Deuteronomy 23:15-16

The context

Deuteronomy 23 is a collection of miscellaneous rulings about who may enter the assembly and about the cleanliness of the camp. In the middle of that material comes a short law protecting a slave who has fled his master, allowing him to settle where he chooses among the towns of Israel. It is followed by prohibitions on cult prostitution.

What it establishes

The law grants asylum to an escaped slave and forbids his return, which is unusual in the ancient Near East, where treaties commonly required the return of fugitives. It places the protection inside Israel's own law rather than at its margins.

What it does not establish

It does not abolish slavery. The same legal corpus regulates slaveholding elsewhere, and this ruling improves the fugitive's position without dismantling the institution. Nor does it specify how the asylum worked in practice, whether it applied to foreign slaves only, or how it was enforced against a determined owner.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• The Bible sanctions slavery, so a Christian who owns no slaves is out of integrity with his never-changing God.
• So you believe in a book full of contradictions, one that endorses slavery, incest, murder, drowning babies, genocide and stoning homosexuals?

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.