“When you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for six years; then in the seventh he is to leave as a free man without paying anything. If he arrives alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrives with a wife, his wife is to leave with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and the man must leave alone.

“But if the slave declares: ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I do not want to leave as a free man,’ his master is to bring him to the judges and then bring him to the door or doorpost. His master must pierce his ear with an awl, and he will serve his master for life.

“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is not to leave as the male slaves do. If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners because he has acted treacherously toward her. Or if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her according to the customary treatment of daughters.” (Exodus 21:2-9)

Just because it’s evil, doesn’t mean God will get rid of it right away. Slavery has been a part of the human condition through all of recorded history. God liked slavery no more than he liked divorce. But he knows the fallen condition of human beings and so he set up in the law regulations for the weak in order to protect them from the strong. In most cultures, slaves were left with no more rights than a farm animal. In the Mosaic legislation, God required his people not to mistreat the slaves, but to treat them well: the need to love others extended to them too. Slavery was ordinarily a temporary status in Israel. As a person went into slavery, so they would leave slavery.

For those whose status changed—for instance in marriage—the slave could chose to make his condition permanent by means of a ceremony. Poking an awl through the slave’s ear to signify permanent slave status was not a punishment. An earring was inserted through the hole. Piercing of ears and noses was not uncommon in ancient Israel and was done for the same reason it happens today: for adornment.
A woman sold into slavery did not become a sex slave. If she was used sexually, then she had certain rights: the same rights as any other wife. If her husband married an additional wife, she retained her standing as his wife. And if she was divorced, then she had the same protections as any other divorced woman: and she could no longer be considered a slave, nor did she have to pay for her freedom. God always protects the powerless.

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