Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. The foreign slave provision acknowledges the institution of slavery in the ancient world while restricting the covenant community's enslavement of its own members. The foreign slaves who can be bought from the surrounding nations are subject to different regulations than the Israelite debt-slave. The distinction between the treatment of Israelite indentured servants and foreign slaves communicates the covenant community's particular obligation to its own members — an obligation rooted in their shared covenant identity rather than in a universal anti-slavery principle.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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