People & groups
Slave and servant
Words for someone subject to another person, also used to describe service to God or Christ.
Also called · Bondservant · Household servant
What it means
Exodus and Leviticus describe people being sold and held as another person’s property. Reading this as ordinary paid employment can hide the restrictions on their freedom.
Deuteronomy 15 requires the release of a Hebrew man or woman after six years of service, in the seventh year, with generous provisions rather than empty hands. Israel is told to remember its own slavery in Egypt.
Exodus 21 also describes a wife provided by the master and the children she bore remaining with him, and separate rules for a daughter sold as a female servant. Leviticus 25 distinguishes a poor fellow Israelite serving as a hired worker until Jubilee from foreign slaves held as property and passed to the owner’s children. The same release rules did not apply to every enslaved person.
How it appears in the Bible
In Philemon, Paul sends Onesimus back and asks that he be received as more than a slave: a beloved brother. Any wrong or debt is to be charged to Paul. First Corinthians 7 says to use an opportunity to become free. Philippians 2 describes Jesus taking the form of a servant, humbling himself and dying on the cross.
Translation note
The selected English text uses servant, slave, and bondservant in different passages. Check whether a passage describes a social status or a person’s relationship to God or Christ; service language does not make actual enslavement ordinary employment.