I guess I did and while I can quote you a host of cotradictions, none bother me as much as the moral issues that are brushed aside. In Leviticus I can give you both a contradiction, a quote and a moral issue as you requested. However, it still changes the subject to some degree.
I am not sure that I would agree with moral issues being "brushed aside" merely because they may be addressed elsewhere in Scripture from where you see some detail mentioned.
I always continue to read the entire revelation of the Bible realizing that sometimes important factors are not always found in one place.
" However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)"
"However" opening verse 44 follows verse why the differentiation between treatment of the Israelites as opposed to the non-Israelite.
"For [they] are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have - you may acquire ... from the pagan nations ..."
God is allowing the Israelites to
purchase not kidnap, slaves. Kidnapping was a crime punishable by death
(Exodus 21:16).
God says that the Hebrews are His servants all since the liberation from Egypt.
So the
"However" involves the distinction. There is a difference established in the Isrealite servant / employee relationship and the foreign workers in Israel.
Leviticus 25:42-49 does not regard the foreign worker as nothing more than property.
We should examine what
precedes the text. There are other considerations as well.
These foreign workers cannot be compared to the kidnapped chattel slaves of the antebellum South. Stricter measures were required for resentful foreigners than for foreigners in Israel
cooperating as aliens willing to follow Israel's laws and thereby assimilating with the threocratic nation.
Since only Israelites were allowed to own land (that is land which belonged ultimately to their God Yahweh) foreigners who weren't in Israel just for business purposes were incorporated into the Israelite homes to serve there. They could choose to live elsewhere. If they chose to live in the land and would not follow on to become Israelites following Mosiac law God wanted them as servant / employee workers for the Jews.
Strangers in the land could choose the option to be released and become persons of means. Poor foreigners wanting to live in Israel were limited to voluntary servitude as the only probable option.
"Now if the means of the stranger [ger] or of the sojourner [toshab] with you becomes sufficient ..." is provision for the foreigner who rises economically.
" ... and a countrymen [Israelite] of yours becomes so poor with regard to him as to sell himself to a stranger who is sojourning with you, or to the descendants of a stranger's family, then he shall have redemption right after he has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle, or his uncle's sib, may redeem him, or one of his blood relatives from his family may redeem him; or if he propers, he may redeem himself." (See Lev. 25:42-49)
As to moral obligation, what did God command the Israelites concerning the stranger in the land?
Levititicus 19:33-34 commanded them to love such -
"When a stranger [ger] resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God."
Can you imagine any law on an slave ship leaving Africa that the whites should love the slave as they love themselves ? We see a difference in the slavery of the laws of Moses and the antebellum slavery of the Southern US.
Other things need to be examined and considered. But these should not be overlooked.
Foreign settlers could not acquire the land in Israel. The land belonged to God
(Lev. 25:23; Josh. 22:19) . God loaned it to the families of Israel.
An option for the foreigner (nokri) could be to become an alien (ger) if he embraced Israel's ways fully. Then he would no longer be a permanent outsider. Allowances were made for aliens in gleaning laws and other provisions.
Presumably these aliens was not forced to remain in Israel. Neither did they have to feel totally excluded from the host country. We can see from the lives of Rehab (from Jericho) and Ruth (the Moabitess) that emproved economic situation, status perks were theirs as well as right to sacred celebrations.
Oh that crazy Ezikiel
10 Feb '13 15:54
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