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Lost in Translation
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Last time we wrestled with one of the toughest issues in Deuteronomy: violence. We saw how the invasion of Canaan was portrayed as a purifying flood of justice, but with mercy built in. But there's more troubling stuff in Deuteronomy. Today we're thinking more deeply about slavery and curses.
As we do, let's remember this isn't just an ancient story or a set of abstract ideals — these were real people. If we believe God loves people, that God is merciful and just, then we should be unsettled by anything in the Bible that seems to endorse cruelty or oppression.
We find laws about slavery in the second movement of Deuteronomy. In this movement, Moses takes the laws from Exodus and Leviticus and applies them to a new kind of life in a new land. In the wilderness, Israel was a wandering people dependent on manna and quail from God, but soon they'll settle in Canaan and provide for themselves by farming that land. But what if something goes wrong? What if pests devour their crops, or their flocks are wiped out by disease? A family could lose everything — and if that happens, an Israelite could become an eved, a worker in someone else's household.
The Hebrew word eved is really important. Our English Bibles translate it as "servant" or "slave," but neither of those really captures what's happening here. When we hear "slave," we picture someone forced into labor, kidnapped, sold, treated as property — and that's not what's happening in Deuteronomy. In fact, Exodus 21 has already forbidden Israel from kidnapping people or trading them as possessions.
Instead, being an eved was a temporary and voluntary arrangement — a survival mechanism in a world without bankruptcy or government assistance. If someone was desperate, unable to provide for themselves or their family, they could enter into a contract to work off their debt. In exchange, not only was their debt forgiven, but they received the food, shelter, and protection they needed.
Deuteronomy's laws put strict boundaries in place so this system of support didn't devolve into exploitation:
In an ideal world, no one would go hungry, crops would never fail, flocks would never get sick, and debts wouldn't pile up. But God knows life in Canaan won't be perfect, so he makes sure that when Israelites fall into hardship, they won't be exploited.
This gets more complicated. Deuteronomy 20:10–11 allows Israel to take captives from other nations and put them to work — something like prisoners of war paying off a different kind of debt. Some compare this to prison labor today, where incarcerated people do work that benefits the society they've harmed. That's an oversimplification, but it's the closest parallel I can think of. Unlike Israelite eveds, these foreign eveds weren't automatically freed after six years. That does sound a lot more like slavery.
But even here, Deuteronomy sets limits. In Deuteronomy 23:15–16, runaway eveds — whether Israelite or foreign — could not be returned to their masters. Instead, they were given refuge and freedom. The assumption is that they must have run away because of mistreatment or abuse, and they needed to be cared for. Giving this kind of right to a prisoner, a non-citizen, treating them as a person rather than property, was radical in the ancient world.
No — it allows desperate Israelites to enter a temporary contract to work off debt in exchange for survival. But also yes — Deuteronomy permits taking foreign captives for forced labor, which sounds much closer to what we recognize as slavery today. At the same time, these captives had legal protections unheard of in the ancient Near East.
It's all complicated. Honestly, I don't love this answer, but after years of wrestling and research, I do think this is the uncomfortable truth.
That word is tricky, isn't it? When you hear "curse," what comes to mind — magic spells, punishment for wrongdoing, or maybe something like destiny, being doomed to misfortune with no way out? Is that what's happening in Deuteronomy?
We need to go back to the first blessing in Genesis 1. When God blessed humans, he gave them the ability to multiply, flourish, and live in right relationship with him, with each other, and with a world of abundance. It's a gift — not something earned, just received. But it can also be rejected and forfeited.
That's what happened in Eden. When Adam and Eve chose their own way instead of trusting God, they rejected the gift-giver and forfeited his gift. The result was exile — they left the abundant life of the garden to live in a world of struggle, scarcity, and death. This pattern repeats throughout Genesis: God keeps choosing people — Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph — to live the blessed life and extend it to others. Again and again, humans rejected God's way, forfeited the gift, and wound up in exile: scarcity, conflict, loss.
At the end of Deuteronomy, Israel faces that same choice. They're about to enter the promised land, a place flowing with milk and honey — a new Eden — and God wants to bless them there just as he did in the beginning. But like Adam and Eve, they have a choice.
Moses lays out this choice before he dies. In Deuteronomy 27, he tells the people about two mountains in the land they're about to enter — near Shechem, the town between these two mountains where he met with God at a tree, back in Genesis 12. High places and trees are often where humans meet God and make a choice.
Moses tells the Israelites to divide into two groups: half standing on Mount Gerizim, where the blessings will be proclaimed, and half on Mount Ebal, where curses will be announced. Just like Adam and Eve stood before two trees — one offering life, the other leading to death — Israel is to stand at these two mountains and choose: will they trust God and receive the blessed life, or go their own way into exile?
The blessings in Deuteronomy 27–30 describe the Eden life: fruitful land, security, prosperity, peace. The curses describe life outside of Eden: scarcity instead of abundance, invasion instead of security, conflict instead of harmony, death instead of life.
God isn't punishing people here or destining them to suffer — this is a choice.
Later in the Bible, the prophets and the Apostle Paul will describe God's judgment or wrath not as punishment, but as God handing people over to what they've chosen — letting people have what they want and experience the natural consequences of it. But there's always a way back to the blessed life.
Moses anticipates that Israel will one day reject God's way and be exiled from the land. But in Deuteronomy 30, Moses promises that even after that happens, God will gather his people back, transform their hearts to choose wisely, and they'll experience the blessed Eden life again.
When Jesus arrives, he announces that God's blessing is being extended to everyone — good news for the poor, freedom for captives, healing for the broken. He takes the curse upon himself, exiled outside the city, experiencing the consequences and death of humanity's rebellion on the cross, so that we can receive the Eden life we were made for. He says he came to give life, and life to the fullest.
We can receive this free gift of life, or we can reject God and forfeit it. We all have a choice.
So the curses in Deuteronomy aren't God harming people, punishing them, or destining them to misfortune — they're a warning and an invitation. God's way leads to abundant life; our way does not.
The good news is that even when we don't choose wisely, God never gives up on us — he's always working to bring us back to the fullest life.
Today we've seen the importance of putting aside our modern definitions of words and adopting the definitions the culture in which the Bible was written would have understood. When we did this, we saw how Deuteronomy's slavery laws express God's deep concern for the vulnerable. He commands his people to protect them from exploitation and preserve their dignity — even enemies are to be treated with unprecedented mercy, unheard of in the ancient world.
We also discovered that curses are not arbitrary punishments — they're the natural consequences of human decisions. God loves us, leads us toward life, but in the end the choice is ours: blessing or curse. And the greatest blessing is ours when we choose to trust Jesus.
