Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

96 | WOMEN AT WORK IN THE DTRH
Time and again the Hebrew Bible makes a difference on how Israelites and
foreigners are to be treated. Enslaved fellow Israelites are to be treated as hired
laborers and released after a period of time, unless they choose to become
permanent slaves (Exod 21:2–6). Biblical laws accept only the intrusive mode,
while the extrusive one is reserved for debt-slavery, which, at least in theory,
would have had different conditions attached to it. 56 The different treatment of
foreigners from Israelites seems to be due to the notion that slaves are perceived
as not belonging to the same people, because if they did, they would have to
be treated with kindness and fairness. Deuteronomy 15 shows a clear
differentiation in language between the member of the community who is in
need (ויחא־תאו והער־תא “his neighbor and his brother,” Deut 15:2–3) and the
foreigner (ירכנ); Lev 25:44–46 boldly states that foreigners can be treated as
slaves, unlike any “fellow Israelite” (ויחאב שׁיא לארשׂי־ינב). These laws
presumably mean a more humane treatment and the right to participate in the
cultic community together with those who were in better socio-economic
conditions. Thus when a biblical story refers to Hagar as the Egyptian slave, one
can imagine that such a qualification implies the possibility—certainly exercised
by Sarai—of abusing her, since she was her property, and Hagar did not have
fellow Hebrews or her own kin living among the Israelites to protect her rights;
nor was she to be released in a few years to become her mistress’ equal as an
Israelite.
MANUMISSION OF SLAVES
Manumission is the release of a person from the condition of slavery, achieved
by a variety of procedures, not all of which are available in any one society,
however. Among those deemed most widespread by students of slavery, the
ones considered in this study are those that seemed to us to be more pertinent to
sources from the ANE.
Postmortem Manumission. The origin of this type of manumission can
apparently be traced to slave sacrifices at the master’s death, allowing the master
to get to the underworld with adequate help and honors. Human sacrifice was
later changed into manumission of slaves who took care of the burial. 57 Since
Ugaritic and Mesopotamian myths often have the gods, goddesses, and human
56 Dandamaev, Slavery, 179 mentions a Babylonian document in which “the son of an insolvent
debtor became a temple slave, and it is clear that such slaves could not be redeemed or freed.
Consequently, the transformation of slave debtors, who formed an intermediary social group, into
slaves in the true sense of the word was possible.” Dandamaev’s “intermediary social group” refers
to a third group between a free Babylonian whose son is given as security, and permanent slaves
such as temple slaves, namely, the debt-slave.
57 Patterson, Slavery, 219–28.