May 5, 2018: Day 21 – Exodus 21

I’m tempted to avoid the whole discussion of why these laws were really necessary and what application is there for us in this day and age, but I won’t.  There is no justifying the disparity of how men and women are treated in this chapter.  There is no justifying the acceptance and the institutionalization of slavery in the Israelite community.  In Moses’ time and before, and then even after, slavery was a part of life.  It was wrong, but it was a part of life.  Slavery tended to be institutionalized by nation states who took over certain regions and those natives would be taken as property and booty for the war. 

It was also common for slaves to come from afar and brought into the urban regions of those nation states which are in charge.  You think of Babylon and how it took the nation of Israel out of its promised land and to its own land and there the Israelites were slaves.  Look at Psalm 137 and you will see that Scripture which speaks of the treatment that the Israelites had at the hands of the Babylonians, forced to sing in a foreign land.  Moses and his people were used to being slaves in Egypt. 

You would think that if you have experienced atrocities against you then you would be less likely to commit them yourself.  But that is never historically the case.  In the genocides that have taken place they are usually a response against a people whom those in power feel have harmed or committed terrible acts against them.  Now that they are in power it is time to give them a taste of their own medicine.  That is not what our Savior commands, but reading these laws in Deuteronomy one would think it is okayed by God, it is not. 

As a result we can categorize these Scriptures as God’s command for a certain time to a certain people simply because they are not consistent with all of Scripture which speaks much more uniformly about a God who would never allow or imagine that a person would actually own another.  That is not in any way loving your neighbor as yourself.  That has to be a 21st century application to a Scripture which seems to state something very different.  Likewise we see how women were so very differently treated in Scriptural times.  As we take the stance that in the eyes of God there is no male and no female, there is no hierarchy or order of gender in God’s eyes, then these Scriptures in Deuteronomy give us an insight as to how a theocracy was run by the Israelites.  It gives us insight into the people of God of the Old Covenant.  We give thanks to God that the New Covenant came in Christ which shows us a very different way to live.