“When you buy a slave…” (Ex 21:2). How does this fit with God abolishing slavery?
Exploring what the Bible REALLY Says About Slavery
Israel stood in terror as God descended on Sinai. From the darkness clouding the mountain, God thundered out the Ten Commandments, echoed by lightning and earthquakes. His words resonated in their souls: “I brought you out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods besides Me.”
Moses drew near while Israel drew back. As a King writing the law for His citizens, God began constructing His Law that would guide all of Israel in following His will.
And God said:
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.” (Exodus 21:1–2, ESV)
Immediately we have a problem. If God wants slavery outlawed in Israel, how can He talk about Israelites buying slaves?
Many who accuse the Bible of moral atrocities point to verses like this. They see the phrase “buy a Hebrew slave” and conclude that God endorses slavery. To be fair to them, on a cursory reading of many translations, that seems to be exactly what the text says.
Yet they miss the truth.
They miss the heart of God — to treat others as you want to be treated.
They miss the laws of God that make slavery illegal — you shall not kidnap, sell, or possess people as property.
They miss the freedom of God -- that any slave who escapes to a law-abiding Israelite is instantly free.
And in this verse, they miss the original Hebrew words. The original meaning hides, masked by translation and cultural assumption.
To Buy or to Hire
As we explored in the previous section, the Hebrew words ebed and qanah frequently end us mis-translated, leading to confusion or distortion — and both appear in this verse.
An ebed is a servant — one who serves. It can describe a host serving their guests, a soldier serving their commanding officer, a court official serving the king, or even Messiah Himself serving us by dying in our place, for our sins. Only when the ebed is being forced to serve a slave master should it be translated “slave.”
Qanah describes gaining and acquiring of any kind. It describes gaining a child by giving birth, former slaves gaining freedom as they are redeemed, and even God gaining the world by creating it. It should only be translated “buy” when the thing gained is purchased with money and becomes the buyer’s property.
And neither “slave” nor “buy” fits this verse.
Context is everything
To see how we should translate ebed, we need to explore what qanah means.
If qanah is discussing purchasing, where the person is bought and becomes the property of the buyer, then “slave” might be an acceptable translation.
But if qanah refers to something temporary, where the worker never becomes their property, then we should translate ebed as “servant” or “worker,” instead.
What, then, does the context tell us?
Exodus 21:16 sits only a few paragraphs below this verse. It forbids stealing/kidnapping people, selling people, and possessing people. This context makes the situation clear: if Exodus 21:16 forbids selling people and possessing them, then Exodus 21:2 does not allow buying people. If the Law prevents you from selling people as property, there’s no one to buy people from.
Further, Exodus 21:2 does not mention a slave trader, a slave market, or anyone who might be selling people. Such actions are punished by the death penalty a few short verses later.
These two bits of context clarify that qanah in Exodus 21:2 cannot mean “buy.” A third bit context removes any last bit of confusion -- the way the verse ends:
When you qanah a Hebrew ebed, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing (Exodus 21:2)
If you acquire something, but someone else tells you how long you can have it, who owns it? Not you.
God emphasizes that no one owns the workers serving them.
After six years of service, the ebed must be released for free. They don’t have to buy their freedom because they didn’t sell it. They don’t have to barter for their freedom because it’s theirs by right.
God codifies freedom into His law. Every Israelite belongs to Him — not to slavers, and not even to the person they work for, not matter how good of a boss they might be.
If you borrow a hammer from a neighbor, and your neighbor specifies how long you can use it before returning it, you don’t own that hammer. You must return the hammer because it isn’t your property.
God clarifies to everyone in Israel: “You never own your workers or servants. They belong to Me, not to you, and I will not let you treat your brothers and sisters as slaves.”
This law prevented people from selling themselves into slavery. Without it, destitute persons may have no other recourse but to sell themselves as slaves. Once a person becomes a slave, it is extremely hard to get out of slavery, in most ancient societies.
But in Israel, God closed shut that gateway to the horrors of slavery. If one Israelite becomes destitute, a wealthy Israelite can acquire them as a servant. In exchange for their service, the impoverished Israelite receives six years of guaranteed shelter, food, provision, and protection. Then, in the seventh year, they are guaranteed a release from service and a return to life as they choose to live it.
Consider who this law applied to most.
This law lifts up the the poorest of the poor, those who have no income and no ability gain it aside from service. This includes those in generational poverty, those with no resources or connections to the wealthy. These are the people who are hardest hit by economic downturns, who have the fewest resources to deal with tragedy, who are the most vulnerable to predators.
God protects them. God takes slavery off the table. By this system of six-year service, even the most impoverished person can get back on their feet and maintain their freedom.
This is the law of love lived out, the heart of God’s law exemplified: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
If you were at your lowest, with no money or connections, how would you want others to treat you?
You would want them to protect you from predators, from slavers, from poverty. You would want people to provide for you and protect your freedom. You would want others to feed you, clothe you, and shelter you.
So that is what God writes at the start of His law.
When you acquire a servant, a Hebrew brother or sister, they will serve you for six years. Care for them, because in the seventh year they will go out free from you, for nothing. They are free, and they remain free, even as they serve you.
Checks and Balances
The case above seems clear enough, but the question always lingers: am I seeing this in the text because I want to see it? Does the text really protect against slavery, or am I forcing it to say that?
There’s one solid way to check: comparing this verse to the rest of the Law.
In multiple other places in the Old Testament Law, God addresses this situation. One of those appears in Leviticus 25:
If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee [every seventh year] (Leviticus 25:39-40 NIV)
Leviticus clarifies Exodus: the poor person serving a wealthy person must be treated as though they retain their rights, liberty, and dignity. Hired workers and temporary residents live as free people. A hired worker is paid wages in exchange for freely-given labor, while a foreign resident is only staying as long as they choose to stay before returning home.
Poverty is never an excuse for slavery. A person with nothing -- no money, land, property, or possessions -- is still a free person in God’s eyes. As long as they live and work in Israel, they remain free.
Freedom for Men and Women
Both the Exodus and Leviticus passages above use male nouns, referring to male workers. Some have therefore speculated that the Law did not give women the same guarantee of freedom that it gave men.
Yet Deuteronomy adds further clarity to Exodus and Leviticus:
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).
Deuteronomy closes the loophole, ensuring that women receive the same rights as men.
It goes even further, mandating that wealthy Israelites bless their servants richly with food and possessions once their service is completed. The threshing floor and winepress supply bread and wine, while the flock provides livestock -- from which they can grow their own flock. This allows financial independence, as the new flock of sheep or goats provides milk, wool, and hopefully, many baby livestock to grow the herd.
This law gives a poor person not only a means of provision for six years, but a means to build their own wealth and emerge in the seventh year more financially wealthy than they went in.
This is the very opposite of slavery!
A slave loses everything, deprived of every possession when they become someone else’s possession.
But an ebed in Israel gained wealth by serving a fellow Israelite for six years. Every servant left their years of service with as much as they could carry, liberally supplied both for their immediate needs and their long-term building of wealth.
But What of the Foreigner?
All three passages above clarify that they apply to fellow Hebrews -- brethren, countrymen, fellow Israelites redeemed by God.
So what of the foreigner? Could a foreigner be oppressed and enslaved? Were only Israelites protected?
God addressed this repeatedly and precisely:
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 (Leviticus 19:34 NASB).
The heart of God’s love is simple: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
In this passage, God clarifies that this love extends to the foreigner as well as every native-born Israelite. If you love your neighbor by protecting them from slavery, so you must love the foreigner.
Again, God states:
The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you (Exodus 12:49 NASB)
And:
There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 24:22 NASB)
The same laws and standards that protect Israelites protect the foreigners among them -- including the laws protecting against slavery.
Finally:
You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your towns (Deuteronomy 24:14 NASB)
God mandates over and over and over: poverty is no excuse for slavery. You must not oppress anyone who is poor and needy -- not your fellow Israelite and not a foreigner living among you.
To Confirm and to Close the Matter
The Law seems to confirm this interpretation over and over. God will not tolerate the oppression of slavery — not in men, women, or foreigners, not even in the most destitute.
But again, we always need to ask: am I seeing this because I want to see it? Am I blind to the text saying something else?
We’ve already tested this through immediate context and the breadth of the rest of the Law.
One final way remains: searching for what we would expect if each desired interpretation was true.
Let’s close this chapter by comparing these expectations. What would we expect to find if qanah really meant “buy?” What would we expect to find if it didn’t?
If Exodus 21:2 meant you could buy a person as a slave, then we should expect to see a person’s ownership transferred. We should expect that whoever “buys” the person now owns them and can treat them as property.
Yet we see the opposite. God mandates that this person is not property and may not be treated as a slave. Rather, their freedom is guaranteed and their individual rights are protected — exactly as we’d expect to see if Exodus 21:2 never meant “buy.”
Likewise, if “buy” was meant, we should expect to see buyers and sellers — slave traders, slave markets, and a robust slave trade in Israel. Yet we see none of it, not in this passage or in the narratives that follow. All we see are impoverished people and the wealthy people who they work for, those who lavish the servants liberally with wealth once their service is complete. Again, this is exactly what we would expect to see if Exodus 21:2 never meant “buy.”
Finally, if this verse meant that a person could be bought as a slave, then we should expect to see all freedom lost. Once a person is bought as a slave, we should expect all freedom to be lost, all rights to vanish, and all personal choice denied, as the slave must now do whatever the master says for as long as they live.
But we see the opposite. Freedom is not lost; it is guaranteed. Rights do not vanish; they are protected. Personal choice is not denied; it is supplied for liberally.
Through the tri-fold testimony of immediate context, the breadth of the Law, and the clarity of expectations, the case is clearly made: Exodus 21:2 does not allow anyone to buy slaves. Any translation declaring such a thing violates the intent of the original text.
Given all of this, how then should we translate Exodus 21:2?
How about this:
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you hire a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.” (Exodus 21:1–2, ESV)
Notice how smooth the translation is. You no longer have the inconsistency of a “slave” being bought — but then somehow released for free. You no longer have the inconsistency of someone being purchased and possessed as property, but also forbidden from being possessed as property.
Now, everything flows smoothly. It’s no strange thing for a servant to be released after six years, because servants aren’t property. They’re people.
It fits perfectly with the rest of Scripture.
“You shall not oppress” (Deuteronomy 24:14 NASB).