Społeczna i prawna sytuacja niewolników w Starym Testamencie

Abstrakt

Slaves formed a separate group in Israelite society. The majority of them were foreigners but there was also a certain number of Hebrew slaves among them. The slaves of foreign origin came mainly from wars and the slave-trade, while the Jewish slaves were mostly insolvent debtors, unable to pay off their creditors in any other way.

The situation of slaves in Israel was specific in many respects. Slavery in Israel never reached the proportions and forms generally known in antiquity. The Old Testament law accepted slavery as an actual state but tended towards softening it. The growing tendency to humanize the institution of slavery and even to eliminate it, can be noticed while comparing the regulations concerning slavery included in the Code of the Covenant, Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code.

The specific attitude towards the social problem of slavery in Israel resulted from the religious experience that is found in the beginning of the history of this nation i.e. the ever-living memory of God’s liberation of the fathers of Israel from the Egyptian captivity. The holy books constantly reminded the Israelites that they had been slaves in Egypt and that the memory of the fact should dispose them to be merciful to their slaves.