Bricks Without Straws

In the biblical East sun-dried mud bricks were always the cheapest and commonest building material, but were not specially durable. Mud brick construction is well known from ancient times though stones were plentiful and well used in buildin

Some slaves were willing to take the risk of trying to escape completely from their owners. They would then have to try to pass as a free man. If they were caught, the local magistrate would imprison the runaway slave or subjected too hard labor in the mines, awaiting return of his owner. A slave could make arrangement with his owner about how he could earn his or her freedom. The slave had to have complete trust in his owner on this matter. The owner could change his mind on the slave’s freedom at anytime. The choices were very limited in the ancient world. If they were under a fair owner, they could live a good life as a slave. Yet on the other hand if they were under an owner like the Egyptian Pharaoh in Exodus, they may be in for a rued awakening. A papyrus in The Brooklyn Museum has texts of the Middle Kingdom among others, a list of seventy-six people, mostly men, who were in trouble for having deserted. Not only were they liable for stiff penalties in consequence but, in the case of failure to surrender, hostages were taken from their families. A number of laws concerning desertion by conscripted and other field-workers are mentioned: The law concerning deserters; The law concerning deliberate desertion for six months; The law concerning deliberate desertion from work; The law concerning the man who runs away without doing his duties. There were no specified distinctions between the various crimes covered in these documents, but that it seemed if the desertion were planed and deliberate the punishment would have been much worse (James 1984). A slave could have a good life at one end of the spectrum, yet at the other end as in this passage in Exodus. They treated the slaves as an object that they could throw out at anytime with no concern for the value of the slave’s life.

There were many ways to become a slave in the time of the Pharaohs. The first was by capture. Captives, especially prisoners of war, were commonly reduced to slavery a custom that goes back as far as written documents themselves, to roughly 3000 BC. Second, by purchase, slaves could readily be bought from other owners or general merchants. In antiquity, slaves were sold among all kinds of other merchandise and from country to country. Thus, the Midianites and Ishmaelites sold Joseph to an Egyptian high official (Gen 37:36; 39:1), and Phoenician Tyre imported slaves and bronzeware from Asia Minor (Ezek 27:13). The third way was by birth. Children ‘born in the house’ of slave parents became ‘house born slaves’. Then four as restitution. If a convicted thief could not make restitution and pay his fines and damages, funds toward this could be raised by selling him as a slave. Fifth, by default on debts. Debtors who went bankrupt were often forced to sell their children as slaves, or their children would be confiscated as slaves by the creditor (2 Kgs 4:1; Num 5:5, 8). The insolvent debtor himself, as well as his wife and family, commonly became the slave of his creditor and gave him his labour for three years to work off the debt and then go free. Then last self sale. Sel

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