(w.'
").
The ciiiidition of foreirjn {i.e. non-Hebrew) slaves has been already referred to, and will now be con- sidered in further detail. The captive taken in war naturally bore a somewhat heavier lot than the Hebrew slave who had pa.ssed into tliat con- dition by iin]ioverisliinent or debt. But there were mitigations even in tlic lot of a foreign slave. A foreign captive woiimn taken in war and made a
VOL. IV. — 30
concubine was to be treated with a certain defer- ence by her captor (Dt 21 '""•). The fact that the slaves of the household were circiuucised meant much. They were thereby received into a re- ligious community, and, by taking part in its sacra, shared in its protection. Thus from Dt jQia. IS 16"- 1» we learn that they partook of the passovcr and other sacrificial meals, and, as we can easily infer from Ex 20'", tliey enjoyed their Pabhatli rest from toil in common with their Hebrew masters. According to Rabbinic tradi- tion a slave could not be compulsorily circumcised, anil, if he was circumcised, he was not to lie sold to a foreigner, i.e. he was treated as though he were a Hebrew and not a foreign slave. Uut if he refused circumcision, he was to be sold after the expiration of a year. On the other hand, if before entering service he made the express stipu- lation that he was not to be circumcised, he might remain in bondage for an indefinite period ; see Jlielziner, Die Verhdltnisse der ISklaven, bei den alten Uebraem, p. 68.
C. Compensation for vnjury to slaves. — The earliest code of legislation sought to protect the Hebrew slave from maltreatment, and the rules we find on this subject (Ex 21»-2'-2«-") are very explicit on the whole. Smiting a slave so as to entail loss of eye or tooth entitled the slave to complete enfranchisement, and, in case death im- mediately ensued, a sure vengeance for such an act would be taken. If, however, tlie slave sur- vived for a day or two before his di!.ath, the punish- ment of his loss by death was considered penalty enough, for the money-value of the slave was the measure of the master's loss.
We note here some vagueness as to what the ' sure vengeance ' (v.-*), to be wreaked on the slave-owner who murdered his slave, was to be. We cannot fail to remark that the expression falls considerably short of tlie explicit language of v.", where the murder of a free Hebrew citizen is to receive the death penalty as its award. When we turn to tlie post-exilian legislation we observe the contrast. In Lv 24"* -'■' all distinctions and special provisos are swept aside. Even the national barriers were discarded in this case by the post- exilian Jew. Bond and free came under the same law as well as the foreigner and Jew. Every murdered man's death was avenged by death.
D. Law respect ill rf runaway slaves. — The benefi- cent legislation in Deuteronomy on this subject is based on the sacred rights of hospitality which we find not only amon" primitive Semitic nations,* but also in ancient Orreece. It runs : ' Thou shalt not deliver up a slave to his master, who escapes to thee from his master. With thee shall he abide in thy midst in the place that he chooses, in any one of thy cities that he likes.' It may therefore be readily inferrc<l that the recovery of a runaway slave in ancient Israel was far from easy. This we know to have been the case (cf. 1 K 2™). This was another circumstance that tended to mitigate the slaves' lot, by making it incumbent on the owner of slaves to make the conditions of their life tolerable.
6. Status of Female Slaves.— This varied considerably. As in the case of male slaves, the lot of the foreigner was not so favourable a« that of a Hebrew or home -born slave. Vet, on the whole, even the foreign captive might enjoy a position of comparative comfort. The humane legislation of Dt ai'""- ordained that a foreign captive woman taken in war and made a concubine
* Ues|iecting this law of the OBr see JiS* p. 76, ' From the eorlicst times of .Semitic life the lawlessness of the desert, in which every stranger is an enenij,', has been tempered with the principle that the guest is inviolable. A man is safe in tbs ini<lst of enemies as soon as he enters a tent or even touches the tent-rope ' ; c(. also p. 270.
466 SERVANT, SLAVE, SLAVERY
SERVANT, SLAVE, SLAVERY
«-n.s to be treated with a certain chivalrous de-
?erenoe the recite of a month hein- a lowed her
,v her 'captor. Note the position of the eai.t.ve
ifraete maiden in the Syrian gfe-ls house-
slaves in pre-exilian times evidently pre^allea amonc other Semitic races besides the HeWews. ■""a Heb ew female slave isdescribed by various ternis according to the position she held. If she became the concubine of'^her master or of his son^ she w^ designated by the more dignified term
HDMAssyr. amtu, Syr. 1ASd|, Arab. <U^ Phcen.
nD« ■ in fact the word is common to all Semitic UnKua°es, rendered in LXX by 5o^X^ or eepi^a^va.) Under Uie adverse circumstances brought about bv poverty, to which reference has akeady been mar it not infrequently happened that tl>e SauA\ter couJd not L disposed of as freebom in ordhiary marriage, because the utter poverty o the parents constituted a social barrier But if t le daughter was dowered with good looks, she could easily be sold as a slave, and the pnce she vouW obtain might not fall far shor of the ordinary mohar or purchase - money of a. tree "Cian,^ which in the 7th cent, amounted to 50 rekels or nearly £7 (Dt 22"-»). Under any nr- cuni'tawes the transaction in primitive Israe would not have differed essentially from that wh"ch took place when a marriage was contracted •til a free ^voman for whom purchase-n.oney called »oAar was paid as though she were a chattel* She would thus take her place as a concubine, and, if she bore children, her position sensblv improved. But if, as in the case of Ha^ar.^he was simply the property of her mis- tresf knd was introduced into this relation, the ri'htsof the mistress might impose somewhat 'allin^ restraints. AccorSinglv, she ni'ght ^^ called mx. as the concubine who bore c^nldren to her liiaster. and entitled to the rights of a married woman (see above), or, by the inferior e^l'nationof annrp or ' bond-slave,' called upon trifo menia^l tasks (Gnl6^cf. on the other hand "11" where Sarah herself calls Hag.ar njijt), since ;ie still remained under the control of the freeborn and superior wife (16»). n^. is .tl^^ «M;>e;^'o° which i woman does not hesitate, in the ordinary et^uette of social intercourse, to employ respect- ?n' herself when she is addressing a superior This corresponds to the expression J?V. emp o^ed l,v fl man under similar circumstances. 1 ms Qis ti^ncti^r he rank and dignity of the two terms made clear in the speech of AbigaU to DW „ I S "5" With true womanly dignity and courtesy combined she calls herself ntij, and yet consents to beS.me a nn.,. and do the menial task of washmg theTet of Pavid's slaves. It was to the no?*' that the laborious dutv was assigned of g^'"f '°g ^t the mill This is the word used to designate the sUve-gi 1 behind the millstones in Ex 11= where t e t«rm is employed to describe the lower end of the ,ocTal scale!^ The LXX render-So^X,, 9epd.a..a,