Jehovah doesn’t like it when people don’t follow the rules for slave ownership
Slavery was common among the Lord’s chosen people back when they actually followed the laws recorded in the bible. Nowadays everyone ignores most of the God’s laws so there is no more official slavery practiced in the Western world. Of course human trafficking is alive and well, primarily in the sex trade, but it no longer has any official government sanction.
When African slavery was practiced in the United States, the children of slaves always belonged to whoever owned the parents. Jehovah doesn’t think it should be that simple, that’s why God’s One True Slavery is clearly explained in the bible.
Whenever a Hebrew buys a Hebrew male as a slave, that slave automatically goes free after six years. Female Hebrew slaves are never released. Once you buy a female Hebrew, she’s yours until she dies or you sell her. If you buy a male Hebrew who is already married, you get the wife too, but after six years she and her children get released with the husband.
Let’s say that one day I decide I need some extra help in my winery; logically, I go down to the slave market to buy someone. I end up buying Stevinski. Stevinski is a 19 year-old bachelor. He was put up for sale because he borrowed money from a certain Mr. Loan Shark to bet on the New York Giants. When the Giants lost, Mr. Loan Shark went to the local authorities and had Stevinshi arrested for not paying back the debt. Mr. Loan Shark then had Stevinski sold to recover his money.
Fortunately for me, Stevinski is an excellent slave and does really good work in the winery. To reward Stevinsky I give him Paulette as a wife. Paulette is a fifteen-year-old slave I bought three years earlier from her father who needed some extra money to refurbish his house boat. Because there is no law requiring the eventual release of female slaves, I have no reason to not use Paulette this way.
Over the next four years, Stevinski and Paulette have two kids. Because Paulette is my slave, and not a wife who came into my service with Stevinski, the kids belong to me. The sixth year of Stevinski’s slavery ends and I tell him he’s free to go, but in accordance with God’s law, Paulette and the kids are staying with me.
Stevinski has the option to leave, but he decides that he loves his wife and children enough to stay a slave so they are not separated. Then I have to take Stevinski to the courthouse and he swears to a judge that he wants to remain a slave forever so he can stay with his wife and kids. Then I stab his ear with an awl to mark him as a permanent slave and he keeps working in my winery. He and Paulette have four more children, who also belong to me, and I end up with eight slaves for the price of two.
Moral: God wants Paulette and her children to belong to me for life, all so Paulette’s dad can get some extra cash.
Ref: Exodus 21:1-6
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