If any of your people, Hebrew men or women, sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free. And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed. Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.
But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your female servant.” Deuteronomy 15:12-18 (NIV)
If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
But if the servant declares, “I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,” then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.” Exodus 21:2-6
Uncle Don was a sailor. I mean a real sailor. At 16 he ran away from his home , lied about his age and joined the Canadian Merchant Marines. It would be years before Grandma and Grandpa Eby learned what happened to him.
By the time Don showed up again, my mother, then in her teens, and her family had moved to Los Angeles. One day, he just appeared unannounced at their front door and shocked everyone. He was a grown man with tattoos all over his muscular arms and wisps of tobacco and alcohol on his breath. He stayed only a day or two, and then disappeared again. Every seven or eight years or so, like a comet briefly returning close to earth in its elongated orbit, Uncle Don would return, spend a few hours with the family, and then leave.
My youth and Uncle Don’s surprise appearances intersected twice, and they were truly stellar. I had never met anyone quite like my uncle. He was the quintessential sailor: big, strong, brash, a world traveler with stories to tell, scars from who knows what…and those tattoos emblazoned on his arms.
One thing Uncle Don didn’t have, however, was a pierced ear. He would have thought men with pierced ears were sissies. That was back in the day when only sailors had tattoos and only girls had their ears pierced.
Today, of course, both men and women have tattoos and pierce their ears–and everything else on their bodies. Take the checkout clerk at my local Target. Every inch of his face and arms is covered either with a tattoo or a piercing and it’s accompanying dangling, garish jewelry. I try to avoid his lane when I check out. But sometimes I can’t. So I avert my eyes as I load my goods onto the conveyor belt.
Old fogies like me have knee jerk reactions to body-altering artistic expressions. But the Old Testament actually commanded certain men to get their ear pierced. In Old Testament times, a pierced ear was the public expression of a Jewish man who had willingly chosen to become a slave for life out of love. Legally, Jewish slaves were to be released by their Jewish master after six years. But the Bible allowed a Jewish slave to choose to become a permanent slave for two reasons: because he loved his slave owner (Dt. 15:12-18) and/or because he married his wife while in slavery and wished to stay with his wife and any children he may have had with her (Exodus 21:2-6).
Thus, in Israelite culture, a Jewish man with a pierced ear brought a smile to everyone’s face. “Oh, he must really love his master. He has chosen to be his slave for life!” they would say. Or, “He must really love his wife! He has chosen to be a slave to his master for life so he can live with her.” In other words, the Bible recognized that love can turn slavery into true freedom. Apart from love, choosing to become someone’s slave for life is absurd. But genuine love changes everything for the one who experiences it.
I often think of my relationship to Jesus Christ like the slave with the pierced ear and a heart full of love. Unbelievers have no understanding of why someone would voluntarily give up their “freedom” to follow Christ. But to know Christ is to love him. And to love him is to willingly become his “slave” for life.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Discussion Questions
- What are the ways that people today enslave themselves?
- If you are married, you gave up certain freedoms. What were they and why did you do that?
- What does it mean for you to be a slave of Christ?