Slave עֶ֫בֶד

We are in chapter twenty-one of Exodus with our word for today. עֶ֫בֶד slave, servant, minister, adviser, official. It is used 801 times in the Old Testament, 7 times in our chapter. Let’s look at these in our chapter. Exodus 21:2, 5, 7, 20, 26-27, 32 When you buy a Hebrew עֶ֣בֶד slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing…But if הָעֶ֔בֶד the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’…When a man sells his daughter לְאָמָ֑ה as a slave [this is a different word for female slave], she shall not go out as הָעֲבָדִֽים the male slaves do… When a man strikes עַבְדּ֜וֹhis slave, male or אֲמָתוֹ֙  female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged…When a man strikes the eye of his עַבְדּ֛וֹ slave, male or אֲמָת֖וֹ female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his עַבְדּ֛וֹ slave, male or אֲמָת֖וֹ female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth…If the ox gores a עֶ֛בֶד slave, male or אָמָ֑ה female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver. As we saw yesterday this is more of a volunteer slavery than being taken by force and made a slave. There is a different word for this called man stealing that we will look at soon. In my opinion the main reason why we have a problem with this idea of slavery or being a servant even when it is voluntary is we all have an issue with authority to some degree or another. The reason is that in this fallen broken messed up world, the with corruption place, there are no shortage of examples of the abuse of authority. But authority is not bad in and of itself. And when God is the one in authority it is always a good thing. The very fact of the incarnation that God would become flesh and come down here to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ is an example of submitting to authority. Then Jesus also comes as a servant not a king to serve us and save us. This is explained well in Philippians 2:5-8 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. I find it interesting that the centurion who came to Jesus to heal his servant understands that authority can be a good thing used to help people. Matthew 8:8-9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” Did you catch that? Not only does the Centurion identify himself as one who is under authority he recognized that Jesus himself was under authority. He must have been listening to Jesus teaching because Jesus said this several times that God the Father is the authority over him even though Jesus himself is God. When he came to earth he placed himself under the authority of God. I also like how the Centurion model’s the positive use of authority himself. Here he is an important man with important responsibilities going out of his way for his servant or slave if you will because he cares about him. He has the resources to go and find Jesus and get help so he can be healed. This is a great picture of what God does for us as our authority over us. We will look at this word for master in a couple of days. But for today I will simply close with how our word is used to predict Jesus coming as God’s servant to save us. This whole chapter of Isaiah has been rightly called the suffering servant because this is what Jesus came to do suffer for us so we could receive his righteousness and salvation. Isaiah 53:4-6, 11 The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all…Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, עַבְדִּ֖י my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.