I began a brief comment on this subject and remixed it a few days later. Essentially I was commenting on the fact that certain aspects of slavery in Deuteronomy were surprisingly at odds with the surrounding laws of other Ancient Near Eastern societies. The socio-economic reality of “slavery” is remarkably liberated at least in principle in the Deuteronomic code. Yes, of course it is still there as a social institution, that is not in dispute; it is however considered in a different light.
The following phrase keeps repeating itself in Deuteronomy:“Remember you were slaves in Egypt and Yahweh brought you out”
I paraphrase slightly but that is essentially the recurring motif. It is most noticable in the Ten Commandments. These are remixed from the Exodus 20 version. Instead of the first commandment beginning with what we imagine as a command they actually begin with this repetitive idea of remembrance. Moses speaks of the giving of the law in retrospect in this way:
The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. … And he said: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.
Deuteronomy 5:4-7
Before the Law begins proper this phrase is all important, they are encouraged again and again to remember that Yahweh brought them out of Egypt. On the face of it this seems only to be a transaction in purchased loyalty but it is more than that. The memory of who, how and why they were brought out of Egypt is a crucial moral compass in Deuteronomy. It is to affect the core values of their law code. The Ten Commandments are no more different to Exodus 20 than when considering the Sabbath Law. In place of the Creation reason for sabbath in Exodus 20 (God made world in 6 days and rested thus the people rested), Deuteronomy speaks in this way:
12:”Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13:Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 14:but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15:Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Notice the change in reasoning – from obligation based on the created order to obligation based on the memory of their own experience of slavery. This society was to treat the slave class differently precisely because they have experience in their own history and collective memory of the severe abuse of slavery. It is hard to imagine in the cultural world of the day laws like these emerging without some real or remembered experience of abusive slavery. Something dramatic and liberating, something of oppression and release has imprinted itself on the minds of nomads and though all around them think otherwise and their moral lapses will let them down, they will be a society that is at least supposed to think differently about slavery. The institution was not abolished but its abuses were remembered and its abuses were to be curbed. Their laws were built around this memory and later their prophets would call them back to the moral core of their great story.
