Shemot (Part 3) - Exodus 1:1-6:1

(For an overview of this week's parashah, you can read part-1 here.)

Slavery in the Torah

I have gone into extensive detail about Biblical Slaver in another post. Be that as it may, here is a short breakdown of the types of slavery:

1. Non-Hebrew female for breeding
2. Non-Hebrew female for work
3. Hebrew female thief
4. Non-Hebrew male
5. Mamzer thief (a Hebrew offspring from a forbidden relationship)
6. Hebrew male thief.
7. Bondsmen (Hebrews who volunteer to be slaves due to destitution) 
8. Hebrew male redeemed from non-Hebrew
9. Hebrew Female redeemed from non-Hebrew
10. Hebrew female daughter (a servant for several years before being accepted as a concubine)

There are others, of course. A slave is one who has a lord, a master, an owner who can decide how to use his property. In that sense, an "eved-YHVH" and an "eved-Elohim" are those who have YHVH and Elohim as their master. If He wishes to dispose of them or reward them, He may do so.

Eved vs Oved

There is a Christian apologetic that there is no slavery in the Torah.

That is untrue.

Where the word "eved" (אבד) appears, it is a male slave. Where the word "oved" appears (אובד), is is a male servant. The difference between an ABD and an AOBD ("eved" and "oved" shown, using the alphabet to represent Hebrew letters), is the difference of a single letter. And most of the time, a grammatical indicator is used in place of the letter in the Masoretic text, making it difficult for some people to spot.

When pluralized, servants go from "oved" to "ahvdim" (אבדים), which, again, would be spelled the same as "slaves", but is pronounced differently to distinguish them from one another.

Where are the commandments about slavery?

I'll omit the few verses in Genesis that talks about slaves, since they aren't commandments.

All of the commandments about slavery can be found in the Book of Leviticus, and the Book of Deuteronomy.

That's it.

Oh, and there is no slavery in the Book of Exodus.

The status of the Egyptian Hebrews

Repeatedly, we are told that the Jews served the Empire. They had no lord, or masters. The Egyptians were racist, and we read that they were "disgusted" by the Hebrews, who were breeding like rabbits and not contributing to society. So they decided to force them to work.

It should be noted that, according to historians, much of the Egyptian populace volunteered their time to work on government projects, such as building the pyramids, which were done by the locals, and not by slaves. Slaves typically were those captured in war, with the males being castrated and their right hand cut off, and relegated to whatever minor tasks that they could be assigned.

Granted, the story in Exodus doesn't have to match reality. I just wanted to bring that up!

We read that the Hebrews had property, flocks, homes, neighbors from whom they could "borrow" things.

And when they were forced to work harder than everyone else, they cried out. Not to God,, but they just cried out. And YHVH heard and remembered.

Yes, the Egyptians were bigots and racists and mistreated these immigrants, but the text doesn't say "slave". Not only that, but the Aramaic Targum, Onkelos, doesn't say it either.

The idea that the Book of Exodus was about slavery came much later.

The Haggadah

The author(s) of the Haggadah tweak a number of stories from the Book of Exodus. As noted, it says that the Hebrews cried out to God (the text doesn't say that). The Haggadah also speaks extensively about the slavery of the Hebrews, over and over.

I could make a long list of the things that the Haggadah gets wrong (maybe I'll do that around Pesach time), but let's just say that the text, which traditionally is recited year after year to the children and family and friends, causes one to believe that what one is reciting, is what is in the Biblical text.

It isn't.

Memes

In closing, here's a couple of memes to show what I have been expressing in this post.