day, but they serve as forced laborers.
When Israel had grown strong, they subjected the Canaanites to conscripted labor and never did expel them completely.
The people who survived from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not related to the Israelis, and whose descendants had survived them and continued to live in the land because the Israelis were unable to completely eliminate them, Solomon placed under conscripted labor, a situation that remains in effect to this day.
"When a man sells his daughter as a servant, she won't go out as the male servants do. If she's displeasing to her master who selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He does not have the right to sell her to foreign people, because he has dealt unfairly with her. If he has selected her for his son, he is to treat her according to the ordinance for daughters. read more.
If he takes another woman for himself, he may not withhold from the first her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. If he does not do these three things for her, she may go out without paying anything at all."
You are to do your work for six days, but on the seventh day you are to refrain from work so that your ox and donkey may rest, and so the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed.
Six days you are to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You are not to do any work neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your livestock, nor any foreigner who lives among you
then bring to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling place where he will establish his name everything that I'm commanding you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your hand-carried gifts, and all your best offerings in fulfillment of promises that you pledged to the LORD. "Rejoice in the presence of the LORD your God you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the descendant of Levi who is in your city for there is no territorial allotment for him as you have.
Look!" Abram said, "You haven't given me any offspring, so a servant born in my house is going to be my heir."
"Don't hand over a slave who escaped from his master when he runs to you.
If he isn't redeemed by these, then he is to be set free in the year of jubilee he and his children with him because the Israelis are my servants. They're my servants, since I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God."
"If your brother with you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you, you are not to make him serve like a bond slave. Instead, he is to serve with you like a hired servant or a traveler who lives with you, until the year of jubilee. Then he and his children with him may leave to return to his family and his ancestor's inheritance.
"When you acquire a Hebrew servant, he is to serve for six years, and in the seventh he is to go out a free man without paying anything.
If he came in by himself, he is to go out by himself. If he was married, his wife is to go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and children belong to her master, and he is to go out by himself. But if the servant, in fact, says, "I love my master, my wife, and my children, and I won't go out a free man,' read more.
then his master is to bring him before the judges and he is to bring him to the door or to the doorpost. His master is to pierce his ear with an awl, and he is to serve him permanently.
"When a fellow Hebrew male or female slave is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you are to set them free. But when you set them free, don't send them away empty-handed. Provide for them liberally from your flock, threshing floor, and wine vat. As the LORD your God has blessed you, so give to them. read more.
Don't ever forget that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, yet the LORD your God redeemed you. Therefore, I'm giving you these commands today. "Should that slave say to you, "I won't leave you,' because he loves you and your household, and it was good for him to be with you, then take an awl and pierce through his earlobe into the door. Then he will be your slave forever. You are to do the same for your female slaves. Don't view this as a hardship for yourself when you set him free, for he will have served you for six years twice the time of a paid worker. Then the LORD will bless you in all that you do."
This is this message from the LORD that came to Jeremiah from the LORD after Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem proclaiming release for them. Each person was to set free his male and female slaves who were Hebrews, so that no Jewish person would enslave his brother. All the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant agreed that each would set his male and female slaves free so that they would not enslave them any longer. They obeyed and they released them. read more.
But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves that they had set free, and they forced them to become male and female slaves. Then this message from the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "I made a covenant with your ancestors on the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. I told them: "At the end of seven years, each of you is to set free your fellow Hebrew who has sold himself to you and has served you for six years. You are to send him out from you with no further obligation." But your ancestors didn't obey me or pay attention. You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming release for one another, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name. But then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves whom you had set free according to their desire, and you forced them to become male and female slaves."' "Therefore, this is what the LORD says: "You haven't obeyed me by each of you proclaiming a release for your brothers and neighbors. Now I'm going to proclaim a release for you,' declares the LORD, "a release to the sword, to plague, and to famine, and I'll make you a horrifying sight to all the kingdoms of the earth. I'll give over the men who transgressed my covenant, who haven't fulfilled the terms of the covenant that they made before me when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. I'll give them to their enemies who are seeking to kill them, and their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the animals of the land.
"If a resident alien or traveler becomes rich, but your relative who lives next to him is so poor that he sells himself to that resident alien or traveler among you or to a member of the resident alien's family, he has the right to be redeemed after he sells himself. One of his brothers may redeem him. His uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him or any blood relative from his tribe may redeem him. If he becomes rich, then he may redeem himself.read more.
"He is to bring an accounting to the one who bought him, starting from the year he had sold himself until the year of jubilee. The price of his sale is to correspond to the number of years comparable to the time a hired servant stays with him. If there are still many years left, he is to refund the cost of his redemption. But if only a few years are left until the year of jubilee, he is to bring an accounting of the years that he is to refund for his redemption. Like a hired servant, he is to remain with him year after year, but he is not to rule over him with what you see as severity.
You may give them as inherited property to your children after you, to own as properties in perpetuity. You may make bond slaves of them, but no one is to rule over his fellow Israeli with harshness.
"If the ox gores a male or female servant, the owner is to give 30 shekels of silver to the servant's master, and the ox is to be stoned.
"If your brother with you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you, you are not to make him serve like a bond slave. Instead, he is to serve with you like a hired servant or a traveler who lives with you, until the year of jubilee. Then he and his children with him may leave to return to his family and his ancestor's inheritance. read more.
Since they're my servants whom I've brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves.
When they entered the region of Zuph, Saul told the young man with him, "Come on, let's go back so my father does not stop worrying about the donkeys and become anxious about us." The young man said, "Look, there's a man of God in this town. The man is respected, and everything he predicts happens. Now, let's go there. Perhaps he can tell us about the journey on which we have set out." Saul told the young man, "Look, we could go, but what could we bring the man? The bread is gone from our bags, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have with us?"read more.
The young man answered Saul again, "Look here! I have in my hand a quarter shekel of silver. I'll give it to the man of God, and he will tell us about our journey." (Previously in Israel, a person would say when he went to inquire of God, "Come on! Let's go to the seer!" because the person known as a prophet today was formerly called a seer.) Saul told his young man, "That's a good suggestion! Come on, let's go!" Then they entered the town where the man of God was.
