This passage was exclusive to the Jews. Why does God provide special instructions for one sect of people, based upon attributes humans cannot even control? Seems God favors some over others.
Again, this law was written exclusively for the Jews alone. All others were not to ever go free.
I thought I'd said somewhere at the beginning that initially I was dealing exclusively with Hebrew slaves, so apologies for the misconception.
What attributes are there that humans cannot control?
Of course God favours some - he made a covenant with the descendants of Abraham for goodness sake. They were a chosen people.
I noticed you skipped passage 7?
“If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do."
Why is that?
I've covered it elsewhere - See Deuteronomy 15:12 where the freedom of female slaves is also guaranteed. However culturally the woman needed to be supported and should not be allowed freedom if that entailed no protection.
Women, whom were still living with their fathers, because they were not yet married, had virtually no rights of their own. Heck, they virtually had no rights either way, (married or single). They might as well have been "slaves" regardless. Consent was issued by a male, whether it be the father, the husband, or other.
I agree - but this was the cultural norm, whether in the Hebrew tribes, or the Canaanites or the other Near Eastern nations. Rights or not, they certainly had better protection (at least in theory) than in other nations.
The above passage states that you may beat your slave(s), as long as they do not die. The passages also reassure the reader that the slave is the master's property.
I prefer the NET, "... for he has suffered the loss", but the principle is the same either way and it is the same principle as that already stated for 'neighbour', i.e. compensation for inability to work. The neighbour gets compensated financially because he is unable to work. The master of the 'slave' gets compensated also because his servant is unable to work, but as he is the one compensating, he is also the one suffering the loss - net effect is no direct financial loss, but there is the loss of a worker unable to work for a few days. See post 487 for an example of how this works.
As stated above, Verse 16 is not speaking about slaves
Verses 12-19 are speaking about other situations. It's not until you get to Verse 20 that the Bible singles out the "slaves".
I guess this is why masters would beat their slaves from the back side. This way, you cannot knock out their eyes or teeth. Furthermore, a blind slave is likely a worthless slave.
It is the same principle at work both times. If you injure someone, you pay for their livelihood, whether it is a neighbour (pay them directly) or a slave (pay with loss income from that slave). And I think you are mistaken about beating on the back side. These laws were administered by Judges who I think had a lot more common sense than the average skeptic!
If you are born into slavery, you are a slave for life (ala Scripture). If you are not an Israelite, you are a slave for life (again in Scripture). If you are a female, you are also slave for life. According to Chapter and Verse, a master is able to purchase slaves from a foreign land, provided they were born into slavery.
Not entirely true. I'll concede the non-Hebrew slave situation for the moment as I haven't got as far as looking into that, but for Hebrews, male and female, nothing is binding and there were ways out (see the reference to Deuteronomy above). There is also provision for slaves to escape cruel masters, though at the moment I'm not sure where I read that - I'm still working my way through Exodus with side trips elsewhere.
I'd imagine it was good business practices to bread your slaves. This way, these offspring are yours for life. You also do not have to buy them. And to boot, this method is Bible approved.
In this instance you are right, but possibly not in the way you think. Having multiple children has always been a survival tactic, less so now because we have dealt with many of the causes of infant and child mortality. In my lifetime we were still measuring infant mortality in the West, though I think that has now more or less ceased.
You are right about not having to buy them, but you do have to look after them, ensure they are fed and protected and when they reached adulthood they had all the rights of all other Hebrew slaves - namely they could just leave at the end of their term without incurring any debt (or leave beforehand by incurring some kind of debt).
Odds are if you were a male and had a good master you would stick around, however (even if not forever). If you were female and couldn't find a suitable husband then having some master to look after you was just as good a prospect.
And theoretically, whoever was your master, they had to look after you for life - even when you could no longer bear children. Not necessarily a good investment, then (which is probably why there are rules for looking after widows and orphans).
it seems to me that this is all a matter of perspective. The mere fact that Hebrews had multiple ways of getting out of their service makes this a totally different prospect to American slavery, where the only option was escape.