Deuteronomy 13: Shun idolatry. An interesting comment. 13:1 If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ 3you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.” False prophets cannot do the same miraculous signs as true prophets. They might in some way do their “magic tricks” to make it look like a miracle, such as Pharoah’s magicians did with their staffs “becoming snakes” like Moses’ staff did, but they can’t do real miracles. If they could, how would we know who the true prophet was? Philip met a magician in Samaria in Acts 8:9Now there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great; 10and they all, from smallest to greatest, were giving attention to him, saying, “This man is what is called the Great Power of God.” 11And they were giving him attention because he had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts.” But when Simon saw Philip doing real miracles from God, he tried to buy that power. The difference in his magic and the miracles of Philip was obvious to the people and to Simon. But Deuteronomy 13:1-3 concedes that the “signs” done by a false prophet might “come true” and look to everyone like a true miracle, as in the case of Simon. But it says in spite of that you should not listen to him if he tells you to follow other gods. What would be an example of that today? Maybe some “faith healer” who is really a “fake healer”. He claims to heal people but is not doing real miraculous healing like Jesus and the apostles did. He then claims to be a spokesman from God and people follow him. It might look his his healings are really miracles, but evidence shows that he is not really doing Bible miraculous healing. Usually his message is a “health and wealth gospel” and focuses on getting people to give money to his ministry. Look how many people follow such fake healers. Look at how many millions of dollars such preachers are worth. That alone should tell you not to follow such preachers.
Deuteronomy 13 adds: 6“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, 7of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), 8you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him.” Instead, you were to stone that person to death. Life Lesson: The influence that our family and friends can have on us. Don’t allow even your closest family or wife you cherish or close friends persuade you to disobey God. I teach tennagers and see the power of peer pressure all the time. Kids get in their “friend group” and do sinful things like drinking or drugs that they know they should not do. Adult Christians let their friends or business associates or social groups drag them into sins that they know are wrong. They end up in drinking parties and adulterous affairs. We should mix with sinners to show love and try to convert them, but be careful that your friends don’t get you to join them in sinning.
Deuteronomy 14 gives the same laws for clean/unclean meats as in Leviticus 11.
Deuteronomy 15 is interesting. 15:1 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a remission of debts. 2This is the manner of remission: every creditor shall release what he has loaned to his neighbor.” Capitalism is better than communism, but it can breed greed. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But under the Law of Moses, 4However, there will be no poor among you.” The goal of God under the Law was to eliminate generational poverty. You might have tough times and need to borrow money. I’m sure God would expect you to pay off your debt the best you could before the 7th year, the Sabbatic year, arrived. But what if you could not finish paying off your loan? The lender was required to forgive whatever you still owed by the 7th year. The rule stopped poor people from being trapped in endless debt. As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, ” You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store People were warned not to refuse loans just because the seventh year was near (Deuteronomy 15:7-11). You can easily see why they might be tempted to do that! Lenders could lose large sums of money with no legal way to collect it back. This system might stop generational poverty, but was it fair to the lender who might lose money he had worked hard for? But remember that the lender was not allowed to charge interest on loans to fellow Jews (he could charge interest on loans to foreigners). So the lender was not loaning money to a fellow Jew to get interest. He was loaning the money to help a fellow Jew who had tough financial times. Sure, an honest Jew would try to pay off his debt before the 7th year and not try to take advantage of the law to get out of paying his debt. But if he couldn’t pay his debt by the time the 7th year arrived, then the lender just wrote off the debt to help his fellow Jew start afresh financially. The lender had extra money he could lend to help a fellow Jew, so the lender shouldn’t worry about losing some money in the sabbatic year as long as the loss was helping a fellow Jew get “back on his feet” and get a “fresh start”. The lender would trust God that God would bless for his generosity and give him even more money to help others with. Deuteronomy 15:18“It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man; so the Lord your God will bless you in whatever you do.”
Around 50 BC a Jewish leader called Hillel created a legal document called a prozbul. The debt was handed over to a court on paper so it did not fall under the cancellation rule. This allowed people to keep borrowing and lending. I guess that’s a practical solution but it wasn’t God’s original plan. God wanted a person forgiven of the debt, not the debt still pending by some legal loophole.
Add to this that in the 50th year, the year of Jubilee, all land returned to the fellow owner as it had been originally granted to each of the 12 tribes in the division of Canaan after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. Each family in each tribe had their own portion of land and it stayed in that family forever. If a person had tough times and needed to “sell” his land, someone might buy the land but really he was just “renting” the land until the year of Jubilee and then he had to give the land back to the original owner. Again, capitalism can breed greed. Rich land owners get richer and richer (and more and more land) and the poor can’t even afford a parcel of ground to build a house on. Communism is not the answer. Taking from the rich to give to the poor by force will only lead to human rights violations, greedy state controlled oppression of dissidents, etc. But following God’s laws for the sabbatic year and the year of Jubilee would truly help eliminate generational poverty. Too bad that we will never implement such laws.
Deuteronomy 15:12-18 gives laws concerning the release of a fellow Jew who was “sold to you” after 6 years of labor. He was also to be released in the year of Jubilee even if the 6 years of labor had not been completed yet. I found research on this to be very helpful. “When the six years ended and the servant was freed, the master was commanded not to send them away empty-handed. The master had to provide them with a generous parting gift of livestock, grain, and wine to ensure they had the capital to restart their independent life and not fall back into poverty. If the fellow Jew slave wanted to remain a slave to a loving fellow Jew Master, he could let his master pierce his ear with an awl and become a permanent slave to his master. I wonder if he made a “pierced ear ring” to go into the hole! He might decide that he will fare better as a slave than as a freed man. Let’s dig deeper into this law.
Halakha, the concept of a Jewish person being “sold” to a fellow Jew refers exclusively to a historical institution known as the Hebrew servant (Eved Ivri). This status is completely distinct from perpetual or chattel slavery, as the Torah strictly prohibits a Jew from being treated or sold as property. Instead, it functioned as a temporary, regulated form of indentured servitude designed either as a welfare safety net or as a system of criminal restitution. 1.Voluntarily Selling Oneself (Mocher Azmo)
If a person fell into extreme, debilitating poverty and had no other way to survive or support their family, they could choose to sell their labor to a fellow Jew.
- The Process: The individual would voluntarily contract their services to an employer in exchange for an upfront payment, which was typically used to clear debts or secure basic sustenance.
- The Constraint: The person was strictly forbidden from selling themselves publicly on a slave auction block. The transaction had to be done privately and respectfully to preserve the individual’s dignity.
2. Sold by the Court for Theft Restitution (Nivkar BeGneivato)
If a person stole property or money and was caught, Jewish law required them to pay back the principal plus a punitive fine (usually double, quadruple, or quintuple the value, depending on the item). If the thief was entirely destitute and unable to make restitution, the Jewish court (Beit Din) had the authority to sell the thief’s labor to raise the restitution funds. [1]
The Constraint: Only a male thief could be sold by the court; women could not. Furthermore, the court could only sell the thief for the value of the base principal of the theft, not for the added fines.
The Process: The court calculated the value of the thief’s labor and assigned him to a master who would pay the court the restitution amount owed to the victim.
Again, God is not promoting chattel slavery with the buying and selling of fellow Jews. Chattel slavery is a system of enslavement where one human being is owned as personal property (chattel) by another, with the legal right to buy, sell, trade, and inherit them like livestock or goods. But did God allow the Jews to do chattel slavery with foreigners? AI: Yes, biblical law in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) permitted the Israelites to purchase and hold foreign slaves as lifelong, inherited property, distinguishing them from the temporary indentured service required of fellow Israelites. Leviticus 25:44–46: This passage explicitly states that Israelites could buy male and female slaves from the surrounding nations or from resident foreigners living among them. These foreign slaves could be kept as permanent property for life and passed down to the owner’s children as an inheritance. This six-year limit of the release in the sabbatic year or year of Jubilee did not apply to foreign chattel.” Is God endorsing and approving chattel slavery? No The laws served as a legal restriction and accommodation within an ancient Near Eastern society where slavery was already universal, aiming to curb absolute abuse rather than institute an ideal moral system. There were even protections against abuse of chattel slaves in the Law. “Although permanent, foreign slaves within ancient Israel were still subject to certain legal protections under biblical law. For instance, if a master struck a slave so severely that it resulted in immediate death, it was punishable, and inflicting permanent physical damage (such as losing an eye or a tooth) required granting the slave their freedom (Exodus 21:26–27). They were also included in Sabbath rest requirements (Deuteronomy 5:14). Involuntary man-stealing or kidnapping for the slave trade was explicitly punishable by death under Israelite law (Exodus 21:16), distinguishing it from later racial chattel slavery like the transatlantic slave trade. Deuteronomy 23:15–16 uniquely commanded that escaped foreign slaves who sought refuge in Israel must not be returned to their masters, providing a protection unknown in neighboring nations. Similar to how Jesus explained the allowance of divorce in the Old Testament, theologians argue these laws accommodated human sinfulness and societal brokenness to limit total harm in a fallen world.” Perhaps chattel slavery of foreigners was a way for God to punish survivors of the ungodly nations that God told Israel to destroy while at the same time blessing Israelites with slave labor that would increase their crops. At the same time it might give the slaves an opportunity to learn about the one true God Yahweh and become converts to Judaism. In later Rabbinic Judaism, legal traditions heavily constrained the retention of non-Jewish slaves. Authorities mandated that non-Jewish slaves be offered conversion to Judaism within 12 months; if they accepted, they were freed as full members of the community, and if they declined, they were to be sold to non-Israelite owners. Many commentators suggest that the Mosaic Law met ancient Israel at their cultural level, introducing radical restrictions and humanitarian bounds on an already existing global institution rather than violently overturning the entire ancient economic infrastructure at once.” God tolerated divorce but he hated divorce (Malachi 2:16). God hated chattel slavery but He tolerated it.
That’s a lot of AI research but it was really helpful to me and accurate IMO. We can’t deny that Yahweh allowed chattel slavery of foreigners, but we can try to understand why God did not just totally abolish some chattel slavery. The New Testament presents the same picture. Neither Jesus or the apostles commanded Christians to release their slaves or said that slaves could demand release from slavery if they become Christians. Instead, slaves were to serve their masters wholeheartedly as if they were serving Jesus himself (Ephesians 6:5-8; Colossians 3:22-24). 1 Peter 2:18, states that servants or slaves should obey their masters not only when they are kind and gentle, but also when they are harsh or unjust. Texts like Colossians 4:1 command masters to treat their slaves “justly and fairly,” reminding them that they also have a Master in heaven. I assume that the slaves in these passages were chattel slaves that the Romans had captured in their conquests of the barbarian tribes. So the New Testament does not approve or condone chattel slavery but neither does it push to abolish it worldwide.
But would the practice of the Christian faith lead to the abolishment of chattel slavery worldwide? I believe so. Paul did not explicitly command or demand that Philemon legally release (manumit) his runaway slave Onesimus, but he strongly urged Philemon to receive him back “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave—as a dearly loved brother”. But then he added, “confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say” (Philemon 1:21), which many interpret as a subtle prompt for release without legally forcing it.” Alexander Campbell was one of the leaders of the restoration movement of the Church of Christ. He was caught up in the early 1800’s debate over slavery. Alexander Campbell freed the slaves he inherited from his father-in-law around 1811, providing them with property, education, and assistance, though he viewed slavery primarily as a political problem rather than a direct moral or religious issue. AI: “As noted by historical overviews of the Churches of Christ, Campbell approached opposition to slavery from a “Jeffersonian” standpoint, viewing it more as a political and social crisis for the nation rather than an explicit individual sin. Fearing that polarization over slavery would fracture the church just as it threatened to divide the country, he argued that opinions on abolition should not become a test of Christian fellowship that splits congregations. Like several contemporaries of his era, he supported federal programs aimed at emancipating and relocating freed slaves to Africa, seeing government intervention as the practical mechanism for removal.” That approach seems loving and sensible to me. Chattel slavery in the US was built on kidnapping people in Africa and needed to be abolished and restitution made by those who profited from it. The Civil War was a horrible war but at least it abolished chattel slavery in the US. William Wilberforce led the parliamentary campaign to abolish the chattel slave trade in the British Empire, culminating in the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 after 17 years of opposition to the act. Worldwide chattel slavery was built on kidnapping in the slave trade and we needed worldwide laws in each country to stop such. Over the years countries pased such laws forbidding chattel slavery. Worldwide legal chattel slavery was officially abolished in 1981, when Mauritania became the last country in the world to legally outlaw the practice. Although every nation has legally banned the practice, An estimated 50 million people live in conditions of modern slavery worldwide( most of it not chattel slavery but having the same negative impact), including 28 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. Forced labor occurs globally, with the highest prevalence of state-imposed forced labor and modern slavery found in countries like North Korea and Eritrea. While legally prohibited in most nations, forced and early/child marriages remain widespread due to poverty, tradition, and weak law enforcement. Human trafficking is not considered chattel slavery, though both are forms of enslavement. While human trafficking is widely classified as a form of modern slavery, it differs fundamentally from chattel slavery in its legal status, ownership structure, and generational permanence.”
Deuteronomy 16: 16“Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. 17Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.” These are the 3 main feasts of the Jews.
Deuteronomy 17 has a prediction that in the distant future Israel will ask for a king to rule over them. That is exactly what happened at the end of the period of the Judges. Samuel was the last judge and his sons were evil. The people demanded that Samuel give them a king “like the other natons”. God was their king and He never wanted a king on earth to rule the nation, but apparently He knew this would happen, even predicting it in Deuteronomy 17. He allowed them to have kings but most of the time that turned out to be a disaster. He gives instructions for having a king here in chapter 17. “He shall not multiply horses for himself, 17He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Solomon was the worst culprit for violating these laws which led to the dividing of the kingdom. 18“Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.” King Saul, King Solomon, all 19 kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, and most of the 19 kings of the southern kingdom of Judah did not fear the Lord and observe the Law and led Israel in evil. Even the few good kings of Judah like Asa, Uzziah, and Hezekiah ended up sadly in pride b/c their hearts were “lifted up above their countrymen”.
Wow, that’s a lot! Hope it has been helpful. I learned a lot from researching these chapters.
