John Van Seters, A Law Book for the Diaspora (pages 84-95):
In my post, We’re Nice People!, Date of Song of Songs, Religious Evolution or Devolution?, A Roman Cure for Constipation, I talked a little bit about John Hobbins’ posts on slavery in the Bible. For Hobbins and a lot of biblical scholars, the law concerning slavery in Deuteronomy post-dates the one in the Covenant Code, and Deuteronomy demonstrates progression in its belief regarding the treatment of slaves. I referred to a rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College who suggested that the regressive Covenant Code law may have come later, as the Covenant Code author viewed Deuteronomy’s progressive law as impractical for the master. I wondered if John Van Seters would make this type of argument, for he sees the Covenant Code as later than Deuteronomy. Actually, he doesn’t think that the Covenant Code’s law is regressive.
Some words about the slavery laws in the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy. I specifically have in mind Exodus 21:2-6 in the Covenant Code, and Deuteronomy 15:12-18. Exodus 21:2-11 says that, whenever one purchases a Hebrew slave, the slave is to serve the master for six years and is released on the seventh year, without payment. Van Seters takes “without payment” to mean that the slave doesn’t have to buy his own freedom. He gets it free of charge! If the slave entered his service single, then he’s to leave single; if he entered it married, then his wife can leave too. But if the master gave him a wife and together they have children, then the slave alone can go free, unless he wants to stay with his master, his wife, and his children. If that is his desire, then he’s brought before God—to the door or the doorpost—and his ear is pierced with an awl. Van Seters takes the doorpost to be where the laws of God are written, for God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:9 to write his laws on their doorposts.
If a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, the Covenant Code continues, she will not be released with the male slaves. But if she fails to please her master, whom the text says has “designated her for himself” (in the translation Van Seters is using), then her master is not to sell her to foreigners, but is to allow her to be redeemed. The master is commanded to treat her as a daughter if she is designated for his son. If she is his and the master takes a second wife, he is still to provide his female slave with food, clothes, and conjugal rights; otherwise she can go free, free of charge. Van Seters contends that this is not an ordinary female slave, but something like a wife to the master.
In Deuteronomy 15:12-18, the topic is a Hebrew man or woman who sells himself to the master, perhaps to pay a debt. As in the Covenant Code, the slave serves for six years and goes free on the seventh. Unlike the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy explicitly states that the master is to furnish the slave generously from his flocks, threshing floor, and winepress. Like the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy allows the slave to stay with his master on a permanent basis if he (the slave) so desires, in which case his ear is to be pierced with an awl at the door.
For many scholars, Deuteronomy is improving on the Covenant Code on the issue of slavery, for, unlike the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy requires that the master release both male and female slaves, not only the male ones. And Deuteronomy explicitly commands the master to give the slave stuff when the slave is leaving, presumably so that the slave can make a fresh start with his life.
Van Seters disagrees, however, maintaining that the Covenant Code’s slavery law is actually trying to clarify or update the one in Deuteronomy. Van Seters seems to assume (if I’m reading him correctly) that the slave in Exodus 21:2 can be either a male or a female. And Van Seters claims that the author of the Covenant Code’s slavery law sees a problem in the Deuteronomy law. The Deuteronomy law says that a master is to release his female slave. But what if that female slave was sold to him by her father to be a wife? Is the master to let her go? For Van Seters, the Covenant Code addresses this detail by saying that she’s to stay with her master/husband, provided that he supports her.
Regarding the Covenant Code’s law about the slave leaving without his family, Van Seters argues that this takes effect when the slave is married to a woman whom the master gave him, presumably, a non-Israelite. In such a case, the Israelite would be a slave only for six years because that’s the policy for Israelite slaves, even in Deuteronomy, but the Gentile woman slave is to belong to her master forever. Again, Van Seters’ argument appears to be that the Covenant Code is addressing details that Deuteronomy does not. Deuteronomy doesn’t say what is to happen if the slave has a family; the Covenant Code, however, does, so it’s probably trying to compensate for Deuteronomy’s deficiencies.
Van Seters notes that Exodus 21:2 refers to a Hebrew master who has purchased the slave. According to Van Seters, the Hebrew is buying the slave from a Gentile. He provides the exilic/post-exilic setting for this law by appealing to Nehemiah 5:1-13, where Nehemiah states in v 8 that Judea under his authority has tried to redeem the Jews sold to the heathens. Far from being an unjust law, the Covenant Code’s law on slavery in Exodus 21 (according to Van Seters) is about the Israelites buying their Hebrew brothers and sisters from Gentile masters, and giving their new slaves better conditions.
Van Seters summarizes on page 95: It is the Covenant Code that has extended the laws of Deuteronomy…to new situations and not the reverse as has so often been stated. These situations have to do with life in the Babylonian diaspora, where large numbers of Hebrews were enslaved to foreigners living in the same region, not to their Hebrew “brothers” and not merely for debt [(the category of slavery that Deuteronomy 15 discusses}]. The “sale” of daughters into marriage, which was a foreign, Mesopotamian practice, appears to have been adopted by the Hebrew population in cases of financial necessity in this same exilic setting and clearly had to be made an exception to the Deuteronomic law that required the woman’s release after six years.