Moses Talked about Slaves, but the Message Here is for Us

 

Deuteronomy Chapter 15, part 2: Law about Slaves

Deuteronomy 15:12-18 – Gems and Thoughts from the Passage

The topic of ‘slavery’ is very big these days as some Americans are calling for reparations on behalf of the slavery that took place in the United States decades ago. So, this passage was of particular interest to me. Verses 12-18 tell the Israelites how they are to treat their slaves. The first thing I noted was that Moses is talking about slaves that are “kinsmen” that is “a Hebrew man or woman”.  Their own people. Also, of interest is that the rules are the same for both male and female slaves. The issue of gender is a common theme throughout the Bible. Having studied it somewhat, I am convinced that God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament pushed the needle towards the equality of women as far as the culture could stand and beyond. Our God is not a sexist in any way, shape, or form.

So, what were the rules? It appears that a ‘bought’ slave is to be kept for six years (likely from the time of purchase) and then released ‘in’ the seventh year. So, yes, there are some questions to be asked. Were all slaves bought? And if not, did these rules apply to slaves that were just acquired because someone else didn’t need them any longer or couldn’t afford to keep them? What about an Israelite that owned a slave that wasn’t a Hebrew? Were they to be released in the seventh year? And speaking of the seventh year, could the release date be anytime during that year, up to and including the last day?  All good questions, for which I have not found the answers yet.

[But this is what I like about studying the Bible for myself. You get to ask questions. You don’t always get answers. But you never despair or doubt – eventually Scripture does answer Scripture. And if all else fails, there is always I Corinthians 13:12 – “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”]

David Guzik suggests that “the slaves though of here are those who have had to sell themselves into slavery because of their debt” which ties in nicely with the earlier portion of this chapter on debt. 

Verse 13 tells the sons of Israel that when they release their slaves, they are not to be sent free “empty-handed”. The original ‘retirement’ or ‘leaving the company’ gifts were to be given to these people that served one for six years. This included some of the owner’s flocks, grains, wines. How much? Well, the text says, verse 14, you do so in accordance to how “the Lord your God has blessed you.” Two things to point out here. First, the actual decision is about you. But more importantly, it involves your relationship with God. Those are two things for us to keep in mind as Christians today with respect to our view of charity – the decision is ours as to how much (note, not as to whether or not to do so), and it does depend on how we view God’s blessings on our lives.

Verse 15 points out that how one treats a slave should be related to how one felt about themselves or their ancestors being treated as slaves (in this case, when the Israelites were in Egypt as slaves). They should not be like the Egyptians who ill-treated their slaves but should treat them with unparalleled kindness.

Verse 16 raises the possibility of a servant who refuses to leave – either because he/she loves you so much (as the text suggests) or because he/she is wise enough to know there is no better life for him/her. In that case, you accept, and to make that arrangement permanent, the Israelites were to put a hole in the ear of the slave or maidservant. Sometimes our employees become a very close part of our families and they are with us until death. But clearly the spiritual lesson here is that the owner (God) is dealing with a loving and dedicated servant (a believer and Christ-follower), who once committed to the master (Jesus), is in it for life.

The last verse (verse 18) of this section now addresses the feelings of the owner who will lose his slave after six years.  Moses is saying don’t regret doing so. The slave has given you six great years of service. And he points out that because he/she was a slave, they worked harder (gave you double the service) than what a hired person did. Let him go cheerfully. And if you do, God will keep on blessing you in your dealings.

Wrap-up

What does all this say to us today? For me, it boils down to three things: First, the relationship you and I as Christians have with anyone who works for us – be it full-time or part-time employees in our business, or the lady that cleans our house (if you have one) – is very important to God. And I would venture to say that it goes beyond those people – it includes those who provide services for us – auto services, public transport, mail services, the server when we eat out or the one who gives us our coffee at a coffee shop. I could go on for hours.

Second, we are to be generous with these people. We are to consider what God has saved us from and the circumstances we were in before our current ones. (Even if we were born rich, we still need to be thankful God didn’t allow us to fall into financial ruin and poverty after that.)

Finally, we are to consider with love the circumstances those that do work for us in any of the above ways are in.  What caused them to be doing what they are doing? Why are they the workers rather than the bosses? Was it their own poverty? Was it because they sacrificed to put a child through school? Are they working well beyond a normal retirement age just to survive? Do they have a sibling or other family member, sometimes older and sometimes younger with an illness, they need to take care of? Be generous. God loves a cheerful giver and He will bless you accordingly.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

In one sense, we're going through our own Year of Jubilee Rest.

Leviticus 25:8-55 The Law of the Year of Jubilee

Day 27 of our self-isolation. Some people are actually getting used to this lifestyle. Others are ready to shoot someone. Personally, it gives me a slight (very, very, slight) idea of what it may be like to live the life of a fur hunter in the north, or slighter still – an astronaut taking an isolation trip for the cause.  Meanwhile, we press on with our study in Leviticus.

The Passage

This chapter begins by recounting for us how the Israelites had to count off 49 years. Verse 9 says that on the day of Atonement (7th month, 10^th day) they were to sound a ram’s horn throughout the land.

They would consecrate the 50^th year and each Israelite was to return to his own property, and to their own family. During that year there would be no sowing, reaping, or gathering any new growth. It would be a holy year for them, and they would be fed by the crops of the field (vs. 12).

Verses 13 to 17 describe how land (and crops) shall exchange hands during that time. First, there was to be no short-changing of each other. The prices of the land shall be determined by how many years from the Jubilee, the transaction takes place as what matters is the number of crops one is trading.

Verses 18 to 22 describe how God takes care of their need for food by giving them, in the sixth year, a bumper crop that is three times the usual – one time for the sixth year itself, one for the Jubilee year, and one for the eighth year in which they would be planting again,

Verses 23 to 28 give instruction that no land shall be sold permanently, because it belongs to God, and the Israelites are only aliens and sojourners with Him. If someone is so poor that he sells a piece of land, his kinsman shall buy it back. And if there are no kin members, once the seller recovers, he can buy it back. If that isn’t possible, the buyer keeps it to the next year of Jubilee and then returns to the seller.

Verses 29 to 34 deal with houses as opposed to fields. Houses that are sold within a walled city may be redeemed during the course of one year. After that, it stays with the buyer even after the next year of Jubilee. Houses in villages without walls are considered to be like fields – their redemption period goes on and they do revert to owners in the year of Jubilee. The exception is the houses of Levites in the walled city – they keep their redemption rights and the houses also return to them in the year of Jubilee. Their pasture fields, however, are never to be sold.

Verses 35 to 38 tell the Israelites that they need to take care of those who cannot maintain themselves. They are not to be lent money with interest or given food with the idea of repayment.

Verses 39 to46 describes how those Israelites who are so poor that they sell themselves to another Israelite are to be treated – as hired hands, not as slaves, to serve until the year of Jubilee, at which time he returns to his family and property. God says this is so because they are His servants that He brought out of Egypt, not yours. You are not to boss him with severity, but to treat him as you revere your God.  If you want slaves, you may get both male and female ones from the pagan nations that are around you. Aliens among you may be acquired as slaves too and they may be passed on to your children as inheritance.

Verses 47 to 55 covers the situation where an Israelite, a countryman, becomes so poor that he sells himself to an alien or a sojourner. That individual has redemption rights and can be purchased back by his kin. The price of the sale would be determined by the time from the last Jubilee or the time to the next one. The redeemed person would also be required to refund part of the purchase price to his kin. Nevertheless, he is a free man in the year of Jubilee.

Thoughts on the Passage

Wow, that’s a stunner of a chapter. Let’s wade through it.  For starters, the year of Jubilee starts not on the first day of the first month, but on the day of Atonement (the 10^th day of the 7^th month).

Also, we note that the 50^th year starts after a “Sabbath year”.  So that means every 50 years, there are two years of rest. It’s like a bonus rest after your rest.

In verse 12, we understand that during the Jubilee year there would be food from prior years, or they could eat whatever grew naturally on it during the Jubilee year.

With respect to verse 13, which relates that all land returns to its original owners, Robert Jamieson gives us this gem:

Inheritances, from whatever cause, and how frequently so ever they had been alienated, came back into the hands of the original proprietors. This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct, and their genealogies faithfully recorded, in order that all might have evidence to establish their right to the ancestral property. Hence the tribe and family of Christ were readily discovered at his birth.

No matter what year we are living in, we are to treat our fellowman fairly. That comes out very clearly in God’s instructions with respect to real estate as well as other transactions such as hired hands and servants. There needs to be a set way of arriving at a fair price in all dealings.

Also, some of us are not earning the money we were earning prior to the Coronavirus pandemic. We are resting at home. In a very odd sense, this is our “Jubilee year” period. We need to realize that God has provided and will provide for our needs as He did for the Israelites during their Jubilee year.

I wonder how real estate agents would fit in to the Israelite society with these types of rules in place for returning lands to their original owners each Jubilee year or for how prices of property would be set in between.

What amazes me here in this chapter is how much emphasis God puts on the poor, what happens to them, and what everybody else’s responsibility towards them is. We need, in our own way, to take heed of that and make sure that our relationships with others squares with it.

Of great interest to me is the section on hired hands and slaves. First, what is God saying to those of us today who have employees? I don’t know. Is it possible that it is simply to release them with honor at the end of their service? Maybe we don’t have Jubilee year but each one of them has a year of retirement. We need to know when to let go of them with grace and love and with all they deserve financially.

But also of interest in this section is what is recorded about slaves. The Israelites were not to acquire slaves from among their own countrymen, but only of those who are aliens in the lands or from adjoining pagan nations. So, having owned servants (slaves) verses employee servants was okay as long as they were sourced properly. You can see perhaps where we went astray with our idea of slavery a few hundred years ago.

Interestingly also is the fact that foreign slaves needed not to be returned to their origin in the year of Jubilee. There clearly is a difference between being part of the Family of God and not. The idea here (spiritually for us) is that God, says Matthew Henry, does not make His servants slaves. We have been bought with a price and never to be slaves again.

Allowing alien slaves to be bought is the continuance of the promise God had given to Jacob in Genesis 27:29 where he tells him that other people will serve him (Israel). It points out as Henry suggests, that the benefit of the Jubilee is only for those that are Israelites, or children of Abraham by faith.

Finally, we cannot ignore the theme of redemption throughout this passage. The land is redeemed and hired hands and slaves belonging to God’s family are redeemed. It is clearly a foretelling of the great redemption that Christ made possible for all of us.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

This Leviticus Scripture Has a lot to say about Yesterday's Sin, and much more.

Leviticus Chapter 22: More Priesthood Laws

Leviticus 22:1-16 What Priests Can’t Do

Day 22 of social distancing. Its end is being talked about but with no certainty. As my daughter observed, “We really can’t start the countdown yet, can we?”  So, we press on. One of our small groups that we are involved with meets for the second time virtually tonight. I am teaching a course next week virtually. I’ve started a set of collective bargaining negotiations via email this week. Life is changing. But hey I love some of the changes. Maybe we’ll keep some of them long after this is over. So, hang in there. I’m continuing my study in Leviticus about the priesthood. I really love delving into the mind and thinking of God as He shared it with Moses. Hope you’re enjoying it too.

The Passage

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they dedicate to Me, so as not to profane My holy name; I am the Lord. ³ Say to them, ‘If any man among all your ^[a]descendants throughout your generations approaches the holy gifts which the sons of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from before Me; I am the Lord. ⁴ No man of the ^[b]descendants of Aaron, who is a leper or who has a discharge, may eat of the holy gifts until he is clean. And if one touches anything made unclean by a corpse or if a man has a seminal emission, ⁵ or if a man touches any teeming things by which he is made unclean, or any man by whom he is made unclean, whatever his uncleanness; ⁶ a ^[c]person who touches any such shall be unclean until evening, and shall not eat of the holy gifts unless he has bathed his ^[d]body in water. ⁷ But when the sun sets, he will be clean, and afterward he shall eat of the holy gifts, for it is his ^[e]food. ⁸ He shall not eat an animal which dies or is torn by beasts, becoming unclean by it; I am the Lord. ⁹ They shall therefore keep My charge, so that they will not bear sin because of it and die thereby because they profane it; I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

¹⁰ ‘No ^[f]layman, however, is to eat the holy gift; a sojourner with the priest or a hired man shall not eat of the holy gift. ¹¹ But if a priest buys a ^[g]slave as his property with his money, ^[h]that one may eat of it, and those who are born in his house may eat of his ^[i]food. ¹² If a priest’s daughter is married to a ^[j]layman, she shall not eat of the ^[k]offering of the gifts. ¹³ But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or divorced, and has no child and returns to her father’s house as in her youth, she shall eat of her father’s ^[l]food; but no ^[m]layman shall eat of it. ¹⁴ But if a man eats a holy gift unintentionally, then he shall add to it a fifth of it and shall give the holy gift to the priest. ¹⁵ They shall not profane the holy gifts of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, ¹⁶ and so cause them to bear ^[n]punishment for guilt by eating their holy gifts; for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’”

Footnotes:

1. Leviticus 22:3 Lit seed
2. Leviticus 22:4 Lit seed
3. Leviticus 22:6 Lit soul
4. Leviticus 22:6 Lit flesh
5. Leviticus 22:7 Lit bread
6. Leviticus 22:10 Lit stranger
7. Leviticus 22:11 Lit soul
8. Leviticus 22:11 Lit he may
9. Leviticus 22:11 Lit bread
10. Leviticus 22:12 Lit stranger
11. Leviticus 22:12 Lit heave offering
12. Leviticus 22:13 Lit bread
13. Leviticus 22:13 Lit stranger
14. Leviticus 22:16 Or iniquity requiring a guilt offering

Thoughts on the Passage

The first nine verses of this chapter are specifically directed towards those who are from the family of Aaron – the Levitical family of the priesthood throughout the ages. They repeat, for all intents and purposes, the same restrictions that were uttered earlier in the book of Leviticus.

There is a lesson for us in verse 7, however. Notice the unclean person referred to there is only unclean until sunset, and then he is clean. David Guzik has this helpful information for us:

The Jews start their days at sundown, not sunrise or midnight. With this description God indicates that one can start the new day clean and pure to the Lord. No matter how we might have failed the day before, we can begin each new day pure and close to the Lord. His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23).  In application, we can stop beating our self up for yesterday’s sin. We should confess it, repent of it, and then get on with the business of walking with Lord today. 

In verse ten, the focus shifts to how the priests interact with the layperson. The priests are forgiven to give the holy food offered to God to a layperson, a sojourner, or a hired hand.

Verse 11 make an exception for the slave that the priest has bought with his own money. The exception also applies, I would assume from this verse, to all slaves born in the priest’s house, or maybe even to those born to sojourners who are in the priest’s house.

In his commentary, Guzik correctly points to the difference between a purchased servant and a hired hand. As Christians we have been bought with the blood of Jesus and belong to His family. We are not hired hands to accomplish some divine mission although we are called to work with God in His mission for mankind. What a privilege.

Verse 13 indicates that once a priest’s daughter marries a layman, she cannot participate of this food from the offerings. The daughter of a priest who becomes a widow or is divorced and has no child and returns to the priest’s house ‘in her youth’ – she is able to partake of the food of offering. And then God repeats, “no layman shall eat of it.” Robert Jamieson says it is important to note that if such a widow or divorcee . . .

had become a mother, as her children had no right to the privileges of the priesthood, she was under a necessity of finding support for them elsewhere than under her father’s roof.

Verse 14 covers food eaten by error. If someone does that, he must increase the amount eaten by 20% and give it to the priest.

Matthew Henry sees this whole passage as a reminder to our own pastors and other clergy that they are not to just allow everyone to partake in certain sacraments (communion comes to mind) without making sure they have been adopted into the family of God by accepting Christ as their Savior. I often observe communion services where the leader does not remind those in audience of what the qualifications (being born again) are for partaking in holy communion.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

God’s Employment Standards Act: Part 1 -- Exodus 21:1-4

“Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them.  If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.  If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.  If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.”
 

The Ten Commandments have been shared with the people and now God continues with some other ordinances that Moses is to pass on to the Children of Israel.  Generally speaking an ordinance is a type of law, but in today’s application of the word, it usually refers to laws passed or enacted by municipal bodies as compared to national ones.  In God’s economy, Chuck Smith suggests that these ordinances are really “judgments for the appointed judges” to use in adjudicating matters that arise among the Israelites.  David Guzik says these are the laws “that establish precedent for the legal system of Israel”.  Matthew Henry suggested that these laws in Exodus chapter 21 relate to, and expound on, the fifth and sixth commandments.  He states they “are of great use for the explanation of the moral law, and the rules of natural justice.”

The first area covered is the legal relationships between slaves and masters.  In those days most of the labor that took place was indeed performed by slaves.  Today, that kind of exchange of work for some form of compensation (be it housing or food) has evolved to the modern relationship of employee and employer (work for pay and other benefits).  Nevertheless, it is important for us to note some of the principles that God had established in how work was to be undertaken.

To begin with, we should note that God, to our knowledge, did not establish the master-slave arrangement.  [Any more than He established polygamy.]  This arrangement was a man-conceived means of getting work done.  There may even have been some good intentions involved such as providing shelter and food and care for individuals in exchange for the work they did.  But as in most things that man construes to do on his own without taking God into consideration, his natural instincts of greed and taking advantage of others, especially those that are weaker, eventually come to the surface and bring about undesirable characteristics of the practice.  This was the case for much of the slavery that was in place, over time.  So much so, that it became unbearable for true followers of Christ to condone it in any way and it eventually was outlawed in the Western world.  But for our purposes, back in the days of Moses, God had to place some parameters around the conditions under which slaves were used and treated.

Two things we need to remember.  First, all Israelites were born as free men and women.  Second, as David Guzik points out, God brought these particular Israelites “out of slavery” – something they were to forget.  And so with that background, it is interesting to note that the very first area that ordinances dealt with was that of slavery.

It is also important to note how people became slaves in the Israelite society at the time.  Guzik suggests there were four basic ways a Hebrew might become a slave to another Hebrew as taken from later Scripture:

1.     In extreme poverty, they might sell their liberty (Leviticus 25:39).

2.     A father might sell his children into servitude (Exodus 21:7).

3.     In the case of bankruptcy, a man might become servant to his creditors (2 Kings 4:1).

4.     If a thief (or other criminal) had nothing with which to pay proper restitution (Exodus 22:3-4).

The first thing we note is that God never intended for any slave to be the property of any master forever.  A bought slave was only bought to work for six years and then the slave would be released as a free person and no payment would exchange hands.  Each of the above-mentioned four ways a person could become a slave would be subject to this principle.  No one owns another person for life.  We are God’s creations and only He can redeem us forever.  It is also of interest to note that God chose six as the number of years for which a slave was to serve.  This is in keeping with the pattern of His instruction to us to work six days and then rest.

And at the end of the six years, when the slave is let go, he only goes with what and with whom he came.  There is much to consider or ask ourselves here.  First, were female slaves ever bought on their own, or perhaps with their husband?  (We will see later that the answer to this question is yes, certainly for single female slaves.)  Second, if a young man was bought as single unmarried person, and then married during his six years of slavery, what are the implications for that marriage after that?  (That question is indeed answered below.)  And third, what happens to the children if they were born prior to a married person becoming a slave, or after he married during his term of service?  (This question too is left unanswered to this point in the Scriptures.)

The third part of this short passage does shed some more light on what happens when a slave marries during his six-year term of service as a slave.  If a slave marries during his term, and has children, then both the wife and children do not become free with him at the end of his term of service, for the wife and the children “belong to the master”.  What is not clear here is whether a slave can marry during his term via any other means other than “if his master gives him a wife”?  Can he find his own wife, as unlikely as that may be?  And if so, can that wife and any children that follow leave with him at the end of the six months?  We do not know but would suggest the answer is no.  It does seem rather a harsh ordinance to say that the wife and children that were joined to the man during his term of slavery could not leave with him.  On the other hand, if we follow this principle, we may have an answer to our question about what happens to the children born to a slave during his term of service but who had a wife when he became a slave?  Would they not belong “to him”?  Or because they were born “in the service of his master” would the children still belong to the master at the time of separation?  These are difficult questions for which there is no answer to this point in the Scriptures.

It is clear here that the slave had no rights at all to possess anything or to acquire anything while he was a slave – perhaps even his own children from a wife he brought to his term of slavery.  So, is there a way out to save one’s new wife and/or children?  The answer is yes and we will address it next.

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A Surprising Result of the Egyptian Affliction Exodus 1:12-14

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.  And the Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.

The text says that the harder the Egyptian slave masters worked the Hebrews, the more they multiplied in numbers and caused the Egyptians to fear them.  Now, as far as I understand human biology there is no direct connection between working someone harder and their ability to reproduce.  I suppose that if one is young and hardy as a result of hard work, it may be said that he or she is more likely to reproduce infants that are more strong and hardy and thus can survive birth better, with the result being that the population grows faster.  But short of that, this was clearly a “God-thing”.  It reminds me of how the Church of Jesus Christ today has been growing much stronger and bigger under adverse circumstances in countries were it is disallowed – China being the foremost example that comes to mind.  God has a way of using difficult times for us as individuals and as pockets of the Church for our own good and for His glory.  And today the Church, while it is not dreaded from the standpoint of physical fear, it is feared as an enemy of the state’s ideological goals.

Now, here’s the funny thing.  The Egyptians didn’t change their ways when they saw this extra growth spurt among the children of God.  They kept on addressing their fear in the same manner – by piling on even more work on the Hebrews.  Today we all know that we can’t solve a problem or a concern by doing the same thing day after day, especially if that is the very thing that may well have been the cause of the problem.  The Egyptians had not yet advanced to that level of business management acumen.  But even today some of the world’s strongest regimes seem to be guilty of the same old habit.  Their only approach to fighting believers in Christ is to murder them, burn their churches, and ridicule them.  And the Church keeps on growing worldwide.

The text informs us that the Hebrews were being worked like slaves in both the Egyptian construction, as well as their agricultural, industries.  In short, they supplied the laborers and the farmhands.  Today these two categories of employment, as honorable as they may be before God and those that appreciate the end results of their efforts, are still deemed as menial work by many, primarily because of how physically difficult and mentally undemanding they are.  In Canada, for example, the majority of laborers are immigrants from other lands or those that have not progressed in school beyond the minimal requirement.  When it comes to farmhands, Canada like other countries tends to call on migrant workers from other nations (mostly Mexico in our case) to come and work seasonally for low wages in order to grow and harvest the crops.  Things have not changed that much in the thousands of years that have passed since the time of our text.

Here are the questions for you and I today.  First, how much adversity are we prepared to suffer in this life?  Second, when adversity comes will we collapse or will we see it as part of God’s will for our lives and His Kingdom?  Given what is going on in the world today – the attack on the Church by the State and liberalism; the progress of Islam (which ultimately believes it has the duty to eliminate both Jews and Christians as infidels from the world in its service to Allah); and the progress of secularism – these indeed are very serious and meaningful questions we need to give some heed to now.

And let us not for a moment think by being ‘godly’ we can avert suffering.  On the contrary, the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians clearly tells us, in his first letter to them, that suffering is central to being godly.  It’s well worth the read.  I believe we need to accept that fact and when adversity comes we need to be able to apply Philippians 4:6,7: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Each of us would do well to start practicing that advice now rather than waiting until real adversity is upon us.

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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5 Million Prison slaves - Chances are they've made some things you used or wore today.

The source of this story is Al Jazeera -- not necessarily American friendly. So consider that. But don't ignore the facts. America and Europe are turning blind eyes and deaf ears to the fact that much of imports from China, while sold through a 'front' company, are indeed manufactured under forced labor in over 1,000 prisons in China. It's all part of their dirty little secret (well, not so little). You'll find this fascinate and while I believe legitimate prisoners who are serving a sentence should work -- I do not for a moment believe that the majority of these prisoners are legit -- they're Christians and opponents to the Chinese regime. And their forced labor includes working days in extreme heat and cold that last from 7 a.m. to 12 midnight.

Americans say nothing because they are indebted financially and business-wise to China. But wrong is wrong.

What can you and I do? Take a look at what you picked up in the store. If it says, "made in China" -- no matter who it's made by or for -- put it back. Pay the extra amount it costs to get something made at home. We'll all win.

Here are the dirty little details. Well worth watching.

Prison slaves - Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - Al Jazeera English

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Joseph's Twenty Percent Solution - Genesis 47:22-26

Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them.  Therefore, they did not sell their land.  Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land.  And at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones.”  So they said, “You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.”  And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priest did not become Pharaoh’s.

It appears that the heathen priests were exempt based on a previous arrangement with Pharaoh.  They had been endowed land on which to have temples for public worship.  Since they could not grow food on their land because of its use, Pharaoh provided the priests with food directly on an annual or other basis.  Thus, now at the time of the famine, it would have been inappropriate for Joseph to withhold that allowance from them and/or to charge them the tax he was about to charge all the rest.

And charge he did, requiring all Egyptians to pay one-fifth or 20% of their annual harvest back to Pharaoh who let them stay on the land and gave them the original seed to sow.  Of course, knowing the amount of taxes some of us pay now in North America especially, twenty percent sounds like a fair deal.  But then again who knows what kind of government-provided services they were getting.  I venture to say it was very few, if any, in those days.

Clearly, Joseph tells them they and their lands have been bought.  And to help them survive on the Pharaoh’s lands he is now allowing them to occupy, he gives them seed to sow in order to produce grain for food.  This way they and their little ones could live and survival was indeed the one thing these people needed now.

And how did the people respond?  They were ecstatic, seeing Joseph as a lifesaver.  They sought for continued favor in Joseph and the Pharaoh’s eyes and in turn they would willingly be their slaves.  When you and your family are about to die from starvation or any other form of extreme condition, losing all, becoming a slave, and paying back one-fifth of your harvest looks like a great deal.    

The last sentence of the text does present some difficulties.  It appears to be saying that Joseph had the tax rule made into a law that all Egyptians would give the Pharaoh 20% of all their gains.  We read that this statute was “valid to this day”.  The reference here is to the day of the author, which we believe to be Moses many years after the events in Genesis took place.  This law was in effect more than three centuries later when Moses was born and on into his adulthood.  Even in 2011, before any new tax reforms would eventually come into play as a result of the recent Arab Spring revolution and takeover, income taxes in Egypt ranged from 0% to 20%, while corporations paid on average about 43.6%.  Some individuals seem to still be getting the deal Joseph had worked out thousands of years ago.

What is difficult to ascertain from this section is whether or not Joseph believed he was acting fairly and kindly, or whether he had succumbed to suppressing the people by taking their land and their freedom, and then taxing them in addition – for his own satisfaction or the greed of his boss.  A modern day equivalent of this may be a situation where someone with money and means goes into a third-world or developing country and offers work to the natives of the land.  Clearly he or she does not need to pay as much as he/she would have had to pay back in North America or Europe and that’s why they have moved their business to Africa, or South America, for example.  But how much should they pay and how should the new workers be treated?  I have seen terrible exploitation in Africa time and time again.  I have also seen good people loving their African employees and treating them as part of the family.

I can only hope that were God’s people are involved, the laborers are treated with dignity and fairness, as well as with the care and concern that God would have us show all mankind.

Whatever you think of this section of service, one thing we do know is that through it God made it possible for His people to survive.  And that’s how it is with God.

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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Pharaoh Gets All The Land and Its Owners As His Slaves - Genesis 47:20-21

So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every Egyptian sold his field, because the famine was severe upon them.  Thus the land became Pharaoh’s.  And as for the people, he removed them to the cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.  Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment which Pharaoh gave them.  Therefore, they did not sell their land.  Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land.  And at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own for seed of the field and for your food and for those of your households and as food for your little ones.”  So they said, “You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.”  And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt valid to this day that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priest did not become Pharaoh’s.

It was either starve to death with your family or sell your land to Pharaoh for seed so you grow grain on it and survive.

Once Joseph bought all the land for his boss, the scriptures say “he removed them to the cities” over the entire country.  Most commentators I have read stay clear of this phrase, and I do not blame them.  There seems to be little reason for the statement.  And what does it really mean?  One possibility is that indeed since their land was ‘sold’ to the Pharaoh and since they had sold themselves as slaves, Joseph could well have assigned them across the land in accordance with their skills and abilities and Egypt’s needs.  To say the least, many Egyptians (and others that lived in the land at the time) were displaced from their former homes to live elsewhere as it suited Joseph and the Pharaoh.  And clearly there was still a lot of agricultural land around the various cities that were being built up in Egypt at that time.

I am, however, amazed how the plight of those who lived in Egypt during the great famine we read about in Genesis parallels considerably with what happens to modern man/woman as he/she battles his/her own ‘enemy’ – be it evidenced in material, physical, physiological, psychological, emotional, or spiritual aspects of our lives.  There is a process that we go through.  It starts with our pre-occupation of what we must have.  Then there is spending of all our money on the ‘enemy’ followed by the enemy taking all our possessions including our land.  To stay alive we finally sell ourselves to him.  And then we’re the enemy’s to do with, as he likes.  We’re his to be moved around at will.

Many who read this story simply see Joseph, the Israelite, being successful and using his God-given talents to save Egypt.  And he did.  But let us not miss out on what was happening to the people that he helped save from starvation.  Their independence, their confidence, their honor, their hopes and aspirations, any respect they had in the community, and so much more, were all lost as they and their families were reduced to slaves in the land.  The only thing they had going for them was that chances are, they could live another day with the grain they now could grow.  But do so for what? Just simply to work another day for Pharaoh.

Contrast that and the saga of many a slave to sin today with a life of joy and freedom in serving God and being blessed by His protection and guidance and provision.  While the Egyptians had no choice at this time, some of us still do.  We can succumb to the enemy that is hunting us down and tormenting our souls, or we can surrender willingly to the King who loves us in ways we will never fully understand, but yet can experience and feel the warmth and care of His passion for us.

What choice have you made?  What choice do you need to make today?  The choice is clearly ours.  I pray we make the right one. 

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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Joseph Collects All The Money Within Egypt and Canaan - Genesis 47:13-14

Now there was no food in the land, because the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine.  And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.

The great famine continued, but at least the family through which God would deliver His Covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was now relocated in the land of Rameses in Egypt, close to Joseph and to all the stored grain.  It is interesting to note that the famine itself could not be avoided – it was where they were before in the land of Canaan and it was also where they are now in the land of Egypt.

Sometimes it seems we change our surroundings to escape our problems, but somehow they never go away, they’re still there.  I am sure you have experienced that.  But here’s the bottom line – it is better to face our problems from the spot that God wants us to be and where He has moved us to, then to face them from where we wanted to remain.  Your God, Who tells you to go, also goes with you.  And that makes all the difference.

So bad was the famine, that all the money that both Canaanites and Egyptians had, had been gathered by Joseph in exchange for grain he had been giving them during its early years.  And the text says that Joseph took all the money to Pharaoh’s house.

As I read these verses today I am also conscious of the fact we are only two-weeks into this fast-spreading and now worldwide protest phenomenon known as ‘Occupy Wall Street’.  The 99% of the world’s poor is out to reclaim the riches of the world from the 1% who are at the top of the wealth ladder.  This in turn allowed me to realize how the scriptures are indeed writings for all times and that our understanding, or at least our perception of what we read and how it is to be applied to us, varies based on what is going on in our times and what we personally have experienced.  Looking at these verses which simply relate facts of what happened thousands of years ago, would ignite different feelings in a Black American slave before the American Civil War, in an Arab Spring rebel fighting in Egypt to overthrow the country’s dictatorship, in a Occupy Wall Street protester, and in me.  But that is the beauty of God’s “love letter” to us.  We can all relate to it and we can all learn from it throughout the ages.

I can understand how frustrated the ordinary man, woman, and child must have felt when they realized that they had no more money and the famine’s end seemed to be nowhere in sight.  That seems to be the plight of the common man/woman today around the globe as he/she watches the economy tank and as no efforts of the world’s leaders appear to be able to address it or stop the free-fall.  People’s resources are dwindling, there’s a fear of losing one’s job, and even registered retirement plans are subject to being attacked by the government in an effort to raise more revenues and thus being eroded in value.  What happens next?  What more can we give?  In Greece alone where the population has been faced with continuous deductions in what they thought were assured earnings, along with greatly increased taxes, the suicide rate has risen by 40%.

Back in Egypt, the people had no more money.  So, what else could they be asked to surrender to Pharaoh in exchange for their needed bread, simply to survive?  Have you ever felt as if you were in the same spot?  Are you there now?  What more can you surrender to survive?

Those of us who truly know God, not just for what He can provide for us, but for Who He is, realize He has not changed, and only the circumstances of life have changed.  Our God is still the great I AM.  And He will see us through this next stage of world history.   Just as we’ll see in our study of the text that lies ahead He was about to do for the Israelites whom He had led to Egypt as part of His eternal plan.   Will you trust Him, and Him alone, for just that?  I hope so.

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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