The Golden Rule
Deuteronomy 23:15-16
“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.”
It’s odd to me that Moses provides no further criteria for evaluating whether a slave has escaped his master on the basis of physical abuse—i.e. “You shall not give up to his master a slave whose been mercilessly beaten or whose missing any eye or a limb due to gross malfeasance”—but almost assumes that any runaway slave should be taken at his word immediately. Yet, the more I reflect on the incredible agency God gives to indentured servants who are clearly under duress, the more luminous and effervescent this law becomes in my understanding. To think that of all the rules God could’ve inspired Moses to add to this parchment, He chose this one, to give elaborate protections for even the lowest members of society; well, that’s worth a great deal more than a passing glimpse in a brief devotional!
Friend, lift your eyes with me above the terrain of linguistic and grammatical and historically contextual nuances and behold the golden strands of ethical sunbeams that shine through it. Bask in the warm, luminous rays of divine justice shimmering through verse 16, “You shall not wrong him.” Even without particulars, even without specific clarifying phrases, God expects His people to identify when a slave has been mistreated and to help that slave no matter the cost. In fact—get this—without qualification, God actually gives these abused slaves more rights than their masters! To God, a slave is a treasured possession, not property, and anyone who finds one in such desperate state better step up to help. We could paraphrase Deuteronomy 23:15-16 in this way: “If a runaway slave shows up at your door bloody and injured, mend his wounds; if he’s starving and collapses on your floor, feed him; if he’s shivering from the cold, clothe him in your finest blanket, even if his presence in your home inconveniences you; to do anything less would be to do wrong in the eyes of a God Who does exactly that for us every day.”
A golden rule indeed!