Solomon’s Forced Labor (And Forced Labor All Throughout the Scriptures)
Exploring What the Bible Really Says About Slavery
One of the core contentions of this book asserts that there was no slave class in ancient Israel. There were no people groups relegated to the status of chattel slavery, as witnessed in the American south, and in many other countries around the world.
One of the common objections to this claim is the notion of “forced labor.” In a handful of places throughout the Old Testament, the people of God subject various groups to forced labor.
On the surface, this seems to be exactly what I claim does not exist: a class of slaves, a class of people forced to perform slave labor against their will.
Yet, as with most claims of this type, the solution is to open each passage, read it in full, and discover exactly what it is going on.
Let’s begin with King Solomon.
While other kings and queens faced constant warfare, Solomon reigned through 40 years of peace. During these peaceful decades, he pursued building projects of all kinds — and building projects require laborers:
Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of 30,000 men from all Israel. He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of 10,000 men, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.
Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers.
And the king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones. So Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the construction of the temple. (1 Kings 5:13-18 ESV).
It’s always best to let the Bible define its own terms. In the first paragraph above, the term “forced labor” appears. In Hebrew, it’s the word ham-mas, indicating a tax paid through labor. But even if we ignore the dictionary definition, the previous verses explain clearly what was occurring.
Solomon fought no wars. Whereas other kings drafted civilians to become soldiers, Solomon drafted civilians to become builders. Solomon conscripted a labor force to build his projects, giving these laborers one month on duty and two months off duty.
It is vital to note that these builders came from “all Israel.” These were not foreigners or captives, but normal Israelite citizens.
In a military draft, the soldiers are not slaves. They may feel like it, at times, as they’re commanded to do things they’d rather not do. But once the fighting is done, soldiers can return home. They remain normal citizens with all the rights and privileges that normal citizens possess.
Solomon’s draft resembled this. The builders retained their rights and privileges, even to the point of getting two months off for every month on duty.
It may seem strange to us, but imagine how this could feel to a young man in Israel. Growing up, he’s heard of endless wars during the times of Saul and David, how the kings drafted young men and sent to the front lines, facing hordes of enemy soldiers. While such wars can produce opportunities for glory and honor, they can also produce a lot of dead bodies.
But then Solomon takes the throne and runs his kingdom wisely, not angering his neighbors, not seeking aggression, but emphasizing peace and prosperity. This young man no longer fears being killed in a war. Instead of fighting and dying, he gets to spend his energy building up his country, making it stronger, safer, more beautiful, and more prosperous. Instead of being sent off for years to fight on foreign soil, he returns home after only four weeks of work.
In such a situation, Solomon’s labor force was not a burden to these young men, but a gift.
It’s clear from this example that “forced labor” is not the same thing as “slave labor.” Yet it’s also clear that “forced labor” appears at other times in the Scriptures, and it’s not always as clear-cut as the case above.
Four chapters after King Solomon’s civilian draft, we find this:
And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the LORD and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife; so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-horon and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel—their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction—these Solomon drafted to be slaves, and so they are to this day. But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen. (1 Kings 9:15-22 ESV).
Here again we find “forced labor,” the Hebrew word ham-mas. Yet this time, we find a different application: instead of drafting citizens, Solomon is compelling non-Israelites to perform labor for the Israelites.
We can appeal to the dictionary definition all we like, that ham-mas refers to a tax given as labor. But if the passage describes something else, then we have a problem.
The question is, then: what does this passage describe?
The key is the phrase “their descendants who were left after them in the land.” Where were these descendants located? In ghettos? In slave labor camps? No, in their own ancestral cities:
Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely.
And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.
Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol, so the Canaanites lived among them, but became subject to forced labor.
Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.
Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, so they lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.
The Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the plain. The Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. And the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward. (Judges 1:27–36 ESV)
These people groups remained in their cities, effectively living next-door to the people of Israel.
When we read that “these [people] Solomon drafted to be slaves,” remember what the word “slave” really is: ebed. It means “one who serves.” Solomon made them serve Israel, but they were never enslaved.
The Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites remained in their own cities, governing themselves. They married and ran businesses and farmed and made their own laws.
As a tax for living in the land Israel now governed, they paid a tax — in labor instead of in gold. They helped to build Solomon’s projects, which in turned improved their lives. When Solomon’s fortresses protected the land, it also protected them, as well. When Solomon improved the roads, water sources, and gardens, it benefited them, as well. When Solomon made the land prosperous, some of that prosperity flowed to them.
None of the people in these cities wound up in slave markets or sold to slave traders. None of them wound up sold, at all. They paid their tax of labor, then returned to their homes and their lives.
We can see glimpses of this in the book of Judges, as it narrates the way Israelite citizens interacted with these other groups:
In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. […]
He rose up and departed and arrived opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys, and his concubine was with him. When they were near Jebus, the day was nearly over, and the servant said to his master, “Come now, let us turn aside to this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.” (Judges 19:1, 10–11 ESV).
This Levite traveled north from Bethlehem, a city ruled by Israel. On their journey, when night was near, they passed by Jebus, a city ruled by the Jebusites, one of the groups who paid the tax of labor.
Yet the city remained hospitable to Israelites, so much so that the servant found no objection to spending the night there. His master (the villain of the story) refused, but his character is deplorable through the tale. The relevant point for us is that the Jebusites ruled their own city and the lands around it, and remained on friendly terms with most Israelites, such that the servant felt safe spending the night there. This was not a slave city, but an independent city.
The “forced labor” was indeed a tax, not a sentence of slavery.