“The wife and her children shall be her master’s” (Exodus 21:3-4)
Exploring What the Bible REALLY Says About Slavery
What happened to the family of an ebed?
If the Bible commanded slavery, we should expect to see it pop up here. We should expect to see families split up and sold off like cattle. If the Bible tolerated slavery, we should expect to see no regard for the workers, but only for the profit and power of the owner. This is what slave-practicing societies have done all over the world.
But what happened in Israel?
Did God view people as cattle who can be split up at the whim of a master? What did God write into the Law?
Love and liberty stand out boldly:
When you hire a Hebrew ebed, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. (Exodus 21:3 ESV)
Verse 3 elaborates on the rights of the ebed from the previous verse. God continues building His case, establishing the privileges protected for all workers and the limits restricting all landowners.
In this case, God highlights the sanctity of marriage.
Exodus 21:3 emphasizes that these servants are people, not property. Their marriage supersedes their boss. The person they’re working for has no right to split them up.
As early as Genesis 2:24, God declared that husband and wife become “one” in marriage. In the Law, God grants this one-ness more power than money, more power than social position, more power than brute force.
A married couple might be on the lowest level of society — destitute, working class, no property to their names — and yet their marriage is honored at a higher level than the power of the person they serve.
Or to say it more directly: God honors the decisions these two people make to be together. Their decision to marry each other trumps any desire of any person they serve to split them up.
Exodus 21:3 therefore bolsters the case that slavery cannot exist in Israel. If servants possess rights that no one can overturn, they aren’t slaves. If the servants’ decision to be together wields more power than any landowner’s desire to split them up, they aren’t his property.
Then Exodus 21:4 throws out a curveball:
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. (Exodus 21:4 ESV)
This seems like the opposite of what we just talked about with Exodus 21:3.
Isn’t this describing the master splitting up families?
Why do the women and children stay behind?
The reason is surprisingly simple: the master can provide for them, but the newly-released servant may not be able to.
This newly-released man must now make his own way in the world. He may not possess a family plot to return to (if he did, he’d be unlikely to serve someone else on their plot of land). He’ll have to figure out a place to live, a means to provide income, a way to procure all the food and provisions necessary for daily life. If he was single when he entered service, he might not have the know-how or resources to provide for a family.
Therefore, until he can provide for his family, they remain with the master who is providing for them.
Once the man earns enough or saves enough, he can redeem his family from the master and bring them home to live with him. If he earns or saves enough, it’s a simple matter to redeem his family and bring them into his own house.
But until he has the money to redeem his family, they remain with the master who is providing for them.
This law guarantees that the wife and children avoid poverty.
This might seem like a strange interpretation, especially to those who assume slavery to be present in the text. To ground my claims, let me bring in several additional passages from the Law that corroborate this view.
If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee [the seventh year] (Leviticus 25:39-40 ESV).
So far, it’s clear this passage is referring to the same situation as Exodus 21:2-4. A destitute man works as an ebed works for six years for a wealthier countryman. He can’t be treated as a slave, but must be treated well — as a “hired worker,” someone who gives their work willingly for pay, and as a “sojourner,” someone who is working by their own choice in your land, but who can always choose to leave. Treat this ebed well, and after six years, they are released on the seventh.
Then the passage adds a qualifier that entirely changes how we view Exodus 21:5:
Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. (Leviticus 25:41-43 ESV).
This man — “and his children with him” go out after the six years. They don’t remain behind with the master.
No qualifications are given. They don’t have to be born before he begins his service. Any children with him leave at the completion of his service.
But what of the wife? Does she remain behind? It doesn’t appear so:
If any of your people — Hebrew men or women — sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free. And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed. Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the LORD your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today (Deuteronomy 12:12-15 NIV).
This passage clarifies that the women go out as the men do. Women servants don’t remain behind simply because they’re women. They leave after six years, just as the men do.
This clarifies the situation — but also muddies it.
Why would these two passages say the women and children go out with the men, but Exodus 21:4 says they stay behind?
The simple answer is that they’re describing different situations.
If the wife is a servant fulfilling a six-year contract, like her husband, they’ll both go out together, with any children they have — whether those children were born to them in the period of service or before.
But if the wife is not a fellow servant, then these other rules apply.
That leads to another question: if this wife is not a fellow servant, who is she?
There are three main options:
She is a fellow servant, but her six-year contract doesn’t align with her husband. When he finishes his term, she still has a few years to serve on hers.
She is a servant from a surrounding nation whose service contract doesn’t have a set end date.
She isn’t a servant at all. Instead, she is a daughter or family member to the head of the household.
It could be any of these situations — and that’s the point. God doesn’t limit it. Regardless of the reason why, if the wife is not able to go out with her husband, she remains where she is being provided for and protected.
If this seems weird to you, consider the alternatives.
What if the master forced her and her children to leave — but her husband couldn’t provide for them? This man is newly released. He may not have a home for them all, or a way to provide for them. He may be working as hard as he can, yet hasn’t turned a profit yet. He may have land to work, but it takes time for the crop to grow. Or he may be lazy, not working hard enough to care for his family.
What is this woman to do? Is she to starve? Is she to watch her children starve?
Exodus 21:4 says no. She remains with the master, who is able to feed, clothe, shelter, and protect them.
Exodus 21:4 guarantees that the man’s wife and children are cared for, regardless of how else the situation turns out.
The man himself has a choice to make.
The worst choice, of course, is laziness or selfishness. The man could leave service and choose to do nothing for his family. He could go off on his own, abandoning them, or work so poorly and lazily that he can’t provide for them. If he makes this choice, Exodus 21:4 guarantees that his wife and children don’t suffer for his horrible choices. They remain cared for, spared from his selfishness.
He can make a far better choice: to choose to make a new life for himself. He can choose to find a plot of land, or find a job, and start bringing in what his family needs.
As he prospers, he can redeem his family from his old master. This might seem strange to us, but the idea is essentially this: To redeem someone from their service contract, you must buy them out. A close analogue in the modern day would be a sports contract for a professional athlete. If a team hires the athlete for five years, but they later decide they want to go in a different direction, they can buy the athlete out of the contract. They can pay the rest of the amount promised, completing the contract early.
As the man prospers, he can buy out his wife’s contract, paying the master for the extra years of work he had been promised in the contract. Once the man pays this, he can bring his wife home with him.
This guarantees that the man can provide for his wife and children before they come home with him. He can only redeem her if he prospers — if he’s made sufficient money to be able to buy out her employment contract. If he isn’t able to make enough to buy out her contract, she remains where she is provided for. But if he does make enough to redeem her, she knows that he will be able to provide for her.
To ground this in the Scriptures, let’s examine where the Scriptures themselves lay this out:
If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired worker. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 25:47–55 ESV)
Other passages refer to the right of redemption, but none lay it out so clearly as Leviticus 25. To redeem someone — to buy them out of their contract — you calculate the years left in their contract and pay the amount remaining, the amount the master expected to make from their service during that time.
Also, note that redemption is a right for everyone in Israel — even if they’re “sold” to a foreigner.
This is one of the ways God emphasizes that people are people — not property.
Every worker in Israel retains the right of redemption. They can always be “bought out” of their employment contract.
In other words: no one is signing their lives away when they agree to work for someone for six years. Everyone has the ability to be redeemed out of this contract. They can redeem themselves if they prosper, or someone else close to them can redeem them.
Exodus 21:7-11, which we’ll dive into shortly, also contains a right of redemption, this time focusing on young women who are serving in households. These women can be redeemed, just as the servant above could. Yet the law goes even further: if they aren’t being properly cared for, they are released for free, without having to be redeemed.
The point is simply this: God built redemption into service. Every servant can be redeemed out of their employment contract, either by themselves or someone who cares about them.
Redemption is a right. Freedom is the default — not service, and certainly not possession. No master can prevent their servant from being redeemed.
Therefore, if a newly released man prospers, he can redeem his wife out of her contract and bring her home, giving her the security of knowing he can certainly provide for her — and their children.
If the worker wants to stay
The man has a choice to make. He can choose to be lazy, or he can choose to work hard to build a new life.
He also has a third option:
But if the ebed plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his ebed forever. (Exodus 21:5–6 ESV)
Suppose an ebed is about to complete his six year contract. He weighs his options. He could go out and try to make his own way — but he could also stay. What if his work situation is good — so good that he doesn’t want to leave? What if he doesn’t think he’ll be able to build a life as good as this if he goes out on his own? What if he doesn’t want to be apart from his wife and children for a few years while he struggles to build up a life for them?
In that case, he has the power to decide his own fate.
If he wants to — and only if he wants to — he can choose to stay and keep serving in this household.
Notice that the master has no power, in this situation. He can’t force the man to stay. He can’t keep the wife and children from being redeemed; redemption is their right. If the newly-released man wants to leave and bring his family with him, there’s nothing the master can do to keep them.
The only way the man stays is by his own choice. He considers his options and decides this is the best course for him, a life with people he loves in a situation he considers good.
But suppose the situation changes? Suppose his master dies, and a son takes over, and this son is cruel?
Then Deuteronomy 23:15-16 applies. Any ebed who leaves their master is free, instantly, and the law forbids the master from ever getting them back.
There are no qualifications in Deuteronomy 23:15-16. Any ebed — even one who had chosen to serve perpetually — is free as soon as they escape a bad situation.
This gave great power to the workers. Once their contract was over, they could choose to stay, if they thought life there would continue to be good. But if it ever turned bad, they had the confidence of knowing they could leave.
A note to the commentators
It can frustrate a curious reader to research passages like Exodus 21:3-6, given that commentaries disagree passionately on it.
Some commentaries assume slavery. They take slavery as a given. They will read passages like this and state that it was a common thing for the master to own the children born in his household in the ancient world. They will state that the wife and children remain behind because the master owns them as his property, and the newly-released servant can’t get them back.
It can sound persuasive, especially if the reader assumes slavery must exist there, as well.
But such a view clashes with the other parts of the Law.
It clashes with the verses mentioned above: that the children go out with their father, that female servants go out after six years as male servants do. It clashes with Exodus 21:16, that possessing people is punishable by death. It clashes with redemption being a right given to every servant in Israel. It clashes with Exodus 21:7-11, that female servants can be redeemed, and cannot be sold off as property, because they aren’t property.
These clashes may be obvious to us, as we’ve taken the time in this book to explore them.
But to someone who has not read the rest of the Law, or who has forgotten what it says, such comments can seem persuasive. If you add in a translation that writes “slave” in places it shouldn’t exist, it carries the confusion even further. This is how the myth spreads that the Bible somehow supports slavery, despite God systematically abolishing it.
To make matters even more confusing, some translations add in phrases not present in the original language. Several translations add the words “the woman and her children shall belong to her master.” The original language doesn’t say “shall belong.” It only says she shall “be to” her master — she will remain with him, until she finishes her contract or they’re redeemed. The idea of “belonging” is not present in the text, but if a modern-day reader sees the word, they’ll assume slavery. If they don’t know about the right of redemption, or the right to freedom from a bad situation in Deuteronomy 23:15-16, they may wrongly conclude this passage describes slavery.
One poorly-translated word is enough to twist the entire meaning of a passage.
To all the commentators and translators who look at this passage and think the master owns the servant’s children as his property, I would simply ask: why do we never see this in the narratives in the Bible?
Why do we never see a master owning such children as property and selling them off?
Why do we never see this kind of thing happen anywhere in biblical Israel?
Could it be because this passage is not describing slavery at all?
Could it be that the passage is ensuring that women and children are always provided for?
Could it be that God is a loving Father caring for His children, whether or not the man of the family can?
Could this be why we never see that ugly slavery anywhere in Israel?